tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 13 12:01:39 1999
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Re: Aspect
On Fri, 13 Aug 1999 12:18:33 -0500 Alan Anderson
<[email protected]> wrote:
> ja' charghwI':
> >When Okrand provided canon explaining to us that, for example,
> >to give my age, I'd say: {loSmaH loS ben jIboghpu'} several
> >people got upset because of the use of the perfective. They
> >wanted to argue about it.
>
> "Upset" and "wanted to argue" are a bit stronger than I'd put it.
> I myself was "uncomfortable" and "had some issues with it." :-)
Hey, for a Klingon, I was already being euphamistic. Okay. I'll
try to make an appropriate adjustment to the "wittering, vague
and indecisive" variable of my Universal Translator.
[sound of someone blowing into a microphone repeatedly] "Is this
thing on?]
Very well. There were certain unnamed individuals who for
reasons that are certainly reasonable found themselves
uncomfortable with the concept that a Klingon might wish to
accurately depict a birth on a birthday as being a set number of
years ago without the perfective stated because, while it would
be more accurate, it would be inconsistent with the custom of
using the perfective in this fossilized grammatical
construction. This discomfort lead said but unnamed individuals
to believe themselves to have issues with this matter. The
discomfort and the issues being had combined to apply sufficient
spiritual and emotional pressure to bring them to remark
politely that they were not able to consent to any larger
consensus over this remarkably controversial idea.
march t'il?
> >To calm them, I proposed that this works because, in the
> >interest of accuracy, if you go back 44 years before today, I
> >will at that point in time already be born, therefore the
> >perfective is appropriate.
>
> I had immediately come up with the same rationalization, but I
> still don't like it a whole lot. It's a style thing, I guess,
> more than any solid grammatical requirement.
Well, for both of us and anyone else, it is a guess. In all
canon examples, the birthday was not an issue, so it has never
been settled. At least we can feel certain 364 days out of a
typical teran year.
> -- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh
charghwI' 'utlh