tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 24 23:36:15 1999
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Re: Aspect (was RE: KLBC-Fr.)
ja' peHruS:
>An action that is not completed is imperfective, no??????
I don't know what "imperfective" is in the context of the Klingon language.
I would merely say that an action that is not completed is not perfective.
Bringing in an extra-TKD term seems likely to cause more confusion than it
can clear up.
>It need not be continuous to be imperfective, only not perfected.
I also don't know what you mean when you use the word "perfected". If you
mean something other than "completed", please explain it.
>This is the trouble. HovqIj (with pagh's support) are arguing the other way
>around. They are saying that there was an excellent use of perfective
>following the adverbial {wej} because an anticipated completion was "not yet"
>completed but would be (sometime in the future).
The use of {wej} was, and is, irrelevant to the appropriateness of the use
of {-pu'}. Forget the {wej} completely. The perfective suffix was praised
because it was referring to a completed action. {wej} had nothing to do
with it.
>They were saying that {wej}
>made the perfective aspect of the verb "negative," rather than taking the
>opposing aspect, i.e., imperfective.
NO. Read the relevant notes again. Nobody said anything about {wej}
modifying the meaning of the perfective aspect. {wej} is merely setting
the time context for the sentence.
>I am not saying that perfectivity cannot be realized in the future. It can.
>I am saying that I "feel very strongly" that {not yet} is CONTINUNG through
>the time we are looking at the situation.
{wej} is certainly not a "continuous" aspect marker. It is not an aspect
marker of any sort. It is an adverbial word that indicates that the action
in the sentence did not yet happen, is not yet happening, or has not yet
happened. The aspect of the action is completely unrelated to the "not yet"
character of the action. "Not yet" closely approximates a *tense* marking,
not an *aspect* one.
>The state of a sentence that is
>not yet complete is "still" imperfect, therefore imperfective.
You are quite definitely still trying to understand Klingon grammar by
applying what you know of Chinese grammar. Klingon {wej} does not have
an automatic connection of {-pu'be'}. It is not like Mandarin "mei-you"
and "-ne" at all.
>buy' ngop. DuSaQ'a' HolQeD vIghojqa'. DaHjaj taghpu'.
wejpuH. DumISmoHlaw' neH ben HolQeDHey DaHaDbogh. Qapjaj DuSaQ'a'vam.