tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 24 06:50:23 1999
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Re: Placement of aspect suffixes
peHruS wrote:
>
> In a message dated 2/22/1999 12:58:26 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
> [email protected] writes:
>
> << A trick I often use myself is to ask if the word 'already' is
> appropriate, and if it is, I put the verb in perfective. This
> tends to do away with confusing aspect with tense, since it works
> in any time frame: "I had already done..., I already did...,
> I will have already done..."
> >>
>
> YOU may use this trick, but what basis do we have in the Klingon language that
> this is the right trick to be using?
>
nuqjatlh? bIyajHa'ba'. I'm not making any claims about the Klingon
language,
Okrand's already told us Klingon has aspect, not tense. I don't need to
prove
that. This is just something I find useful to help me distinguish
between aspect
and tense. To elaborate: Any "utterance event" has its own timeframe.
We
indicate the timeframe in English by the tense of the verbs. We
indicate it
in Klingon by "adverbial" timestamps. When I am translating, I put
myself
in the general time of the utterances. Then for any given verb, I ask
myself if the action is one-time, on-going or completed _within the
context
of the general timeframe_. To check if it is completed, I ask myself if
"already" would be appropriate in the English. If it is, then the verb
is
probably completed. We indicate this in Klingon by <-ta'/-pu'>, so I
add
that suffix to the verb under consideration. Works for me.
For example: In English "When you arrive tomorrow, I will have killed
the
prisoner (already)." The general timeframe is future ("tomorrow").
"Already"
doesn't fit on "when you arrive", but it does on "will have killed".
So,
in Klingon, I indicate the general timeframe with a timestamp
(<wa'leS>),
which I could leave out if the timeframe has already been established,
and put the verb for "kill" in the completed aspect (since I will do it
on purpose, I use <-ta'>): <wa'leS bIpawDI', qama' vIHoHta'>. Clearly,
<-ta'> doesn't indicate tense, since it can be used in any timeframe.
I didn't realize that charghwI' was responding to you, peHruS. I
thought he
was making some general observations for newbies. I also didn't realize
that
you don't accept that the suffixes <-ta'/-pu'> indicate completion, and
not
tense. If you don't accept that, then of course this trick won't work
for
you.
-- ter'eS