Re: Placement of aspect suffixes

[Terry Donnelly <pag000@mail.connect.more.net>]

peHruS wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 2/22/1999 12:58:26 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
> pag000@mail.connect.more.net 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