tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 04 09:06:02 1999
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Re: Definition of Aspect
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Definition of Aspect
- Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 12:05:15 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
On Wed, 3 Mar 1999 15:03:17 -0800 (PST) [email protected] wrote:
> In a message dated 3/1/1999 11:15:05 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
> [email protected] writes:
>
> << Pretty much the same. Still, so long as you don't consider this
> to be the meaning relating to TENSE, which gives you the time
> setting at which the aspect tells you whether or not the action
> is complete, I see no problem here. You apparently don't
> understand time stamps. >>
> ====================
>
> Nowhere did I imply in any manner that I was talking about tense, referring to
> tense, relating to tense. YOU are reading stuff in that just is not there.
>
> As for time stamps, I posted an example of Mandarin sentences in response to
> your request. These time stamps were absolutely accurate for Chinese. Please
> explain clearly where you are coming from.
>
> peHruS
You showed multiple examples of the use of *wan* in Chinese. You
translated them as simple past tense. You did not translate them
as perfective.
What I was trying to relate was that if a Klingon wants to
express what an English speaker expresses with simple past,
present and future tenses, he does so with a time stamp. It is
more accurate than the English method in that instead of having
a time resolution of three degrees of time:
1. Now
2. Before now
3. After now
Klingon has an infinite ability to specify where in time an
event is described. This is the time stamp. This is what a
Klingon uses to do what English speakers do with tense.
Once the time stamp establishes what English uses tense for,
Klingon uses aspect in much the way English uses aspect. It
describes the state of completion of the action at the time
setting of the time stamp.
In English, we add the perfective to the present to result in
the present perfect. DaH vIleghpu'. Now, I have seen it. It is
not the case that I am now seeing it and I'm in the process of
finishing seeing it. That process is "now" complete. I point
backwards in time to the act's completion.
We add the perfective to the past to get the past perfect or
pluperfect. wa'Hu' vIleghpu'. Yesterday I had seen it. It
doesn't mean that I saw it sometime yesterday and finished
seeing it yesterday. It means that the seeing was complete and
stopped happening before any part of yesterday happened.
We add the perfective to the future to get the future perfect.
wa'leS vIleghpu'. Tomorrow, I will have seen it. That doesn't
mean that I will see it some time tomorrow and will finish
seeing it sometime tomorrow. That means that when tomorrow
happens, during any part of tomorrow, I can point toward the
past and say, "Completion of the action happened before now."
>From other posts, it sounds like you are catching on to this.
charghwI' 'utlh