tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 04 16:05:02 1999
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Placement of aspect suffixes
ja' peHruS:
>Just as you all did, I saw the similarity between the future perfect and a
>perfective added to a future time stamp; I saw the similarity between the
>present perfect and the perfective added to a present time stamp.
So far, so good.
>I add that
>I see a similarity between a simple past tense and a past time stamp plus the
>perfective,...
Why do you see that instead of a similarity between the past perfect and a
perfective added to a past time stamp? What do you see here that breaks the
symmetry?
>...especially since MO has used so many examples just this way in his
>sample sentences in TKD.
Hold on a minute -- where in TKD is there any example of perfective with
a past tense context or explicit time stamp? I recently looked through
it for occurrences of {-ta'} and {-pu'}, and didn't notice any of what you
call "so many examples".
The examples of perfective translated as simple past tense *are* many, but
they all make sense given a lack of time context and assuming a "now" idea
with it. English is slippery between "I did this" and "I have done this",
and a translation can reflect that, but the explicit definitions of aspect
suffixes don't let you get away with it unless there is context that tells
us that you're talking about something that *is* completed as opposed to
*was* completed.
>...On the other side of the coin, "change of status" is treated as
>aspect in Mandarin, not necessarily so in Kiswahili or Atayal.
Whoa again -- this seems to say that Mandarin "aspect" is not a state
the way Klingon aspect is, but is really an "action". For the "change
of status" idea, Klingon uses type *3* verb suffixes, not type 7 ones.
Aspect is a condition. It is not an event.
>...But, we will
>find some excellent devices by combining {-choH} and {-qa'} and type 7s.
Certainly -- as long as you don't try to call these devices "aspect".
-- ghunchu'wI'