tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 04 18:56:51 1999
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Re: Placement of aspect suffixes
ja' peHruS:
>>1: There is no way perfective and past tense mean the same thing.
>>2: The Mandarin "-wan" is translated as either past tense or perfective.
>>
>>You don't see a contradiction here
>===============
>
>No, I don't see a contradiction here. I see a mis-reading. Your statement #2
>is a mis-quote, outright. What I said is: When Mandarin uses {-wan}
>"finish," it comes across in English as "past tense" and in Slavonic languages
>and dialects as "perfective."
I saw that the first time. I didn't think I was misreading it then, and
except for your telling me I'm misreading it now, I wouldn't think I was
misreading it now.
I'm reading it as follows:
1. Mandarin "-wan" is translated into English as past tense.
2. Mandarin "-wan" is translated into Slavonic languages as perfective.
Ergo, Mandarin "-wan" is translated as either past tense or perfective.
What am I misreading?
>Please carefully read that this does not mean that Mandarin uses {-wan} as
>both past tense and perfective simultaneously. This means that Mandarin uses
>{-wan}; then, an English-speaker looks at the sentences and sees "tense" while
>a speaker of Baltic-Slavonic languages looks at the same sentences and sees
>"perfective."
Mandarin "-wan" appears as tense when it's interpreted into English, and it
appears as perfective when interpreted into Baltic-Slavonic languages. That
still sounds like it can be translated as either past tense or perfective.
I can't see any other way to read it.
[Based on another message I read from you today, I don't think that Mandarin
"-wan" means *either* past tense or perfective aspect. I think it acts more
like a change of state event than it acts like an aspect.]
-- ghunchu'wI'