tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 11 05:57:14 1999

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

{-pu'} with {-taHvIS} (was Re: muD Dotlh)

>...'ach loQ jIrIQ. Du'wIjDaq jIvumtaHvS muchoppu' vIghro'.I

I can ignore the misplaced {I} as a failure in the mechanics of 
writing.  But the {-pu'} on {muchoppu'} is a problem with grammar.  
It immediately makes me think that during the time you worked, you had
already been bitten.  I'm answering your question for two reasons: 
Your note was written in otherwise good Klingon, and you *did* notice 
the problem.

By the way, I infer from your choice of words that you were doing some
kind of task not necessarily related to farming, and you just happened
to be doing it on your farm.  There's a verb {wIj} "farm" that would 
have been more appropriate for actually "working" a farm.

>P.S.  Is {-pu'} after "while, during" contrary to "perfective" in Klingon?  It
>does show completion but it violates the time frame's necessity to be intact.

I do think there's a conflict for the kind of concept you seem to want
to express.  You're apparently going for a present perfect meaning 
attached to a past progressive time context, but it's not very easy 
for a reader to switch time contexts within a sentence.  You've 
already established with {jIvumtaHvIS} that you're talking about a 
period of time during which you worked, so it's perfectly appropriate 
to say that the cat bit you using a plain non-perfective aspect.  In 
the context of your explanation of how you are injured, it would be
understood as a simple past tense action.  (A reference you gave
recently mentioned past tense as being very similar to the present
perfect meaning that it looks like you want to get across.)

If you're irrevocably attached to the word {muchoppu'}, you can break 
the idea into two sentences and avoid a lot of the difficulty:

muchoppu' vIghro'.  jIvumtaHvIS qaS.

Instead of a bland qaS, you could repeat {chop}, or come up with 
something more colorful like {murIQmoH}, {mureghmoH}, {'uSwIj HIv},
{DIrwIj luDuQ Ho'Du'Daj}, etc.  The point is that the second sentence 
does *not* have a perfective idea in it, because it's indicating that 
the action actually takes place during the time in question.

-- ghunchu'wI'

Back to archive top level