tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Mar 11 20:13:17 1999
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Re: Aspect
ja' peHruS:
>I still look as {-taH} and {-lI'} as continuous forms of imperfective aspect.
>The difference here is whether there is a goal. Although this does not even
>touch on the other forms of imperfectives available to many languages, I can
>accept that Klingon just does not need to be concerned with them in the
>section entitled Aspect. There is the possibility that {-choH} and {-qa'}
>could cover some of these concepts; of course, Klingon grammarians would not
>consider them Aspect since they are not in section 4.2.7.
Even without being a credentialed grammarian, I see {-choH} and {-qa'}
as quite distinct from the idea of aspect in Klingon grammar. Again,
aspect is a condition of the verb's action. Is the action complete or
not? Is the action ongoing or not? The type 3 suffixes tell us about
a change of state event, not about the completion or continuation of
the action.
>...I will have
>to suspect that ghunchu'wI' has determined what such a construction would mean
>without any basis, just as he must have done in making up the word "adject."
Is it not enough to disagree with my interpretation of Klingon grammar?
Now you're accusing me of making up English grammar as well. I'm sorry
that I can't provide a reference for the term "adject", and I apologize
if I'm mangling beyond recognition a term that you would understand if
I got it right. It's been over a quarter of a century since I last had
any formal English grammar instruction, and my knowledge of the subject
has been demonstrated here on occasion to be somewhat out of date.
What I said in passing was that I've heard phrases like "for my father" or
"because of the wind" referred to as "adjects". I didn't intend for anyone
to go off on a tangent chasing down the term. Whether or not it's a "real"
term in contemporary grammar is irrelevant to the task of coming to a good
understanding of Klingon noun suffixes.
>I have searched linguistics-specific dictionaries, asked professors and deans
>of linguistics schools, and consulted the internet linguistics listserv in
>vain for this word...
I don't believe that focusing on a single off-hand and unauthoritative
reference to a feature of English grammar can help anyone figure out how
to compose easily understood sentences in Klingon. If it helps, I hereby
retract my one-time use of the term "adject", so you can stop pestering
those professors and deans to find out what I meant. I have to wonder,
though, why you didn't just ask *me* what I meant.
And in a later note:
>No wonder you do not wish to address whether "ongoing, continuous" deals with
>"non-stop," "intermittent" or "durative." TKD 4.2.7 does not deal with these
>either.
Once more, I find myself unable to understand why you're changing the
subject so drastically. But just to humor you, I'll address the issue.
TKD 4.2.7 deals with four Klingon verb suffixes. Their meanings are
well described. They indicate completion or continuity of an action,
along with the idea of the action being intentional or goal-oriented.
Perpetual action is not implied. Intermittent action is not implied.
I don't know what you mean when you say "durative", but unless it is
another term for "continuous" or "complete", it's not implied either.
-- ghunchu'wI'