tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 24 23:06:04 1999
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Re: KLBC Another simple one.
Please inform requestors of this type of information that aspect suffixes may
apply to sentences with time stamps which indicate future or present verb
action, also. Perhaps you could explain what this means, e.g. completion of
action in the future.
peHruS
Andeen, Eric wrote:
> jatlh Banks bu':
>
> > You have angered me.
> > jIH tuQeH...something. Past tense. How is past tense
> > expressed? I know I've seen it before, but I can't seem
> > to find it now. Was I even close?
>
> The reason you can't find it is that Klingon does not have tense. <jISop>
> can mean "I ate", "I eat", or "I will eat". The context of the sentence
> tells the reader when the action happened.
>
> Klingon does, however, have something called "aspect", which is what the
> type seven suffixes are for. Aspect describes the progress of the action:
> <-taH> means the action is ongoing or continuous; <-lI'> means the action is
> progressing toward a known stopping point, and <-pu'> and <-ta'> mean the
> action is complete, with <-ta'> adding the idea that the action was
> intentionally undertaken, and the completion of the action is an
> accomplished goal.
>
> In practice, English past tense often gets translated with <-pu'> or <-ta'>,
> and vice versa, but they are not the same thing. The more accurate English
> construction is one of the perfect tenses. For example: jISoppu' - "I had
> eaten", "I have eaten", "I will have eaten". I think that <-pu'> is probably
> exactly what you want here.
>
> Also, the verb <QeH> means "be angry". "You be angry me" doesn't make much
> sense. There's no simple Klingon verb meaning "anger", but fortunately the
> <-moH> suffix is just what you need: it turns "be angry" into "cause to be
> angry", or "anger".
>
> jIH tuQeHmoHpu'.
>
> pagh
> Beginners' Grammarian
>
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