Re: Imperatives with aspect

[Alan Anderson <aranders@netusa1.net>]

"Patrick Masterson" <es991111471@hotmail.com>
>I was wondering what the meaning of imperative verbs with aspect suffixes
>would mean.

A couple of years ago, I believe during a game of Klingon Scrabble, the
word {yInenta'} came up.  Several of us debated whether it made sense,
and even if it did, whether it was easily translatable into English.
SuStel had a truly wonderful interpretation of it:  "Grow up, already!"

An imperative prefix with a continuous suffix means "Be in the process
of doing something."  One of the very first Klingon words heard was the
command {juntaH}; a {yI-} prefix would be appropriate if it weren't in
a situation that called for Clipped Klingon.

I think an imperative with a perfective suffix means something like
"Act in such a way as to make the action have occurred."  It's not often
literally possible to do this, but that doesn't prevent the grammar from
working.

-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh