tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 03 15:23:08 1999
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Re: mu'qaD veS / KLBC
ja' peHruS:
>In a message dated 8/20/1999 3:59:50 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
>[email protected] writes:
>
><< Not yIH vItuQpu'. [or do I have to use <vItuQpu'be', vItuQbe'pu'>?] >>
>===============
>
>I, too, have many questions (reservations) about this. MO has used {not
>vIleghpu'} in TKD sample sentences.
True. It is translated "I've never seen him/her before." Why doesn't
that answer your questions (reservations) about the construction? Its
usage is obviously permitted.
>~mark has confirmed that {wej pongwIj
>vIwIvta'} is perfective; this one is really hard for me to comprehend.
See TKD 4.2.7, page 41. The suffix {-ta'} indicates perfective aspect.
It's like the suffix {-pu'} but with an added meaning that the action
was done on purpose. You *do* know that already, don't you?
>Then,
>I read in "batlh Heghrup SuvwI' qan" by Eric Andeen {not latlh vISaw} with
>only a null aspect marker.
Thus he's not indicating perfective aspect. He's also not indicating
continuous aspect, for that matter.
>I'm no at all sure when I should use {-pu'} after {not} or {wej}.
Using {not} or {wej} should not change your decision of whether {-pu'}
is appropriate. They don't have anything to do with the aspect of the
verb. You should use {-pu'} when you are talking about the action which
the verb describes being complete.
>Maybe I need to learn when to use it after other adverbials, too.
I don't understand why you keep trying to make it more complicated than
it is. You use {-pu'} or {-ta'} in order to indicate perfective aspect.
Perfective aspect means that the action of the verb is (or was, or will
be) complete (in the context of the sentence, which isn't necessarily
talking about "now"). It's that simple. Adverbials and verb prefixes
and conjunctions don't enter into it.
-- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh