tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue May 20 08:37:31 2003
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Re: JangmeH toch De'wI' lo'
From: "Sangqar (Sean Healy)" <[email protected]>
> Okay, here's how I understand it, but help from the BG (or former BGs or
> other experts) would not be unappreciated.
>
> Every sentence in Klingon has a time context. This time context can be
> explicitly stated, or it can be implicit. (For stylistic reasons, an
author
> might delibrately leave the time context ambiguous, but that's not germane
> to this discussion.)
Your explanation is very good, Sangqar, but there's one thing I object to.
Every Klingon sentence does NOT have a time context. Some sentences can
simply lack any such reference. This may not be ambiguity for stylistic
reasons; the time context may simply not be important.
English speakers often get confused when translating to or from Klingon,
because it is impossible to say anything in English without tense. An
English sentence MUST be set in the past, present, or future. This isn't
true in Klingon.
If I say that /yaS qIp puq/ means
The child hit the officer.
The child hits the officer.
The child will hit the officer.
I'm not saying that it means one of these. It means all of them at once.
It means that at some unspecified point in time, past, present, or future,
we don't know which, a child hits an officer. I'm unable to translate the
sentence accurately into English, because English MUST have tense.
Likewise, adding an aspect suffix doesn't pin down a time, either.
yaS qIppu' puq
At some point, past, present, or future, we don't know which, a child
completes hitting an officer.
yaS qIptaH puq
At some point, past, present, or future, a child continuously hits an
officer. When this hitting takes place is left unstated.
It's probably not unusual for sentences not to have time contexts.
Consider:
yIHmey vImuS. chuS 'ej moH. Sopchugh bIH, wa'maH yIH puq lIng. Hegh Hoch
yIHmey vIneH.
There is no time context here. Oh, it's possible that these were my
feelings in the past, my feelings right now, or maybe it's how I'll feel in
my old age. The point is that the time in which it's true is entirely
irrelevant to the concept communicated.
SuStel
Stardate 3382.7