tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Dec 05 17:09:50 2007
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Re: usage of type-7 aspect suffix {-pu}
Good point. I'm not sure what to do with this canon. It looks like
one of Okrand's mistakes, where he uses the perfective as if it were
simple past tense. But then, Okrand doesn't make any mistakes, right?
It's all canon, and we have to figure out what it means and use the
same constructions that he does.
Because this isn't a pidgeon or a creole or a naturally developed
language. It's one very brilliant person's idea.
Meanwhile, I don't understand the logic behind this grammar -- to
define what perfective is, set a time stamp pointing to a span of
time, and use the perfective to describe an action (chenmoH is an
action verb, not a stative one -- it would be stative without the -
moH) which obviously occurred during the time span, not before, as
the perfective is defined as describing. It doesn't make sense.
I accept that it is not wrong because he who cannot err did it.
Meanwhile I don't intend to talk like that. The community is full of
people who speak differently. That's why HoD Qanqor is not Qanqor HoD.
Meanwhile, getting back to the original example of {maleng
QorDu'wIj}, I finally figured out what bothers me about it. If I say,
"My family travels to the beach every summer for vacation," I just
used "My family" as a third person subject, even though I include
myself in my family. If I say, "My family and I travel to the beach
every summer for vacation," then I just dropped the "s" from
"travels" because the subject is now first person plural. I wouldn't
say, "My family travel to the beach every summer for vacation," and
then explain to people that I'm part of my family, so it's okay to
use the first person version of the verb "travel".
Besides, "my family" is a singular collective noun. It's not plural
OR first person.
So, even in Klingon, if you want to talk about you and your family,
you can't throw your listener that kind of curve and expect them to
understand what you are talking about. You do need an explicit
pronoun to explain why you think the subject is first person and why
you think it is plural. Otherwise, even if you are included in your
family, you are talking about a singular, third person entity when
you talk about your family. When you talk about a forest, you are not
talking about individual trees.
Doq
On Dec 5, 2007, at 7:40 AM, Alan Anderson wrote:
> ja' Doq:
>
>> {qaStaHvIS wa'maH chorgh DIS moHpu'...} does not mean "He's been ugly
>> for eighteen years..."
>
> While I completely agree with your intuition here, the truth is that
> we have canon which supports such a phrase.
>
> Skybox card S8: Bat'telh - Klingon Sword of Honor
> {...yIntaHvIS qeylIS'e' lIjlaHbe'bogh vay' batlh 'etlhvam
> chenmoHlu'pu'.}
> "...this sword of honor descends from the time of Kahless the
> Unforgettable."
>
> There's only one reasonable way to interpret this. It requires that
> the aspect suffix on the main verb be applied to the entire sentence,
> subordinate clauses and all.
>
> -- ghunchu'wI'
>
>