tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 11 22:40:34 2012

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Re: [Tlhingan-hol] A demonstration of aspect we can all follow

Robyn Stewart ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

Taking a lot out here. If you think I skipped something that needs a response, lob it back. 

At 18:33 '?????' 6/11/2012, David Trimboli wrote:

On 6/11/2012 7:06 PM, Robyn Stewart wrote:

At 09:52 '?????' 6/11/2012, you wrote:

So with some Klingon things with time stamps.

wa'Hu' may'Duj lumutlh tlhInganpu' - reH may'Dujmey mutlhtaH tlhInganpu'
qatlh potlh wa'Hu'?


Do you always combine {reH} with {-taH}? A lot of people do. Is there
a reason?


If it's a reH that implies forever {reH Daqawlu'taH} then I'd usually
put it on. I don't think it's required (Hey, but wait, don't you believe
it's always required?)
No, I believe that lacking it means it's not continuous. You can have a thing that is continuous, yet you're not describing it as a continuous action.
So it could be continuous, but you just choose not to describe it as a continuous action in that sentence. That's what people are calling optional.
I can be {yIttaH}, but I can also talk about the fact that I enjoyed {yIt}. But if I want to talk about how I was already walking at noon and continued walking after noon, I can't say {DungluQ jIyIt}; I have to say {DungluQ jIyIttaH}. That is, I *can* say {DungluQ jIyIt}, but it means something else.
I think most people would do that. Are you seeing sentences from others that seem to indicate they don't? 


but I may want to emphasize that it is
continuous. If it's a reH that implies always in a given situation {reH
qa'vInwIjDaq nIm vIqang}, then I wouldn't, because it wouldn't make sense.
But if the meaning of the {reH} is already implied, what does the additional {-taH} tell you?
If it's already implied than it's just emphasis like the "and ever" in "forever and ever." If there's any ambiguity then it's making sure you get the right meaning. I just grepped my story for reH:
SutlhtaHvIS Mahon, reH gholDaj vuDmey ghu' je qel. - so he always does it, but he doesn't do it continuously, he just does it and sees how it applies to the situation. (Mahoun is a personal name).
qaStaHvIS yaH poH bejchoHDI' reH tlhuHtaH. - Whenever he looked at her she was breathing - without the -taH it might sound more like she breathed whenever he looked at her. 


The point there was that I was reacting to the first sentence. It
doesn't specify that the construction was started, finished or underway,
just that it was yesterday and Klingons did it. I thought it had a "so
what?" feel to it, so that's what I asked. So therefore very interesting
that you felt it should go perfective.


If I understand what you're trying to say, I'd say it as:

wa'Hu' may'Duj lumutlhpu' tlhInganpu'.


That seems to go against your position that the whole action be
completed in the timestamp.


reH mayDujmey mutlh tlhInganmey. qatlh potlh wa'Hu'?

(Actually, I usually drop plurals unless they are vital to the meaning:

wa'Hu' may'Duj lumutlhpu' tlhIngan.
reH mayDuj mutlh tlhIngan. qatlh potlh wa'Hu'?)

Klingons constructed a battle cruiser yesterday. My viewpoint is one
of looking at the whole, completed event.


You got me all excited her that it didn't matter to you that they didn't
finish the thing from the frame to final paint in a day, and that you
were happy to use perfective indicating that construction happened in
that day and that day's construction is being perceived as a complete
whole, even if all the trades haven't cleared their tickets yet.
I thought that despite fictional advances in technology and massively
parallel construction that you wouldn't think I was constructing a
battleship in a day.


See how important our mutual understanding of the context is? :)


You probably think I can run a marathon in a minute, too.


So now that you know I intended this as a sentence that indicates no
aspect, how do you react to it? I now guess that you think it makes the
same amount of sense as "ran a marathon at 10:52."


Yes.
Okay, we have our first example sentence! Right? For you it doesn't make sense to say: 

wa'Hu' may'Duj lumutlh.
Suggest one that more clearly doesn't make sense to you if that is borderline in any way. 


Klingons always construct battle cruisers. They do so regularly,
constantly. The ship yards produce a certain number of cruisers every
month. The continuous aspect is not necessary, although if it is used,
it expresses how Klingons are always *in the process* of building
battle cruisers.


I agree; it's not necessary, but you can use it if you want just to be
clear. I thought your position did not support optional V7s.
They are not optional for emphasis. They are optional only in the sense that using it means one thing and not using it means something else. In this case the two meanings are quite similar, but one talks about cruisers being built in general and the other talks about cruisers in the process of being built. One is from the viewpoint of noting a statistical fact; the other is from the viewpoint of watching cruisers being built. Aspect is all about viewpoint. 

I don't think you're in terrible disagreement with people here.
I have the feeling that ghunchu'wI' thinks my argument works only for English grammar, but in fact it's generally applicable across most natural languages. As a general rule, perfective handles actual incidents; imperfective handles everything else. (In Klingon, that's either continuous or not-perfective-not-continuous.) 

In this case therefore I'd say

qaStaHvIS wa' jaj may'Duj mutlhlu'ta'. qaStaHvIS wa' jaj not may'Duj mutlhlu'.
I wouldn't feel that it was wrong that way, nor that my meaning was lost, so now I can respect you and charghwI' both when I say juppu'wI' vuDmey vIvuvmo' DaHjaj mawbogh mutlheghmey vIqonbe'.
But this isn't a rule about no negatives with perfective. For instance {qaStaHvIS wa' jaj may'Duj mutlhbe'lu'pu'}, which says an attempt to make a battle cruiser in a day failed.
Russian uses imperfective to indicate a failed attempt and perfective a successful one. You really can't predict what aspect is going to do in a particular language. 


I want to find the Klingon equivalent, for you, of "At 10:52 am I ran a
marathon," except have it be a sentence that I and charghwI' and
ghunchu'wI' consider well-formed, and preferably also a sentence that we
think should be starred, but for you is well-formed.
I don't know if you'll find the latter, unless it is {loSmaH ben jIboghpu'}. The former is any time you leave off an aspect suffix where your viewpoint is one where something happens and is done, or where something was already happening and continues to happen. When you leave these off the sentences are not wrong; they just don't mean what you say they mean.
Find one that has enough context that it is rubbish if it doesn't mean what they say it means. 


Find some minimal pairs. Find the simplest sentences where it matters
and the difference is clear. You know, "eats shoots and leaves" or "the
strippers JFK and Lenin" stuff.  Something that doesn't need to be
backed up with paragraphs of Englsh discussion to be seen as contrastive.
But it's the context that provides the viewpoint. If you utter a sentence in a contextual vacuum, it could be interpreted either way, both of which make sense. 

That's why there needs to be just enough context to break it.


I believe that the contradictions to the perfective interpretation
don't start in TKD,
This doesn't mean verbs without Type 7s are simple present tense, or with context future tense, or with -pu' the present perfect. It means when he translates them in the book, these are the forms he's going to use for consistency, and to help you understand why he translates it that way. 

Of course he immediately fails to translate them this way.


Often isn't always. I don't have an issue with his translations.


Daleghpu' - you have seen it (present perfect, like he said)
vIneHpu' - I wanted them (past tense, not what he said)
qaja'pu' - I told you (past tense, not what he said)
He's not translating them wrong. He just chose translations that best reflected the scene he drew them from.
He uses -pu' and -ta' exactly as perfective throughout TKD. Since TKW is a book of proverbs, there is little opportunity for perfective to appear; I don't think it has any. 

I went through it earlier. It has two.

'avwI' nejDI' narghta'bogh qama' reH 'avwI' Sambej.
nuHlIj DawIvpu', vaj yISuv!

KGT has two more expressions with perfective

Hoch jaghpu'Daj HoHpu'
Dujmey law' DachIjpu'
I know that one or two Skybox cards have -pu' where I used to think it was wrong in the same way I used to think {loSmaH ben jIboghpu'} was wrong; now I know that it's just perfective being perfective. It's either in Skybox or KGT where we start seeing counterexamples that can positively be identified as counterexamples, that no reasonable context could justify as meaning perfective. I just can't see {nIn Hoch natlhlu'pu'} meaning anything except "the fuel was expended prior to now" (or whatever the time context of the sentence is). This is perfect tense, not perfective aspect. (Maybe if you consider {natlhtaH} and {natlhpu'} to be similar to {HeghtaH} "dying" and {Heghpu'} "life terminated": "in the process of expending fuel," and "hit the E on your gas tank.")
DaHjaj bong SeHlaw' vIlo'Ha'pu'mo' wa' ngaSwI'vo' cha' QuQmey vIje'taH. nom "E"-vetlh SIchta' juvwI'!
As for Marc's contact with the KLI, I suspect he has more than you suppose. Certainly a number of the European members consult with him from time to time in private correspondence.
But in complex Klingon sentences? What I've seen has just been back and forth in English about vocabulary. Or maybe he's secretly reading my story. :-) 

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