[Tlhingan-hol] nuq bop bom: 'ay' wa'vatlh wejmaH vagh: <potlh QonoS>

[Terrence Donnelly]

One is strangely persuaded by this argument...

-- ter'eS

--- On Fri, 2/10/12, David Trimboli <david at trimboli.name> wrote:

> On 2/10/2012 4:18 PM, ghunchu'wI'
> 'utlh wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 3:40 PM, Qov<robyn at flyingstart.ca> 
> wrote:
> >>> If {-taH} here is intended to describe a
> continual or habitual action
> >>> rather than a continuous one, I think it's
> better left off.
> >> 
> >> If SuStel is reading I'd be interested in his take
> on this, wrt to his
> >> "every verb needs an aspect suffix" idea.
> > 
> > I don't intend to put words in his mouth, but what I
> understand of his
> > position is that verbs lacking a type 7 suffix are best
> understood as
> > describing situations rather than events or processes.
> However, the
> > distinction he makes between "perfective" and
> "perfected" is one I do
> > not understand completely, nor do I see it as important
> to my use of
> > the language.
> 
> I haven't been reading, but I saw my name...
> 
> TKD says that a lack of type 7 suffix means that the action
> is not one of the things that type 7 suffixes describe. It
> doesn't mean that you just didn't mention something—if the
> suffix is true, it's *required*. I can't use {jIQong} to say
> "I was asleep" because this idea includes a continuous
> aspect. It must be {jIQongtaH}.
> 
> Klingon also has a *perfective* aspect. Perfective is where
> you view an action as a completed whole. {jIQongpu'} "I
> slept: I went to sleep, slept for a while, then woke up."
> 
> What Klingon does NOT have is a built-in *perfect*
> tense/aspect. Perfect "tense" indicates that something is
> currently in a state or condition that resulted from an
> action in the past. "I have eaten" means that I'm full now
> because I ate earlier. This is different from "I ate," which
> is perfective and means "I finished off a meal" (you
> wouldn't say "I ate" if you just took one bite of an
> apple).
> 
> So if you say {jIQongpu'}, it doesn't mean that at some time
> prior to now I experienced sleep; it means that, without
> regard to whether it was in the past, present, or future, I
> experienced a complete session of sleep, all the way to
> waking up. Sleeping was performed and finished. If you want
> to say "I have slept" (i.e., prior sleep means I'm not tired
> now) in Klingon, you can approximate it with perfective and
> a time context: {wa' rep ret jIQongpu'} "One hour ago I
> experienced a complete session of sleep."
> 
> Verbs without a type 7 suffix therefore indicate a
> *propensity* to do something. {Hoch jaj jIQong} "I sleep
> every day"; {qagh Sopbe'} "He doesn't (ever) eat gagh." You
> might do it habitually, like {reH jIbom} "I always sing," or
> occasionally {rut 'awje' vItlhutlh} "I sometimes drink root
> beer," or it might be your regular condition {jIHoS} "I am
> strong."
> 
> jIQuch - I am a happy kind of person
> jIQuchtaH - I am happy right now
> jIQuchpu' - I experienced a period of happiness that ended
> 
> To recap:
> 
> Traditional grammarian wisdom says that the type 7 suffixes
> indicate soemthing that happened prior to the time context,
> but that's "perfect tense," and TKD names, describes, and
> illustrates "perfective aspect," which is a completed event
> viewed as a whole without any regard to the time in which it
> occurs. The grammarians have been wrong for a long time.
> 
> Traditional wisdom also allows verbs to go without type 7
> suffixes at all and still mean things that are continuous or
> perfective—that they're just not expressed. However, TKD
> states that verbs without type 7 suffixes refer to events
> that are non-continuous and non-perfective. That means they
> are verbs that indicate propensity only.
> 
> >> yo' 'aj SuchtaH Sutmey tuQbe'bogh
> nga'chuqqangqu'law'wI'vam'e'[113].
> >
> > If {-taH} here is intended to describe a continual or
> habitual action
> > rather than a continuous one, I think it's better left
> off.
> 
> I think it *must* be left off if that is the case. If you
> mean "regularly visit" or "occasionally visit" or "always
> visit," leave off {-taH} and use an adverbial. If you mean
> "is visiting for a while," use {-taH}. If you mean "is
> visiting until done visiting," use {-lI'}.
> 
> -- SuStel
> http://www.trimboli.name/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Tlhingan-hol mailing list
> Tlhingan-hol at stodi.digitalkingdom.org
> http://stodi.digitalkingdom.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol
>