[Tlhingan-hol] mutually subordinate clauses?

[David Trimboli]

On 6/5/2012 11:07 AM, ghunchu'wI' 'utlh wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 8:43 AM, David Trimboli<david at trimboli.name>  wrote:
>>> {yIjun) (TKD p.42),
>>
>> If you command someone to evade, you're not placing an evasion event on a
>> timeline. You're not ordering the listener to do something continuously, and
>> you're not ordering the listener to do something and be done with it.
>
> The explanation of this example is contrary to your interpretation:
> "In the first case, the maneuver is to be executed once only."

But it's not an event that has actually happened, is actually happening, 
or will actually happen. It's a *command*, not an event. This is not a 
contradiction at all.

>>> as well as throughout the {paq'batlh} text, notably {ngIq
>>> tonSaw' lo' 'ej tIqDu' lel} "In one single move, he removed the
>>> hearts."
>>
>> Simple. In the years since TKD was written, Okrand has started to, and now
>> nearly totally, relies on KLI members to support his grammar. Since everyone
>> in the KLI has confused perfect tense with perfective aspect for decades
>> (myself included), so does Okrand, now.
>
> It's not "in the years since TKD was written." It's in TKD itself.
> Okrand gave English present perfect as an appropriate translation of
> Klingon perfective from the very beginning.  If we're confused, it's
> because what TKD tells us is not what you're telling us now.

{-pu} "is often translated by the English present perfect (/have done 
something/)." This does not mean {-pu'} is the *same* as the English 
present perfect. It *is* an appropriate translation, but not an *exact* 
translation.

For instance, TKD tells us that {nughoStaH} means "it is approaching 
us." It doesn't tell us that {nughoStaH} can also mean "it was 
approaching us" or "it will be approaching us." There is no exact 
English translation of exactly what {nughoStaH} means. "It is 
approaching us" is a present-tense approximation of what the word means.

Likewise, there is no exact English translation of the complete meaning 
of {Daleghpu'}. It can be used in situations where an English speaker 
might use "you saw it," "you see it," "you will see it," "you had seen 
it," "you have seen it," or "you will have seen it." None of these 
English translations by themselves carries the full meaning.

>> [{Daleghpu'} has]
>> context in Star Trek III, and the context supports the perfective
>> interpretation. Valkris saw the Genesis report. It is referred to as a
>> complete event, a featureless dot on the timeline.
>
> It is also referred to as a completed event, one which has already
> occurred in the context where it is being mentioned.  Note that TKD
> does describe perfective as "completed", which I think most of us
> understand to mean "finished" or "done". This contrasts with your
> calling it "complete", by which I think you mean "whole".

You are confusing tense and aspect. A completed event does not mean "in 
the past." I'm not distinguishing between "completed" and "complete"; I 
just chose the word "complete." I can use "completed" if you prefer.

Klingon does not have grammatical tense. We are told that explicitly. To 
say that "completed" means "finished prior to something" equates 
"completed" with tense. It's not.

A grammatical aspect is the use of a verb with reference to the way the 
action unfolds. It refers to the temporal shape and internal structure 
of the event. Is an event spread out over time, is it discontinuous, is 
it repeating, is it a temporally structureless event? This is aspect.

Tense relates an action or event to a particular time. It doesn't give 
temporal shape to the event, it locates it on a timeline. It tells you 
things like "now," or "before now" or "yesterday." It tells you *when*. 
"finished before now and no longer occurring" is a tense, not an aspect.

Klingon verb suffixes never, ever locate things on a timeline, they only 
describe the temporal shape of an action or event. They never describe 
tense, they only describe aspect.

I'm not hyper-correcting, I'm simply ignoring the wrong grammar used by 
the non-linguists on this list for decades. Where Okrand wrote 
"perfective," he meant "perfective," not "perfect tense." Whether he 
remembers this now is unknown. As far as I can tell your argument boils 
down to "because we've always done it this way."

 > P.S. Whatever you're doing to respond to the list is keeping your
 > messages from being archived. If that's not intentional, you might
 > want to do something about it.

I have no idea what that might be. I can only guess that the list 
software doesn't like some header that Thunderbird adds to my replies.

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/