[Tlhingan-hol] Fwd: Time and Type 7 verb suffixes

[André Müller]

I found two sentences of that kind, but I don't have the source in my list:

vagh SanID ben buDbe' wamwI'pu'. ngugh Ho'Du'chaj lo' chaH, 'ach DaH tajmey
lo'.
«5,000 years ago, hunters were not lazy. Then (at that time) they used
their teeth, but now they use knives.»

Both sentences above refer to a time in the past and do not use any type 7
suffixe.

But we have for instance:

loSmaH ben jIboghpu'.
«I am 40 years old.»

Aspect, tense and the interaction of the two (as in English) are really
damn complex. I read the famous book on Tense and Aspect by Bernard Comrie,
but still I feel always unsure about them. I'm waiting for a consense in
this discussion. ;)

- André

2012/6/7 Robyn Stewart <robyn at flyingstart.ca>

> I found it interesting that Marc in TKD says that aspectless verbs might
> be translated with simple present or as future, but doesn't say that they
> might be translated as past. I did find one that he did translate with
> past, Hoch nuH Daqel'a' - did you consider every weapon?
>
> I also can't find any canonical sentences of the form "[Timestamp in the
> past] [verb][no aspect suffix]." Evidence against includes, QI'tomerDaq
> Heghpu' Hoch (in the English translation at least, QI'tomer is being used
> as a past event not a place).
>
> narghbe'chugh SuvwI' qa' taH may' is translated "if the warrior's spirit
> has not escaped -- present perfect tense -- even though it's aspectless in
> Klingon. Not sure what the grammatical difference is between that and
> nuHlIj DawIvpu', vaj yISuv.
>
> I started to go through the Skybox cards in search of a sentence like
> that, (they're on qurgh's site) but I kept getting distracted by the random
> pIqaD and by things like Hub'eghrupHa'.
>
> Does Marc ever use an aspectless verb with a clearly past timestamp?
>
> - Qov
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From:* David Trimboli <david at trimboli.name>
> *Date:* 7 June, 2012 6:09:33 PDT
> *To:* tlhingan-hol at stodi.digitalkingdom.org
> *Subject:* *Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Time and Type 7 verb suffixes*
>
> I've found a couple of phrases in KGT that unquestionably use -pu' as
> perfect tense instead of perfective aspect. One of them is {nIn Hoch
> natlhlu'pu'} "all the fuel has been consumed." Another is {Dujmey law'
> chIjpu'} "has navigated many ships."
>
> I was just skimming, not doing an exhausted check.
>
> --
> SuStel
> http://www.trimboli.name/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tlhingan-hol mailing list
> Tlhingan-hol at stodi.digitalkingdom.org
> http://stodi.digitalkingdom.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tlhingan-hol mailing list
> Tlhingan-hol at stodi.digitalkingdom.org
> http://stodi.digitalkingdom.org/mailman/listinfo/tlhingan-hol
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stodi.digitalkingdom.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol/attachments/20120607/365ec14b/attachment-0001.html>