[Tlhingan-hol] Time and Type 7 verb suffixes

[David Trimboli]

On 6/7/2012 12:40 PM, Robyn Stewart wrote:
>
> SuStel responded to one of my first story installments with his feelings
> about aspect suffixes and I've been thinking about them quite a lot
> since. I'm probably using more aspect markers than I might have
> otherwise. It seems that I think more in terms of "what does this
> sentence here need" than the definitions and meanings and general rules,
> so I am trying to apply examples to the discussion.
>
>> 1. Okrand's use of the perfective is focused on the end of the action.
>> It doesn't mention the totality of the action. It definitely does not
>> touch on the beginning of the action or its duration. Your definition
>> of the grammatical perfective includes the entire span of the action,
>> including the beginning. While this may be completely accurate in
>> other contexts, there is no evidence in TKD or in canon that Okrand's
>> version of the perfective aspect involves anything except for the
>> moment of completion of the action. It's all about the goal or the end
>> point.
>
> I wondered what aspect suffixes SuStel or charghwI' would suggest adding
> to:
>
> {SochHu' rIQqu'choH SuvwI'. wa'Hu' Hegh.}
>
> "A week ago the warrior became badly wounded. Yesterday he died."
>
> I'm happy with it the way it is. But I don't know if you would be. He's
> been dying for a week, so does that mean that the day he died it's not a
> perfective aspect?

In this context, {wa'Hu' Hegh} would probably mean that yesterday he 
experienced that condition known as "dying." {wa'Hu Heghpu'} would mean 
that yesterday he finally experienced the event of his life ending.

The difference is that the perfective tells us about the temporal 
structure of the action. It occurs and is over with. I think this is 
really what you mean. The way you have written it isn't ungrammatical; 
it just doesn't mean exactly what you want.

> {rIQqu' SuvwI'. wa'leS Heghpu'}
>
> "The warrior is badly injured. By tomorrow he will be dead."
>
> Would you add a continuous aspect to the first verb?

Without {-taH}, the sentence just tells me the warrior's condition, kind 
of like looking at a medical chart and noting a condition. With {-taH} 
you are describing the ongoing nature of his injury. "Bad injury is 
occurring." It gives the injury a temporal shape, telling us it's not 
just the name of a condition, but that it is ongoing, experienced over time.

Which one you choose depends on what you want to say. It's not that a 
given objective situation requires an aspect suffix or none; it's that 
to express a particular viewpoint requires an aspect suffix or none. To 
express a whole, completed event, use -pu' or -ta'. To express an 
ongoing event, use -taH or -lI'. To express an action that is neither 
completed nor ongoing, such as conditions, habits, recurrances, and 
general truths, use no Type 7 suffixes at all. To get any of these 
meanings, you must ("usually," when other rules don't apply, like the 
aspects of -choH or -qa', for instance) follow those rules or else 
you're expressing the thing you've written instead of the thing you mean.

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