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

[David Trimboli]

On 6/7/2012 3:33 PM, Robyn Stewart wrote:
>
> At 13:12 '?????' 6/7/2012, David Trimboli wrote:
>> I've thought of an easy way to demonstrate the "it's not a concrete
>> action" effect of perfective and continuous. In English.
>
> But include the Klingon too, please.
>
>> A ship's captain calls down to the brig. An interrogator was assigned
>> the job of extracting important information from a prisoner. The
>> captain barks, "Report status!"
>>
>> Now consider the possible responses.
>>
>> "I interrogate the prisoner."
>
> If he said, {qama' vIyu'} I think I would be more likely to read it as,
> "I will interrogate the prisoner." I doubt anyone here would choose
> anything but {qama' vIyu'lI'}. Or I suppose {-taH} if it's more of a
> joy[']ride than a directed interrogation.

At this point in my case, I am trying to show how English can restrict 
response to specific kinds of aspect, which illustration will also 
inform how it works in Klingon, later in the text.

"I will interrogate the prisoner" (which is imperfective) is a perfectly 
true reading of {qama' vIyu'}, but right now I'm not interested in this 
point in how one would translate Klingon to English, just in how the 
simple present tense is inappropriate to use for concrete instances of 
actions, to show later how the same can happen in Klingon.

>> The ship's captain is giving a tour to a dignitary. They stop by the
>> brig, and the interrogator greets them. The dignitary asks, "What do
>> you do here?" The interrogator replies, "I interrogate the prisoner."
>>
>> The interrogator is describing what he does *customarily*. He's not
>> talking about a particular instance of interrogation. The moment he
>> switches to continuous aspect, "I am interrogating the prisoner," he
>> is no longer describing his *job*, he's describing his current action,
>> a concrete instance of an action.
>
> naDev qama' vIyu' - I'm totally happy with that, too.
>
>> Klingon works in exactly the same way. When the captain says {Dotlh
>> ja'}, the interrogator would reply {qama' vIyu'taH} or {qama'
>> vIyu'lI'}, not {qama' vIyu'}. To say the latter would be like giving
>> the captain a job description. "I know you interrogate prisoners, dog,
>> but what are you doing about this one?!"
>>
>> Now for the perfective. English can usually only express perfective in
>> the past tense, and using the simple past tense. If the captain asks
>> the interrogator, "What did you do today?" the interrogator might
>> answer, "I interrogated the prisoner." He wouldn't use the past
>> continuous "I was interrogating the prisoner" to answer that question,
>> even though it would be completely true. "I was interrogating the
>> prisoner" would be used in cases like "While I was interrogating the
>> prisoner..."
>>
>> But even if the interrogator wants to describe his job description in
>> the past, he would say, "I interrogated the prisoner." English does
>> not let you distinguish between perfective and imperfective in the
>> past tense. You have to add other context to make yourself clear.
>>
>> "I interrogated the prisoner all day." (imperfective)
>> "I interrogated the prisoner and got the information." (perfective)
>>
>> This is where Klingon differs from English, because Klingon can indeed
>> distinguish between perfective and imperfective in the past. {wa'Hu'
>> X-pu'} is past perfective; {wa'Hu' X} is past imperfective. The former
>> says an event occurred and completed yesterday; the latter says X was
>> true or occurred regularly or habitually or theoretically or whatever
>> (except not completely or continuously) yesterday.
>>
>> qaStaHvIS jaj Hoch qama' vIyu' (imperfective)
>
> This one surprises me. I would use {vIyu'taH} or {vIyu'lI'} there. Why
> didn't you?

Because I wanted to express a job assignment or propensity or occasional 
action, not a never-ending interrogation session. If I wanted to 
indicate a never-ending interrogation session, -taH or -lI' would have 
been needed, but then it would have been an interrogation whose flow in 
time was being described as continuous, rather than any other the other 
meanings.

And that's the point. With -taH, the interrogation must be continuous. 
Without -taH, you're not just saying "I'm not paying attention to 
whether it was continuous or not"; you're expressing a different concept 
than continuity, such as regular sessions or habit or general truth.

Perhaps it would be easier to see if I changed "all day" to "throughout 
the day."

>> qama' vIyu'pu' 'ej De' vISuqta' (perfective)
>
> I would do that too.
>
> I'm really looking forward to other people's thought on this, and am
> excited that people may not be as far apart as the words make it look as
> though we are.

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