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

[David Trimboli]

On 6/7/2012 4:57 PM, Robyn Stewart wrote:
>
> At 14:42 '?????' 6/7/2012, you wrote:
>> On 6/7/2012 4:08 PM, Qov wrote:
>>> jaj Hoch qama' vIyu'lI'. Hoch De' vISuqta' 'e' wuqDI' ra'wI'wI',
>>> qama' vIHoHta' 'ej 'uQ vISopmeH jImejpu'.
>>>
>>> DaparHa''a'?
>>
>> Everything except possibly the {vISuqta'}. If you meant to say
>> "When my commander decided that I had acquired all the
>> information," then you're employing past perfect tense.
>
> I didn't translate it, and I wrote it in a language that doesn't have
>  tense, so I didn't use past perfect tense at all.

Then you're saying that it doesn't mean that, it means what I write
next. Yes?

>> If you mean something like "When my commander decided that I had
>> started and completed acquiring all the information," then I'd
>> accept it, although it seems a strange way to say it.
>
> It is in English. Maybe for English we'd go noun-based and say, "When
> my commander decided the data acquisition was complete." I have to
> agree with charghwI's frustration here that it seems unnecessary to
> bring the beginning of the action into this.

Unnecessary? If I say "In 387 BC the Gauls sacked Rome," is there any
reason to think that the sack started and ended in 387? Yes, there is.
The sentence is expressing a perfective idea. It is absolutely necessary
to bring the beginning of the action into the description. It's
perfective: it's considered as a whole, from start to end, without
regard to its internal structure (lulls in the battle, how long it took,
whether there were any protracted waits, whether the fighting occurred
in one long, continuous attack). It happened, it's done, "all at once."

I think if I had been thinking of "all data" instead of "all the data," 
then the concept doesn't seem so odd. If you had made it clear with 
{Hoch De' lI'}, presenting it as a new concept, I wouldn't have been 
confused.

> Would the sentence be different for you if the first shift had
> started interrogating the prisoner and then gone for breakfast and
> this guy came on for the relief shift and finished the job? Not to
> me.

No, because the subject is the interrogator, not the full day of
interrogation, and the commander's decision is based on what the 
interrogator does, not on what his predecessor does.

> I don't really care what the English might be,

I'm not basing anything on an English translation; I'm using English to
fully describe the perspectives, because exactly what the Klingon means
is in question, and because I don't know any other languages well
enough. You know what you mean, but if the question is what the Klingon
means, then you can't assume I can garner your meaning from the Klingon.

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