[Tlhingan-hol] Time and Type 7 verb suffixes

[Rohan Fenwick - QeS 'utlh]

poD vay'.

jIjatlhpu':
> I did think of that possibility, but the Klingon text of S5  seems to imply
> that the Great Hall *is* considered a permanent structure by Klingons: 
> juHqo'Daq vaS'a' tu'lu'.
> The literal translation of the Klingon is closer to: 
> On the Homeworld one finds a Great Hall.

mujangpu' De'vID, jatlh:
> Why "a" Great Hall and not "the" Great Hall?  The possibility that  
> there is more than one Great Hall, or that another building used to be  
> called the Great Hall in the past, isn't excluded by this sentence, is  
> it?

True. (I've since rethought this example and hereby retract it.)

jIjatlhtaH: 
> The fact that {juHqo'Daq vaS'a' tu'lu'} stands on its own like it does 
> implies to me that the {vaS'a'} is being considered as the building as a 
> chunk of the landscape, rather than as the building as the meeting 
> place for the High Council. 

mujangtaH De'vID, jatlh:
> I don't get that sense at all.  How else would you say that the  
> building (currently) known as "the Great Hall" is found on the  
> Homeworld?

juHqo'Daq 'oHtaH vaS'a''e'.

> Also, it's a completely different context, and the sentence uses {tu'lu'}
> (has there ever been a canon usage with {tu'lu'} plus aspect?)

I don't think so.

> TKD p.0  says that {-taH} indicates an action is ongoing.  {pa' 'oHtaH  
> vaS'a''e'} means "the Great Hall is (continuous) there".  Everyone  
> agrees this is what it means, right?  The only question really is *why*  
> the continuous aspect can or would be used to describe the location of  
> the Great Hall.

I thought this had been addressed some years ago. Except for questions with
{nuqDaq}, every known instance of a pronoun-as-verb that serves as a copula
of location ("he is in his quarters"), rather than a copula of role or
identity (as in "he is a soldier"), makes use of {-taH}. Every single one.
Conversely, questions of the form {nuqDaq X Y'e'}, where X is a pronoun, do
not *ever* seem to take aspect.

The evidence points towards a clear distinction of aspect between pronoun-
as-verb with a location, and the pronoun-as-verb with a role or identity.
For sure, you could put this down to the distinction of whether the act
is ongoing but temporary (with {-taH} or is in some way unbounded (without),
but then you run into issues with this from KGT:

ya ghaH qImlaq Sogh'e'
"Lieutenant K'mlak is a tactical officer"

Why is this not {ghaHtaH}? K'mlak could be replaced as tactical officer of
the ship, couldn't he?

In short, there is strong canon evidence that pronoun-plus-verb uses aspect
in a more rigidly bounded way than normal.

> If SuStel's assertion that whenever MO uses {-Daq} he uses {-taH} with  
> moveable objects and no aspect suffix with permanently located objects  
> turns out to be wrong, it doesn't weaken his case.  If it turns out to  
> be right, it would strength his case, but the example is consistent  
> with the definition of continuous aspect either way. 

This is going well further than I intended - I intended only to point out
to SuStel that "whenever" was too strong and that there was canon that did
not support such a strong statement.

> What would be a counterexample to his (and my) interpretation of the  
> sentence from TKD p.0  about the meaning of a verb when a Type   suffix  
> is absent is an instance from canon of a verb expressing a perfective  
> or continuous aspect but which does not have the corresponding suffix.  
> And I don't think there's any such example from canon. 

My first thought was to {Dab}, which doesn't seem to need {-taH}:

naDev vIDab.
I live here.
(MSN posting by Okrand, 19 Jul 1997)

But then I figured that to {Dab} a place isn't really to continuously be
there, so I discounted that. But the measure verbs seem like they'd cry
out for {-taH} if that's the case, but they don't need it either:

jav 'ujmey 'ab SuvwI'.
The warrior is 6   'uj tall.
(MSN posting by Okrand, 22 Oct 1997)

The action is not complete but is continuous. {-taH} should be present.
It seems that either {SIS} or {SIStaH} is acceptable for "it is raining",
too, even when the meaning is clearly continuous. DloraH interrogated
Marc on the correct use of {SIS} in 1998:

"SIS.  In a way everyone was correct with this one.  It rained a few times
during the weekend, so we were put into the situation to discuss it.
SIS
SISqu'
SIStaH
SISchoH
All correct.  SISlu', altho grammaticlly correct, he didn't particularly
like.  Someone COULD use it but to me it sounds like they skipped science
class and don't know what the subject is.  You can also give it an object
and say things like the clouds rained down cats and dogs. ...or something
like that; you get the idea.  But when Marc and I went outside and drops
of water were falling on us, he looked up and simply said "SIS"."
(email from DloraH to the mailing list, 28 May 1998)

And here's an example where {-lI'} or at least {-taH} would be expected on
{ghoS}, but there is no aspect suffix, the best canon example I've found
so far despite the error:

Heghpu'bogh latlhpu' ghuHmoH bey. ghoS tlhIngan SuvwI' maq.
"...[it] serves to warn the
other dead that a Klingon warrior is coming."
(S31)

The action of {ghoS} is not complete but is continuous assuming either an
erroneous direct quote or an erroneous omission of {'e'}, so an aspect
suffix should be there.

QeS 'utlh