[Tlhingan-hol] Time and Type 7 verb suffixes

[De'vID]

ghunchu'wI':
>> > I can think of one immediately: {nughoS jagh} from the Conversational
>> > Klingon battle vignette.

De'vID:
>> I don't see this as a counterexample at all.

ghunchu'wI:
> You're begging the question.

No, I think you're misinterpreting the sentence, and I gave you reasons why
I think this.

ghunchu'wI':
> The canonical translation is "The enemy is approaching."

Are you seriously suggesting that the meaning of the English translation
takes precedence over the actual description of Klingon grammar, as well as
the surrounding Klingon sentences, when interpreting a Klingon sentence?
There are tons of examples where the English translation matches the
Klingon rather loosely.

That sentence can be translated that way, or it can be translated as "the
enemy approaches us", or in any number of ways. SuStel has already
addressed this in detail.

The point here is precisely that the English translation may be misleading,
because English naturally expresses tense while Klingon naturally expresses
aspect, and the two things are not the same.

For example, suppose a child is ill, and you take him to a doctor.  In
English, the doctor typically asks, "Is he eating?"  In Klingon, the doctor
wouldn't ask {SoptaH'a'?}, because he's not interested in whether the child
is in-the-process-of-eating.  He'd ask, {Sop'a'?}, because he's asking
whether the child has a propensity towards eating (in his present
condition). Does that mean "Is he eating?" is the translation of {Sop'a'?}
Absolutely (in this context). Does it means that {Sop'a'?} expresses
continuous aspect?  No, it doesn't.

ghunchu'wI':
> You have to ignore that in order to dismiss it as exactly the kind of
counterexample that was requested.

No, I'm not ignoring that that sentence *can* be translated that way.  I'm
pointing out that even when it is translated that way, it's *not*
expressing continuous aspect.  You've been misled by the English
translation.

If you think that the Klingon sentence {nughoS jagh} expresses continuous
aspect, you'll have to explain why you think that such a sentence in
between {tujqu'choH QuQ} and {chay' jura'} cannot be describing an action
which is neither continuous nor completed.  I've given you a scenario where
the sentence makes perfect sense interpreted in just that way.

In *English*, the sentences "he is eating" or "the enemy is approaching us"
do not *necessarily* express continuous aspect. In Klingon, {-taH} always
does. For example, if the enemy ship was heading away but suddenly turned
toward us, the tactical officer can alert the captain *in English* by
saying, "Enemy ship is approaching us."  This *looks* like it might be a
sentence expressing continuous aspect, but it *isn't*.  In Klingon, in that
context, it *cannot* be {nughoStaH}.  It has to be {nughoS} or {nughoSchoH}.

In the context of a battle where the captain is presumably aware of the
enemy's position, if the tactical officer thinks it's important enough to
interrupt the captain to tell him {nughoStaH jagh} (and not get himself
vaporised), the translation might be something like "the enemy is *still*
approaching us."  {nughoS jagh} *can* be *translated* as "the enemy is
approaching us", but *in context*, neither the Klingon sentence nor the
English translation conveys continuous aspect.

ghunchu'wI':
> The lack of a Klingon continuous suffix in this example is the whole
point! The idea expressed would not change if the suffix were present.

Now *that* is begging the question.  If the idea expressed does not change,
how do you explain why {-taH} was dropped?

Your example doesn't contradict the claim that {-taH} isn't optional.
Properly understood, it actually shows that its absence is meaningful.

ghunchu'wI':
> That's what was asked for, right?

No, it wasn't.

I'm now all but convinced that the people who insist that SuStel is wrong
really just don't understand what he is claiming.

I didn't come into this discussion (or fight or whatever it is) to take his
side.  In fact, if you go back through the threads you'll see that I was
initially skeptical of his claim.

He described a verb lacking Type 7 suffixes as indicating propensity or
habit, which sounded wrong to me.  I also don't really follow the business
about timelines.  But when he went through example sentences and explained
what he thought they meant and why, his explanation almost always matched
my intuition as well as my conceptual understanding of aspect.

Now, we could just be both wrong, but as far as I can tell, his claim
amounts to "when MO uses the word 'aspect', he really means what linguists
mean by that term (even though he simplifies things for a popular
audience)".  That's it.  Given that MO is a linguist writing for
non-linguists, why is this assumption considered so unreasonable?

SuStel has been accused of reading things into TKD that aren't there, but
it seems to me that the people who claim his interpretation is wrong have
invented a rule that Type 7 suffixes are optional, in direct contradiction
to what TKD actually says.  How do you go from the absence of a Type 7
suffix (usually) indicating that an action is neither completed nor
continuous (what TKD actually says) to Type 7 suffixes being completely
optional?  Those two rules are not logically remotely the same.

And that's what this is really about: logic.  SuStel might have gotten his
definition of aspect from an external source, but the reason that aspect
works the way it does is because the expression of aspect has an intrinsic
logic to it that every language must obey, even Klingon, if it is to remain
unambiguous and expressive.

You can introduce a rule into a language that says aspect markers are
optional, and that the absence of an aspect marker signifies nothing about
that aspect.  But if you do, the *logical* consequence of this is that your
language will have no easy way to express a concept lacking all of the
aspects that the language explicitly marks.

If {Ha'DIbaH Sop} means "he eats meat or he's eating meat or he has eaten
meat", then to say "he eats meat (habitual)", you'd *have* to say {Ha'DIbaH
Sop 'ach SoptaHbe' 'ej Soppu'be'}, and so on, depending on context.
There's no evidence that Klingon works like this.

{Ha'DIbaH Sop} means "he eats meat (generally, i.e., in a non-completed and
non-continuous way)".  It *can* be translated as "he's eating meat" in some
contexts.  For example, in response to the doctor's query, {Sop'a'?} "is he
eating?" But *this* "he's eating meat (habitual)" and the "he's eating meat
(continuous)" of {Ha'DIbaH SoptaH} are actually two different things in
Klingon, despite having the same English translation.  Similarly, {nughoS
jagh} "the enemy is approaching us" is *not* a sentence with continuous
aspect, despite having the same possible English translation as {nughoStaH
jagh}.

The way I see it, the rule that Type 7 suffixes are optional directly
contradicts TKD, and for some reason you've adopted this rule and are
misinterpreting Klingon sentences to fit it.  SuStel's proposal may or may
not be how Klingon works, but as far as I can tell it really is logically
compatible with TKD and canon.

--
De'vID
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