[Tlhingan-hol] Translating the past

[Robyn Stewart]

Ah that is useful to me.  I don’t have a cassette player anymore. I hope my CK cassettes still work.


So why do you think Marc Okrand uses the perfective so much more than we do?  There can easily be something special about hunger and thirst. Maybe it’s specifically because the time stamp is there in those sentences that the perfective isn’t used. English has the same rule, in fact. 


I have eaten.
I ate at five o’ clock.
*I have eaten at five o’clock. 

The last one can be used, but only in a context like “I have eaten at five o’ clock in the past, but usually I eat at eight.”

 

- Qov

 

From: ghunchu'wI' [mailto:qunchuy at alcaco.net] 
Sent: April 12, 2014 7:23
To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list
Subject: Re: [Tlhingan-hol] Translating the past

 

On Apr 12, 2014, at 2:21 AM, "Robyn Stewart" <robyn at flyingstart.ca> wrote:

 

I’ve been a huge advocate for a sentence with no aspect translatable as simple present, past or future, but canon isn’t supporting it. Marc has very consistently not used it that way.

 

Conversational Klingon gives us clear instruction. 

 


wa'Hu' jIghung.

Yesterday I was hungry.


DaHjaj jI'oj.

Today I am thirsty.


wa'leS jIDoy'.

Tomorrow I'll be tired.

		

 

This doesn't merely support the "no aspect can be any tense" position. It prescribes it.

 

Our principal example of canonical Klingon narrative, the paq'batlh, is extremely consistent in this usage. When context calls for it, aspectless verbs in the Klingon are paired with future and past tense phrases in the English. 

 

-- ghunchu'wI'

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