[Tlhingan-hol] Translating the past

[Robyn Stewart]

> Could one not say {wa'leS ghaH HoHlu'pu'}, indicating that by tomorrow he will have gotten himself killed? This sentence uses perfective 

> but not in any past sense, Klingon cultural attitudes toward counting one's chickens notwithstanding. If grammar allows such a construction, it > would divorce -pu' and -ta' from any connection with the past, except insofar as the past is more somewhat more certain than the future.


I don’t think there is any controversy about that sentence. It parallels ghorgh tujchoHpu’ bIQ?  I don’t believe anyone is arguing that perfective implies past or past requires perfective, and if they were, I would think they were wrong.

 

The controversial area is:

If an action is single and completed, is a timestamp sufficient, or does it also require a perfective aspect suffix?
Can <DuqIp’a’?> mean “Did she hit you?” [once] or only “Does she/did she hit you?” [generally] or “Will she hit you?”
One of the sticking points is interpretation of the word “usually” in the second paragraph of TKD 4.2.7.

 

- Qov



 

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