[Tlhingan-hol] Aspect, etc

[Rohan Fenwick]

ghItlhpu' QISta', jatlh:
> Also, in regards to "time-stamps", I see that one can say "a year ago"
> and such, but how would one express that something happened at some
> unspecified time in the past (or in the future, for that matter)?

The safe way of doing it is as SuStel has noted, with constructions like {'op ben} "some years ago", {leS puS} "a few days from now", and so forth.

There's been some conjecture as to whether {ret} and {pIq} can be used on their own as sorts of general adverbials of time reference - in the Klingon subtitles I did for "Star Trek: First Contact", I at first rendered Picard's statement of "they must have done it in the past" as {ret lurInmoHba'ta'} - but we have no canon evidence of whether this is really possible.

(Also, note that I used {ret} explicitly for "[at some point] in the past", standing in addition to, not merely in place of, the tense/aspect reference of "they must have done it". I wouldn't accept bare {ret} and {pIq} being used as general tense markers and I don't think many other speakers would accept them in that sense either.)

jang SuStel, jatlh:
> I believe paq'batlh has {'op ben} for "some years ago."

It also has the formally compounded {'opleS} "someday (in the future)" (paq'batlh: paq'yav 2.8, 2.11-12).

taH:
> You can also say {ben law'} "many years ago"

...HoD Huj vIqIH. :)

QeS 'utlh
 		 	   		  
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