[Tlhingan-hol] Aspect, etc

[Will Martin]

I honestly believe that {HoH} is a bad verb to use as a clarifying example of the use of the perfective. The problem is that the action of the verb implies a result. The action of the verb is not a process so much as it is the production of a result. I can attack you, or even give you a mortal wound and you can remain alive, but if you are still alive, then unless I go out of the way to note the explicit beginning or continuation of the action with {-choH} or {-taH}, I doubt that anyone would use {HoH} to describe an action that doesn’t include the moment of death of the victim.

If you say {wa’Hu’ targh vIHoH}, then I assume the targh died yesterday. Maybe I’d figure out the targh didn’t die yesterday if you said, {wa’Hu targh vIHoHchoH} or {wa’Hu’ targh vIHoHtaH}, but if you don’t note that you simply BEGAN to kill or that you CONTINUED to kill, I would quite naturally assume the death of the targh. Otherwise, you are making an empty, exaggerated claim.

{wa’Hu’ targh vIHoHpu’} to my ear is a little indistinct as to whether the targh died yesterday, or some time before yesterday. I’m not sure that it has been established whether the perfective implies the moment of completion, or merely the state of being complete. Are we saying that the action completes itself yesterday, or are we saying that yesterday, the action was complete.

In other words, does it mean that the action was complete yesterday, or completed yesterday. These are not the same claim, and I’m not sure that the difference has ever been established in terms of {-pu’}. We’ve argued about this before. Perhaps I’m wrong. It happens a lot. Often.

I work mostly from my understanding of the difference, in English, between tense and the perfective. Yesterday, I killed a targh. Yesterday, I had killed a targh. Using the time stamp {wa’Hu’} is, alone, enough to establish the English equivalent of the past tense. Adding the {-pu’} makes it past perfect, which does not imply the death occurred yesterday. It implies that the death occurred yesterday or before, and most likely before, since if it happened yesterday, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to note the perfective.

What I’m really saying here is that you would do better to use a verb like {legh} or {yIt} that refers to an activity, rather than {HoH} that so strongly suggests a result.

pItlh
lojmIt tI'wI'nuv



> On Dec 3, 2015, at 4:05 AM, Lieven <levinius at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Am 02.12.2015 um 13:48 schrieb André Müller:
> 
>> But the difference between {'opHu' targh vIHoHpu'} and {'opHu' targh
>> vIHoH} is minute if at all existing.
> 
> Yes, indeed, due to the indefinite time.
> 
> But if you have a defined time stamp, like "yesterday" or "last friday", then the difference is clearer:
> 
> 
> {wa'Hu' targh vIHoH}
> "Yesterday, it was the day on which I was killing the targ"
> (and maybe it died the day after?)
> 
> {wa'Hu' targh vIHoHpu'}
> "On yesterday, I killed the targh yesterday the killing of the targ was finished yesterday."
> (and it's definitely dead)
> 
> 
> -- 
> Lieven L. Litaer
> aka Quvar valer 'utlh
> Grammarian of the KLI
> http://www.facebook.com/Klingonteacher
> http://www.klingonwiki.net
> 
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