[Tlhingan-hol] Aspect, etc

[SuStel]

On 12/3/2015 1:28 PM, Will Martin wrote:
> Are you suggesting that any statement without an explicit time stamp or
> perfective suffix is a generic statement about habits, and not a
> statement about a specific instance of an action that occurred at a
> specifiable time?

No. There are lots of possible interpretations of sentences without time 
stamps or perfective, some of which are indicated by other sentence 
elements and some of which are indicated by context. I only claim what 
TKD claims, that a verb without a perfective suffix indicates a 
non-completed action in the past, present, or future.

But if I want to speak of something that happened and then finished 
happening, I have to use a perfective suffix; I can't leave it off.

Here are a couple of examples from paq'batlh:

    juHchajvo' qet loDnI'pu'
    the brothers ran from their home

In the context of the story, this happens just after their father dies; 
we have a time context but no explicit time stamp. It makes no sense at 
this point to talk of the brothers having the habit of running from 
their home. They run, but the running is not a completed action in this 
sentence. It's also not continuous, so we're not talking about an 
ongoing run, even though one could theoretically put a timer to it and 
see that it's not instantaneous. It's simply stating the FACT that 
running happened.

    ghIq Hechaj bot QIStaq
    until Kri'stak blocks their path

Kri'stak is not in the habit of blocking the brothers' path; he just 
does it this one time. But we're not talking about the beginning and the 
end of the blocking; we're talking about the blocking happening and 
continuing the story with the blocking still going on. We're just 
describing the FACT of the blocking.

    qaQaH DaneHbe'chugh vaj qul wIchenmoH 'ej matlhutlh
    if you don't want my help then let's light a fire and drink

Here the speaker is stating something he INTENDS to do. There is no 
morphological indication that this is an intention, but it makes no 
sense in this part of the story to say "if you don't wany my help then 
we are making a fire and we are drinking." Okrand could have used {-jaj} 
on those verbs, but he didn't have to: lacking suffixes lets us 
interpret them as required according to context.

And of course we have simple qualities, like {jI'oj} "I am thirsty" and 
{SuDal} "all of you are boring," which don't describe habits but 
describe states or qualities.

Then there's the ever-favorite

    bIje'be'chugh vaj bIHegh
    buy or die

which gives the main verb an implied subjunctive mood. You're not 
actually dying, you haven't actually died, and you're not necessarily 
going to die in the future; you WILL die IF you do not pay. Dying is not 
your habit; it is your fate IF you do not comply.

None of these have perfective or time stamps, yet context and other 
sentence elements clearly indicate something other than habit is 
intended. I didn't even bother pulling out other simple verb suffixes, 
many of which also indicate something other than perfective.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name