[Tlhingan-hol] Aspect, etc

[Alan Anderson]

SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> Wait a second... You're not arguing about TKD's translation conventions, are you?
> How it says it translates {-pu'} as present perfect in English, and so forth?

No, I was referring to the second paragraph in section 4.2.7. which
you often quote: "The absence of a Type 7 suffix usually means that
the action is not completed and is not continuous (that is, it is not
one of the things indicated by the Type 7 suffixes). Verbs with no
Type 7 suffix are translated by the English simple present tense."

Two of the paq'batlh examples describe what I read as ongoing actions.
You even pointed that out in the {bot} passage:
> ...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.

Though "the blocking [is] still going on", you explain the lack of a
{-taH} suffix by saying that the story is "just describing the FACT of
the blocking." I do not see a distinction between that and "doesn't
need the aspect suffix because that's not what the focus is on."

> Remember, perfective is not just "completed," it's "completed and viewing
> the action as a whole, without visualizing how it behaves over time."

That might be what "perfective" means in general linguistic usage. But
the part of the definition after "completed" is not how TKD defines
{-pu'}. I can think of only a single example that makes more sense
with your interpretation than with the TKD-only one: {X ben jIboghpu'}
for "I am X years old." Nothing else I know of hints at a "viewing the
action as a whole" meaning for {-pu'} -- except for the word
"perfective" itself, which is identified in multiple places only as
"completed". The description of the {rIntaH} equivalent of {-ta'} also
uses the words "finished, accomplished". There's no indication of an
"atomic view" of the action. The consistent explanation of Klingon
perfective is simply that the action is completed.

Generic "pure" perfective is a dot without internal structure? Fine,
I'll accept that. But I think there is adequate evidence that Klingon
perfective does not match such an ideal definition.

-- ghunchu'wI'