[Tlhingan-hol] Aspect, etc

[De'vID]

De'vID:
>>> {'opHu' targh vIHoH} "some day in the past, I killed a targ".

lojmIt tI'wI' nuv:
>> ... which is pretty much indistinguishable in meaning to {targh
>> vIHoHpu'.}

As others have explained, they are not indistinguishable. They mean
different things.

I think it might be helpful to imagine this from the perspective of
someone who speaks a language with no tense, learning a language which
has tense (like English). For example, in a tense-less language, [he
go to store] can mean "he went to the store, he goes/is going to the
store, or he will go to the store".

You might read in an introductory textbook on the language that "the
absence of past and present tense markers usually means that the
action takes place in the present" or something like that.

And then you might read something like, "On Wednesday, he goes to the
store" (and not "he will go to the store"). It looks like something
that is taking place in the future, but expressed in present tense.
One might be tempted to infer from this that perhaps (future) tense is
optional. But that would be the wrong conclusion. Perhaps we are
describing the weekly schedule of a deliveryperson. Both "he goes to
the store" and "he will go to the store" map to [he go to store] in
your tense-less language, but they are not indistinguishable in
English.

SuStel:
> Frankly, both versions are a bit wrong. {'opHu' targh vIHoH} describes an
> action that is not completed, as if I spent the day killing several targs,
> or torturing one targ to death.

I agree that it's a bit wrong, but in the absence of context it's a
possible and sensible translation of the Klingon sentence, though in
retrospect maybe not the best one.

Because English doesn't mark aspect (grammatically), when translating
from a language with aspect into English, it's possible for two
different sentences to be translated into the same English sentence.
This is a difficulty when trying to explain aspect to an English
speaker.

{wa'Hu' targh vIHoH} and {wa'Hu' targh vIHoHpu'} can both be
translated into English as "yesterday, I killed targ", i.e.,
"yesterday, I killed (an unspecified number of) targ(s)". But they do
imply different things about my killing of targs.

{wa'Hu' targh vIHoHpu'} means that a closed event of targ-killing took
place. I killed one or more targs yesterday. And that's the end of the
event I'm talking about. I may or may not kill targs outside of this
event, but that cannot be inferred from this sentence.

{wa'Hu' targh vIHoH} means that I killed targs yesterday, but that my
targ-killing is neither completed nor continuous. The implication is
that, while I killed targ yesterday, I'm not done with killing targs.

Again, I'm relying on my Cantonese intuition here, which may or may
not be identical to how things work in Klingon. But I can imagine a
butcher shop in First City's Chinatown on Kronos, where I can ask the
proprietor in Cantonese [you yesterday kill what?] (= {wa'Hu' nuq
DaHoH?} and [you yesterday kill-perfective what?] (= {wa'Hu' nuq
DaHoHpu'?}, both of which may be translated into English as "what did
you kill yesterday?", but which imply different things about the
answer.

With the perfective, I am asking him about a specific event. I know he
killed an animal yesterday. Which animal was it? {wa'Hu' targh
vIHoHpu'} "Yesterday, I killed a targ (or targs)."

Without the perfective, I am asking him about a general truth, or
habit, or something like that. Perhaps he has a regular weekly or
monthly schedule, but I'm confused about the dates. He kills targs on
even days and krogs on odd days, or vice versa, and I've forgotten
which. Which animal did you kill yesterday? {wa'Hu' targh vIHoH}
"Yesterday, I killed a targ (or targs)." That is, yesterday is a day
on which I kill targ (and not krog). His targ-killing is neither
completed (he will kill targ again tomorrow), nor continuous (he's not
doing it today).

He could have killed one, and exactly one, targ yesterday, and it
would be perfectly fine for him to say {wa'Hu' targh vIHoH} in that
context. It does not require him to have killed several targs, nor did
he have to have spent the whole day torturing one targ to death, for
that to make sense. (But it also does not make {-pu'} optional,
because adding {-pu'} changes the meaning of what he is saying.)

I can see a possibility here that Klingon might not work the same as
in Cantonese here, which is that the timestamp and the null-aspect
might interact in a different way. In Cantonese, the "yesterday"
applies to the act of killing, and the lack of aspect markers
indicates (as in Klingon) that the action isn't one of the things
indicated by an aspect marker (completed, continuous, etc.), but there
is no requirement that the action is not-completed, etc., only within
the scope of the timestamp. Your suggestion that the combination of
the timestamp {'opHu'} with the lack of {-pu'} means that the speaker
didn't complete the action within the given day makes the (I believe
unwarranted) assumption that the timestamp scopes the aspect. I think
they are independent: {wa'Hu'} or {'opHu'} means that {HoH} took place
on a particular day; the lack of {-pu'} (and any other aspect marker)
means that {HoH} describes an action which is neither completed nor
continuous. Taken together, the speaker killed on that day, and has
not completed the overall action of killing, but that does not imply
that he did not complete the portion of the action of killing which
falls on that day. Of course, your implicit assumption might be
correct. We'd have to look at some canon sentences with timestamps,
with and without aspect markers, and see how they are translated in
the context in which they appear.

The above is just a long-winded way of saying that "some day in the
past, I killed a targ" is a perfectly good translation of {'opHu'
targh vIHoH}. It's just not the only way to translate that sentence,
nor the only sentence which can have that English translation.

SuStel:
> {targh vIHoHpu'} describes the completed
> killing of one or more targs, but doesn't say anything at all about when
> this took place, past, present, or future.

Yup.

Perhaps the butcher received a live shipment of targ today, and he
intends to kill and sell some targ tomorrow: {wa'leS targ vIHoHpu'}.

SuStel:
> If I want to express the idea that several days ago I killed a targ and it
> was a completed action, that would be {'op Hu' targh vIHoHpu'}.

Yes, that would be a better way to translate what most English
speakers probably mean when they say "some day in the past, I killed a
targ".

If I had written the English sentence first, that's probably how I
would've translated it into Klingon. But I wrote the Klingon sentence
first, and then translated that into English.

--
De'vID