[Tlhingan-hol] Aspect, etc

[De'vID]

QISta':
> But this does remind me of the "itist-atist" controversy in Esperanto
> history (I guess -ot- was never an issue). [...]

QISta':
> So basically, because being born is an action involving a conclusive end
> result, it's easy to see the distinction here. In one case, the event of
> John's birth happens and is completed sometime in 1991 (theoretically it
> could have happened before then, but that's extremely unlikely because if
> someone meant to say that they'd say it explicitly). In the other, a
> continuous action of John being born was going on in 1991. Like maybe if he
> was born at midnight on New Year's Day, one could say "Johano estis naskata
> en 1991, sed naskita en 1992".
>
> Does it seem that I understand this concept of aspect? Or am I just
> confusing you? :-/

What you describe sounds exactly like what we're talking about.

This is the canonical way to say when someone was born or how old he
is, in Klingon:
{loSmaH ben jIboghpu'} "I am 40 years old"

Without the {-pu'}, it sounds odd, at least when describing the birth
of a single person. But since we're talking Star Trek, we can perhaps
imagine a species with a long (decades or centuries) birthing process
involving multiple offspring. In that case, {loSmaH ben boghpu' chaH}
would mean they were born (had completed being born) 40 years ago, but
{loSmaH ben bogh chaH} would mean that (some part of) the action of
their being born took place 40 years ago, but that it didn't
necessarily finish 40 years ago.

-- 
De'vID