[86046] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: KLBC: The North Wind and the Sun
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ghunchu'wI')
Fri Jun 26 21:48:12 2009
In-Reply-To: <f60fe000906261536i442cfcdfs40a19d3eccd10d56@mail.gmail.com>
From: "ghunchu'wI'" <qunchuy@alcaco.net>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:43:42 -0400
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Jun 26, 2009, at 6:36 PM, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 5:50 PM, David
> Trimboli<david@trimboli.name> wrote:
>> We generally accept that Okrand's use of aspect suffixes in TKD is
>> suspect, and we even know the reason: {-pu'} started out as a tense
>> suffix, but script rewrites forced him to change its meaning.
>
> Hm. I know about other changes, such as the infamous resubtitling of
> {qamapu' jonta' neH} "I told you engine only!" as "I wanted
> prisoners!", which gave us the noun {qama}, the use of {-pu'} as a
> plural suffix, the {-ta'} suffix for goal achievement, and the verb
> {neH}. (And took away the verb {ma} "tell", which became {ra}, to
> make the substitution less apparent.) But I'm not familiar with a
> script-triggered recasting of tense as aspect, and I can't think of
> any instances of {-pu'} in ST3 that weren't in the past tense as well
> as in the perfective aspect. Are the details available somewhere?
> HolQeD, perhaps?
That same repurposed line also removed tense-marking from the
language. Basically, {neH} has to carry a past tense meaning without
any indication of the fact, so by fiat all verbs came to carry past,
present, and future meanings.
I don't think Okrand's mention of it has ever been formally recorded
in an interview. During one of the informal sessions at a qep'a', he
was recounting his adventures during the creation of the language.
He told us off-handedly that some of TKD's examples are a little
muddled because {-pu'} was originally intended to be a past tense
marker. I boldly interrupted him with a surprised "Past tense?" and
he confirmed that I hadn't misheard him.
-- ghunchu'wI'
