[86915] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: Klingon Sentence Structure
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher Doty)
Sun Nov 22 14:05:10 2009
In-Reply-To: <1cb7130b0911211234t75626bdfg8ab894611a8fb391@mail.gmail.com>
From: Christopher Doty <suomichris@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:02:29 -0800
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
I'm confused by this discussion, especially ter'eS's comment that the
aspect suffix isn't needed. In TKD, it says clearly that "verbs with
no Type 7 [aspect] suffix are translated by the English simple present
tense." So without the -pu', the correct translation would be 'We
visit Earth' and not the intended 'We visited Earth'.
Why do we think we don't need the perfective marker here?
Chris
On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 12:34, Tracy Canfield <toastrix@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd say that the aspect suffix depends on a larger context. If I
> heard the English sentence on its own, I'd assume the speaker meant
> both "on one occasion in particular" and "now we're back", but that
> wouldn't have to be true.
>
> In French, for example, which marks aspect in the past tense, we have
>
> Samedi on a visité la terre <- just once, perfective
> We visited Earth on Friday
>
> Le samedi on visitait la terre <- repeatedly, imperfective
> We visited Earth every Friday
>
> The same English verb, "visited", can describe either the completed or
> the repeated action. So I agree that its translation doesn't
> necessarily require a perfective suffix.
>
> 2009/11/21 Terrence Donnelly <terrence.donnelly@sbcglobal.net>:
>> --- On Sat, 11/21/09, Tracy Canfield <toastrix@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Finally, since the visit is completed, we need an aspect
>>> suffix -
>>> something that tells whether an action is completed, in
>>> progress, or
>>> neither. The marker for a completed action is -pu'.
>>>
>>> visited - wISuchpu'
>>>
>>> Put them all together and you get
>>>
>>> tera' wISuchpu' jIH SoH je
>>>
>>
>> I would dispute the need for the aspect suffix; otherwise, very nicely put.
>>
>> -- ter'eS
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
