[tlhIngan Hol] finer shades of perfective aspect

[Jeffrey Clark]

Perhaps:

‘op poH ret Qo’noS DaSuch’a’?

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 27, 2019, at 11:33, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Every time aspect comes up in conversation about Klingon, I try to think of examples in Cantonese Chinese, which also has aspect. Cantonese actually has a finer grained system of aspect than Klingon, so that Klingon perfective might map onto the Cantonese perfective (咗), completive (完), exhaustive (哂), or experiential (過) aspects, depending on context.
> 
> The completive indicates that the person performing an action has done as much as they can or intend to do, whether the task is actually done or not. (You would negate this aspect if, for example, the person was interrupted.) The exhaustive indicates that the action has been performed to the point where it is actually completely done and can no longer be continued. The experiential indicates whether someone has ever performed an action or not.
> 
> The subtle differences between these aspect markers allows conversations like the following:
> 
> Parent: "Are you done [perfective] your homework?"
> Child: "Yes, I'm done [completive] my homework." (I've done as much as I am going to, and I don't feel like doing any more.)
> Parent: "But are you done [exhaustive] your homework?" (You may not want to do any more, but is there any homework left undone?)
> 
> I thought about recreating this scenario in Klingon, and I thought that the combination of {-chu'} with {-pu'} might express something like the Cantonese exhaustive.
> 
> qup: {bIqeqpu''a'?}
> puq: {HIja', jIqeqpu'.}
> qup: {'ach bIqeqchu'pu''a'?}
> 
> What do people think? Does that convey the meaning? Technically it's asking if the training had been done perfectly, but surely one's training can't be perfectly completed unless it is completely completed.
> 
> I've always thought the exhaustive aspect to be very useful, and wish we had it in Klingon.
> 
> The experiential aspect indicates if something had ever been done before. In English, it would be expressed with the word "ever". For example, "Have you visited [experiential] Qo'noS?" means "Have you ever visited Qo'noS?" In contrast, "Have you visited [perfective] Qo'noS?" would be asking if you've completed one particular trip to Qo'noS, perhaps a planned trip known to the asker. 
> 
> (Aside: Using the completive aspect here would imply that the listener isn't going to be visiting Qo'noS any more, perhaps because it's the last item on their bucket list. Using the exhaustive aspect would be asking if the listener has visited every part of Qo'noS! That might not make sense for a planet, but it's a sensible question to ask about a smaller geographic area, like a neighbourhood or small region.)
> 
> In Klingon, {Qo'noS DaSuchpu''a'?} seems it could be asking either the regular perfective or the experiential meaning. Absent other context, I'd lean towards interpreting this question with the experiential meaning, but if the conversation is about a planned trip, then I'd interpret it as the sense expressed by the Cantonese perfective. However, I'm uncertain how to clarify between these two interpretations in Klingon. {wej Qo'noS DaSuch'a'?} seems like it would be subject to the same interpretations, with the added implication that you should/will visit Qo'noS at some point. 
> 
> How would you differentiate "Have you ever visited Qo'noS?" (experiential meaning) vs. "Have you made your visit to Qo'noS?" (perfective meaning), in Klingon? 
> 
> -- 
> De'vID
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