[tlhIngan Hol] -meH with -pu'/-ta'

[SuStel]

On 3/13/2019 11:37 AM, Steven Boozer wrote:
> I don’t find it quite as odd as Sustel does.  I read {vIghro' tIQ 
> vIje'ta'meH} as “In order for me to have (successfully) purchased the 
> ancient cat”, although I probably wouldn’t have used an aspect suffix 
> myself.  E.g. providing some context:   In order for me to have 
> purchased the cat, I would have needed to use a credit card (which I 
> didn’t have with me at the time).

It's not the perfective on the purpose clause I find odd, it's the 
situation that the sentence is describing that didn't seem to match the 
perfective.

/In order to buy the ancient cat, I sacrificed all my money./

The sentence is being uttered at a point after the money is sacrificed — 
the wasting is completed. But in the act of sacrificing, the purpose was 
to buy, not to already have bought, a cat. Hence, *vIghro' **vIje'meH 
Huch vI'anmoHpu' *(simplified for brevity).

Your sentence presents an irrealis: *vIghro' vIje'ta'meH Huch 
vI'anmoH**pu'*/In order to have bought the cat, I [would have] 
sacrificed money./ I don't know that this is going to be interpreted as 
rrealis by Klingons; the only irrealis we really know anything about is 
formed with *net jalchugh.* You might get it by saying something like 
*vIghro' vIje'ta' net jalchugh, vIje'meH Huch vI'anmoHpu'*/If I had 
bought the cat, to buy it I would have sacrificed money./

I think trying to put perfective on the purpose clause here is to 
attempt time travel, where my current action causes an already-completed 
action. If you can say *vIghro' vIje'meH Huch vI'anmoHpu'*/to buy the 
cat I sacrificed money,/ and you apparently can, then what exactly does 
adding perfective to the purpose clause do? Maybe *vIje'ta'meH* means 
/so that I close the deal?/

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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