[tlhIngan Hol] thinking in aspect

[SuStel]

On 2/12/2020 8:24 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
> Klingon doesn't have a passive voice..
>
> instead, it has the indefinite subject suffix {-lu'}, which means
> "someone/something unspecified does/is".
>
> Now..
>
> True, one *could* translate the sentence {vIghro' leghlu'} as "the cat
> is seen", but the exact/literal translation of this sentence, is
> "someone/something unspecified sees the cat".

/The cat is seen /is an "exact/literal translation." So is 
/someone/something unspecified sees the cat./ When translating between 
languages that don't share similar grammar, you ignore the grammar of 
the original and just translate the concepts.

When we go out of our way to say /someone/something unspecified sees the 
cat,/ what we're doing is illustrating how the grammar of the Klingon 
means what it means by casting the English is a more similar form.


> Klingon, not only lacks a passive voice, but it lacks tenses too.
>
> Saying {yotwI' Suv 'avwI'} can mean any of the following:
>
> the guard fights the intruder
> the guard fought the intruder
> the guard will fight the intruder
>
> All these alternate translations are valid, and the thing which will
> define which of them is meant by the author, depends either on
> context, or on the presence of time stamps.
>
> But lets say, I write:
>
> {wa'Hu', yotwI' Suv 'avwI'}
>
> What does it mean ?
>
> Some time ago, when I'd see it, without hesitation, I'd translate it
> as "yesterday, the guard fought the intruder".
>
> But recently I realized, that as in the case of the {-lu'} the literal
> translation isn't passive voice, here too, the literal translation is
> different..
>
> It's not "yesterday, the guard fought the intruder"; it's rather
> "yesterday, the guard fights the intruder".
>
> Now, perhaps someone may wonder: "is this distinction important, and
> if yes then why ?".
>
> I think, that It's *very* important, because once someone begins to
> think in the literal meaning of what the grammar of the sentence in
> question actually says, then he'll be better able to use aspect
> properly, depending on what he actually wants to say.
>
> Lets see an example:
>
> {wa'Hu', yotwI' Suvmo' 'avwI', QeHchoH HoD} = Yesterday, because the
> guard fights the intruder, the captain becomes angry. (the two events
> happen simultaneously)
>
> {wa'Hu', yotwI' Suvpu'mo' 'avwI', QeHchoHpu' HoD} = Yesterday, because
> the guard has fought the intruder, the captain has become angry. (the
> event of the guard fighting the intruder has been completed, the
> captain became angry sometime either during the fight or after it had
> been completed, and the event of the becoming of the captain has been
> also completed)
>
> {wa'Hu', yotwI' Suvpu'mo' 'avwI', QeHchoH HoD} = Yesterday, because
> the guard has fought the intruder, the captain becomes angry. (the
> event of the guard fighting the intruder has been completed, and then
> the captain becomes angry because of that event)
>
> {wa'Hu', yotwI' Suvmo' 'avwI', QeHchoHpu' HoD} = Yesterday, because
> the guard fights the intruder, the captain has become angry. (the
> guard fights the intruder, without their fight having being completed,
> but the event of the becoming angry of the captain is completed)
>
> .. As is seen from these examples, there are variations between the
> meaning of each sentence, which variations can only be perceived if
> someone understands *exactly* what his eyes are actually reading,
> without assigning the meaning of past tense to a verb, just because
> that verb is being preceded by a {wa'Hu'}.
>
> Or the meaning of future tense, just because the verb is being
> preceded by a {wa'leS}.

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying.

Let me start with something a little simpler. *wa'Hu' yotwI' Suvpu' 
'avwI'*/Yesterday the guard fought the invader./ Here I am, today, 
telling you how this event happened and was completed yesterday. The 
*-pu'* is needed because I want to describe an event as a complete 
whole: the fight happened and was finished and here we are, today, 
talking about it.

If I drop the *-pu',* I remove this completed aspect of the meaning. 
*wa'Hu' yotwI' Suv 'avwI'. *Here I am today, telling you about fighting 
that occurred yesterday, but I describe it as being something that 
didn't have a finishing point. Not finishing could mean a bunch of 
different things. I might be setting the viewpoint of the sentence in 
the middle of the fight yesterday. ("So there I am yesterday, standing 
in the middle of an invasion. I call for help. A guard shows up. One of 
the invaders attacks him. The guard fights the invader. The invader 
falls for a feint, and the guard kills him." The viewpoint of the story 
is advancing along with the narrative. Each sentence is the current 
moment as it happens.) I might be describing a general fact that isn't 
an actual event. ("We spent all day yesterday fighting our respective 
enemies, retreating, and going back for more. I was fighting a sabre 
bear. The captain was fighting energy beings. The guard was fighting an 
invader.")

> {wa'Hu', yotwI' Suvmo' 'avwI', QeHchoH HoD} = Yesterday, because the
> guard fights the intruder, the captain becomes angry. (the two events
> happen simultaneously)

They might be simultaneous. But the important thing is that they're not 
complete or continuous. The sentence might be putting the listener in 
the viewpoint of the action as it's happening. Or it might be talking 
about how it's the guard's job to fight invaders, and because of that, 
the captain becomes angry. (*yotwI' Suvmo' 'avwI'*///because the guard 
fights intruders /may refer to the guard's job to fight intruders rather 
than a particular fight with a particular intruder.)

What it /doesn't /mean is "Remember yesterday, when the guard fought the 
invader? The sure made the captain angry!" Those actions /(fought, made 
angry)/ are being described from a viewpoint of today, where they are 
already completed.

> {wa'Hu',
>        yotwI' Suvpu'mo' 'avwI', QeHchoHpu' HoD} = Yesterday, because
>        the guard has fought the intruder, the captain has become angry.
>        (the
>        event of the guard fighting the intruder has been completed, the
>        captain became angry sometime either during the fight or after it
>        had
>        been completed, and the event of the becoming of the captain has
>        been
>        also completed)

The presence of *-pu'* does not order the events described. Ordering 
events, saying something comes before or after something else, is tense. 
This sentence is looking back on the events of yesterday and telling us 
that the fighting is completed and the getting angry is completed. It is 
merely implicit that the fighting started before the getting angry could 
occur, since the one caused the other. But it is not necessarily the 
case that the fighting was over before the anger was begun.

> {wa'Hu', yotwI' Suvpu'mo' 'avwI', QeHchoH HoD} = Yesterday, because
> the guard has fought the intruder, the captain becomes angry. (the
> event of the guard fighting the intruder has been completed, and then
> the captain becomes angry because of that event)

The order is correct, but you have missed the full implications. First 
of all, the *wa'Hu'* seems to be attached to the subordinate clause 
rather than the main clause, so this might be interpreted as *[wa'Hu' 
yotwI' Suvpu'mo' 'avwI'], QeHchoH HoD.* This would mean that we're here 
today, looking back on the events of yesterday, and describing the fight 
that occurred and was completed. The captain is with us now, and gets 
angry in this moment while reflecting upon this fight.

Another interpretation you may have meant would be something like 
*[wa'Hu' QeHchoH HoD], yotwI' Suvpu'mo' 'avwI'.* We're here today, but 
the speaker is setting us into the viewpoint of something that happened 
yesterday, putting us into that moment. At the moment, the captain is 
getting angry. He or she is getting angry about the fact that the guard 
fought the invader. We don't know when the guard fought the invader, 
only that it occurred and was completed sometime before the captain gets 
angry. But this "before" is due to our understanding of cause and 
effect, not due to any tense markings or time stamps.

*-pu'* does NOT NOT NOT mean "before the given time context." That would 
be tense. *-pu'* means "described as a completed event."

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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