[tlhIngan Hol] vaj and meqvammo' difference

[Will Martin]

One would think that by now, I’d have the perfective down.

I’m not trying to argue here. I trust your understanding of the perfective and want your advice to steer me away from my thinking. I was starting with “Because I had been hungry, I ordered pizza.” The ordering was simple past, so not perfective. The hunger, within the time setting of ordering the pizza, was a level farther into the past.

To some extent, both the ordering of the pizza and my hunger are now complete, since I ordered and ate the pizza.

Please clarify. I tend to renew my understanding of the perfective after your explanations and I thank you in advance.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

> On Oct 6, 2020, at 9:59 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 10/6/2020 9:38 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
>> {vaj} {meqvammo'} bopbogh vay''e' vIyajbe'.
>> 
>> vaj = so, then, thus, in that case
>> meqvammo' = because of this reason
>> 
>> jIjatlh vIneH: "I was hungry so I ordered a pizza".
>> 
>> jIghungpu'; vaj pItSa' vIvunpu'
>> jIghungpu'; meqvammo' pItSa' vIvunpu'.
>> 
>> chay' pIm cha' mu'tlheghvam ?
> Before I get to the main point, your use of perfective here is incorrect. jIghungpu' describes the completed state of you being hungry. If your hunger were completed, you would not need to order pizza, because you would no longer be hungry.
> 
> jIghung; vaj pItSa' chab vIvunpu'.
> jIghungmo', pItSa' chab vIvunpu'.
> 
> These are the "standard" ways to say this. The use of vaj came with the first edition of The Klingon Dictionary; the -mo' verb suffix came with the second edition. (I've sometimes wondered if there were no -mo' in the first edition because you could do the same thing with vaj.)
> 
> meqvammo' does mean what you say it means, but it's not some formulaic way that Klingons have to show cause and effect. I think it's based on something you probably say habitually in Greek or English.
> 
> The two sentences vaj pItSa' chab vIvunpu' and meqvammo' chab vIvunpu' differ only in that one employs an adverbial to show a logical link and one employs a subordinate clause.
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
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