[tlhIngan Hol] Present tense and context

[luis.chaparro at web.de]

SuStel:

>The only time context I could possibly piece together from this is from the word jImejpa', which isn't jImejpu'pa', so you're not describing something before I left (a competed act); you're describing something happening contemporaneous with some viewpoint, possibly before I leave (an imperfective act, presumably in the future) .

Yes, I'd noticed that *jImejpa'* could be the key for not interpreting it in the past, but I felt a little insecure. I wasn't sure if I should even use *-pu'* with *-pa'* or *-DI'* for the future, but probably I was influenced by the German *nachdem* (*after*), which always comes with the present perfect or the past perfect.

>Now, Klingons aren't computers, and they don't interpret their language procedurally. If you try to overspecify your time contexts, you'll just write an uncouth mess. It's a balancing act between making things clear and speaking elegantly.
>The trick for us is to remember that in translating into Klingon from other languages, we may lose some time context contained in the other languages' verbs that we didn't even notice was there.

That's in fact the advice I was looking for. I didn't like the idea of overspecifying time context and that's why I was trying to understand time context in Klingon. Thank you!