[tlhIngan Hol] Perfective with qualities / perfective and perfect

[SuStel]

On 4/12/2022 10:48 AM, luis.chaparro at web.de wrote:
> SuStel:
>
>> I understand the difference. In English you can replicate this with simple past and past perfect tenses:
>> The conversation was very unpleasant, so I decided to leave. (The decision took place during the unpleasant conversation.)
>> The conversation had been very unpleasant, so I decided to leave. (The decision took place after the unpleasant conversation was over.)
>> All I can say is that Spanish imperfect and preterite tenses include a sense of "past" that Klingon verbs don't have. You can't set up multiple levels of being in the past just with verbs. You need other words to establish contexts.
> So the way to distinguish in Klingon between *The conversation was very unpleasant* and *The conversation had been very unpleasant* is adding time context, as you do in your examples:

Well, the way to distinguish in Klingon between the decision to leave 
happening during a conversation or after it is to give time context to 
when the conversation and the decision happen. Klingon verbs happen when 
you say they happen. If you don't say when they happen and there is no 
context to figure that out, then when they happen is left vague.


>> DaSjaj naH ja'chuqghach, ngugh vaj jImejpu' 'e' vIwuq. On Monday, the conversation was hostile, so I decided to leave at that time.
>> DaSjaj naH ja'chuqghach, povjaj vaj jImejpu' 'e' vIwuq. On Monday, the conversation was hostile, so on Tuesday I decided to leave.
> Right?

Yes.


>> I would choose a more specific word; I don't think Klingon has one that covers everything that unpleasant does. Examples: baw'Ha'moH ja'chuqghach The conversation makes one uncomfortable, worried, hesitant; [...]
> I like this one! By the way, I know we shouldn't use *-ghach* with verbs without a suffix, that's why I added *-taH*, but (I see it now) since *ja'chuq* has already a suffix, it wouldn't have been necessary. Is there any important difference between *ja'chuqghach* and *ja'chuqtaHghach*?

*ja'chuqghach*/a telling to each other
/*ja'chuqtaHghach* /an ongoing telling to each other/

>>> 2. *wa'Hu' rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu'* could have two interpretations, right?: *Yesterday, I ate at 12 pm* (perfective) or *Yesterday, I had (already) eaten at 12 pm*. Is context (or maybe adding something like *wejHa'*) the only way to distinguish these meanings?
>> wa'Hu' rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu' means that you ate lunch at noon, not that you had already eaten lunch when noon rolled around.
> Ok. I think that's the same problem again. Without further context, *wa'Hu' rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu'* means *Yesterday, I ate at 12 pm*. So if I want to get the meaning *Yesterday, I had already eaten at 12 pm*, I must add something. Maybe *wa'Hu' rep wa'maH cha' wejHa' jISoppu'*?

Yes, that works. Or you could say something like *wa'Hu' wa'maH cha'logh 
Qoylu'pu'pa', jISoppu'*/Yesterday before noon, I had eaten./

//

>>> 3. I discussed this in another thread, I only want to be sure I understood it correctly: Although the sentence in 2 has for the past those two interpretations (perfective not perfect and perfective perfect), for the future (despite the fact this could be otherway in other languages) there is in Klingon only a *perfective perfect* interpretation (not a *perfective not perfect* one): *wa'leS rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu'* can only be *Tomorrow, I will have eaten at 12 pm*, right?
>> It just so happens that in English we have only one kind of perfective future tense: the future perfect. This doesn't affect what the Klingon means; it only affects our translations of the Klingon. Without any time context given, jISoppu' means that I perform an act of eating, expressed as a completed whole with no view of the flow of time within it. It can equally take place in the past, present, or future without any change in meaning. It's just the case that when translating into other languages that DO change tenses based on past, present, and future, you don't get equal treatment of Klingon perfective.
> Ok. But if *wa'leS rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu'* translates as *Tomorrow, I will have eaten at 12 pm*, we are forcing the interpretation that the eating will be finished *before* 12 pm and that's exactly the opposite we do in the past: Without further context *wa'Hu' rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu'* means *Yesterday, I ate at 12 pm*, not *Yesterday, I had eaten at 12 pm*. Am I missing something?

This is simply a limitation of English. In English you are not allowed 
to say "at noon tomorrow I ate." The only kind of future perfective 
aspect possible in English is the future perfect tense.

English perfect tenses have a connotation of "happened before the named 
time, but is somehow relevant to the named time." If I say /I have 
eaten,/ what I'm saying is that there was a point in the past where I 
ate, and that act is somehow relevant to the present. If I say /Tomorrow 
at noon I will have eaten,/ what I'm saying is that at noon tomorrow 
eating will be in my past, and the act of eating will somehow be 
relevant to whatever happens at noon.

Klingon has no suffix that does this. If I say *wa'Hu' DungluQ 
jISoppu',* there is no built-in connotation that I ate before noon 
yesterday and that the eating is relevant to what happened at noon. All 
this sentence says is that yesterday at noon, I ate, and it's being 
described as a completed whole from a viewpoint just after the eating 
stopped. If I say *wa'leS DungluQ jISoppu',* I'm saying that eating will 
happen tomorrow at noon, and it's being described as a completed whole 
from a viewpoint just after the eating stops.

If you want the "past event relevant to the named time" stuff in 
Klingon, then you have to say it explicitly. *wa'Hu' DungluQ jISoppu', 
pov vaj pe'vIl jISuvpu'*/I ate at noon yesterday, so in the afternoon I 
fought forcefully./ I named the time context for each verb to clearly 
set their temporal order and used *vaj* to show that the one led to the 
other.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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