[tlhIngan Hol] {je} "too" applying to the adverb

luis.chaparro at web.de luis.chaparro at web.de
Mon Apr 4 04:55:46 PDT 2022


SuStel:

> I mentioned this on Discord the other day: in Welsh, there actually is a rule that you cannot put stative verbs (like hope, think, belong, know) into the preterite tense (which is basically similar to Klingon's perfective aspect, but only applies in the past), in a way similar to how English generally cannot put stative verbs into the present progressive tense. I think it's entirely possible that a Klingon grammarian would say that in Klingon you generally cannot put a stative verb (and in Klingon, "stative" means not only stative verbs like those listed above, but also quality verbs) into the perfective aspect. No such rule has been written, and I'm not claiming that anybody has to follow that rule, but it does make sense.

In Spanish it's actually the opposite: You can put stative verbs into the preterite tense (Pretérito Indefinido) and you can also use this tense to speak about qualities in the past:

*Fue muy rebelde hasta que cumplió los 18 años* (*He/she was very rebellious until she/he turned 18* - Indefinido, the quality is presented as a completed whole)
*Era muy rebelde, así que tenía muchos problemas en la escuela* (*He/she was very rebellious, so he/she had a lot of problems at school* - Imperfecto, the quality is not presented as completed)

I'm not trying to say at all that Klingon works like Spanish. I just wanted to point out this feature of the Spanish language because I like the subject and I find it interesting.

By the way, I don't know how qualities and perfective work in Modern Greek, but in Spanish I would use imperfective, so I would have said: *ngugh bIpuj, DaH bIpuj je*.



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