[tlhIngan Hol] adverb {rut} {motlh} and aspect {-pu'}

[SuStel]

On 5/4/2022 8:46 AM, D qunen'oS wrote:
> jIH:
> > During the previous summer, I never/always ate pizza.
> > (I'm describing specific instances of (not) pizza-eating, so this is 
> perfective)
> SuStel:
> > The first one is perfective if you're describing specific instances 
> of eating or not eating pizza,
> > but the English doesn't necessarily mean that. I always/never eat 
> pizza COULD mean the same
> > thing as I would always/never eat pizza, so its perfectiveness is 
> ambiguous outside of context.
>
> I'll write an example to see if I understand this correctly.
>
> "In ancient Greece people always honored the gods of Olympus"
>
> Outside of context this English sentence could mean either of the 
> following two:
>
> 1. Specific instances of honoring the gods which were always 
> happening. (perfective)
> 2. "In ancient Greece people would always honor the gods" (describing 
> something which used to happen) (imperfective)
>
> So, suppose I write:
>
> reH 'elaDya' tIQDaq olympus Qunpu' quvmoHpu' nuvpu'
> (this is the translation of the number 1 above)
>
> reH 'elaDya' tIQDaq olympus Qunpu' quvmoH nuvpu'
> (this is the translation of the number 2 above)
>
> Would you agree?

I would agree that the two sentences mean what you intend them to mean, 
but I can't see any way to take the English sentence to mean anything 
except the imperfective version. Unless you mean that no occasion of 
honoring the gods was ever missed, which is not really a reasonable 
thing to say. It's virtually impossible to separate the sentence from 
its implied context. You'd have to set up a fairly weird explicit 
context for me to override the apparently implied one.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name