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<p>Look, the discussion about what needs aspect and what doesn't has
splintered and gotten very confusing. Let me try to start over.</p>
<p>Aspect is that part of a verb that tells you how an action
proceeds over time. It does not tell you <i>when</i> the action
took place. In English, it is impossible to use a verb without
combining aspect and the time-telling information—these are
English tenses, and Klingon does not have them.</p>
<p>The <b>-taH</b><i> continuous</i> and <b>-lI'</b><i>
progressive</i> aspects tell us that an action is ongoing over
time. Imagine a point on a timeline. That point is the time we're
talking about in the sentence, like <b>DaH</b><i> now</i> or <b>jajlo'</b><i>
[at] dawn.</i> The continuous and progressive aspects tell us
that the action of the sentence was happening before that point on
the timeline and will be happening after that point on the
timeline.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>DaH jIqettaH<br>
</b><i>I am running now</i></p>
<pre> >···-----------···> <-Running
• <-Now
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><b>jajlo' HoDvaD jIjatlhlI'<br>
</b><i>when I boarded the ship I was talking to the captain</i></p>
<pre> >···-----------···> <-Talking
• <-Dawn
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
If I leave off the continuous or progressive suffix, I'm describing
that explicitly does <i>not</i> progress over time. Does it happen
over and over? Does it happen sporadically? Does it happen
throughout the timeline or just over a piece of it? We don't know
without further context, though we do know that it's <i>not</i>
continuous or progressive over the point on the timeline.<br>
<blockquote>
<p><b>DaH jIqet<br>
</b><i>I run now</i></p>
<pre> ??????????????????????????????????????<-Running
• <-Now
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><b>jajlo' HoDvaD jIjatlh<br>
</b><i>when I board the ship I speak to the captain</i></p>
<pre> ??????????????????????????????????????<-Talking
• <-Dawn
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>The <b>-pu'</b> <i>perfective</i> and <b>-ta'</b><i>
accomplished</i> aspects tell us that the action of the sentence
is completed in the performance of that action. If you again
imagine the timeline with its dot as the time-context, the
perfective and accomplished aspects tell us that the action <i>stops</i>
at the dot. We do <i>not</i> know without further context whether
the action was occurring before the dot, or if the action is
itself merely a dot.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>wa'maH cha' vatlh rep jISoppu'<br>
</b><i>I ate at noon (specifies an end to the eating)</i></p>
<pre> • <-Eating
• <-Noon
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
<p>Yes, eating a meal takes more than an instant, but a dot on the
timeline doesn't necessarily represent an instant, just a "unit"
of contextual time. Even in English, "I ate lunch" could mean I
started putting food in my face, or it could mean I fed myself
and moved on. In Klingon, it can only mean the latter.<br>
</p>
<p><b>tlhom vaS'a'Daq vIjaHta'<br>
</b><i>I went to the Great Hall at dusk<br>
</i></p>
<pre> • <-Going
• <-Dusk
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>In Klingon, it's also possible to complete an action that is not
necessarily a dot, typically by referring to a lengthy or
repetitive or habitual or general action that stops being true:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>qaSpa' DaHjaj yIHmey vIHoHpu'<br>
</b><i>I have killed tribbles before today</i></p>
<pre> • • • • • • • • • •| <-Killing
• <-Today
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Once again, removing the aspect from these sentences makes them
mean something very different:<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>wa'maH cha' vatlh rep jISop<br>
</b><i>I eat at noon</i> (probably your regular habit of eating
at noon)<br>
</p>
<pre> ??????????????????????????????????????<-Eating
• <-Noon
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
<p><b>tlhom vaS'a'Daq vIjaH<br>
</b><i>I go to the Great Hall at dusk </i>(perhaps said by a
guard on patrol)</p>
<pre> ?????????????????????????????????????<-Going
• <-Dusk
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>In all this, you must remember, it doesn't matter whether an
action was actually instantaneous or not. This is language, and a
sentence reflects the speaker's perspective in every utterance,
not an objective reality. When I say <b>DungluQ megh vISoppu'</b><i>
I ate lunch at noon,</i> I don't mean that lunch was an
instantaneous event the moment the sun was directly overhead. I'm
treating the event grammatically as an atomic whole, an event seen
as indivisible in the telling. I'm not thinking of lunch as an
event with various parts, just as "an event," a single thing, a
blip in the timeline.</p>
<p>But the lunch obviously <i>did</i> take time to occur, so if I
become interested in the breakdown of that lunch <i><b>in another
sentence,</b></i> I can change my perspective. <b>megh
vISoptaHvIS maja'chuq jIH DeghwI' je</b><i> while I ate lunch,
the helmsman and I had a conversation.</i> Now lunch is expanded
to a continuous event in which I can place another event, the
conversation.</p>
<blockquote>
<pre> >···?????????????···> <-Conversation
>···-------------···> <-Lunch
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Notice that I didn't add any kind of aspect to <b>maja'chuq;</b>
I simply said that conversation happened sometime during lunch.
Maybe it happened a lot, maybe it happened continuously, maybe we
spoke one sentence each. I don't know, because I'm only asserting
the fact that conversation took place, not the shape in which it
happened over time. But if I wanted to talk about the shape of the
conversation, I could add aspect to that as well:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>megh vISoptaHvIS maja'chuqtaH jIH DeghwI' je<br>
</b><i>while I ate lunch, the helmsman and I were having a
conversation</i></p>
<pre> >···---------------···> <-Conversation
>···-------------···> <-Lunch
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
<p>or possibly</p>
<pre> >···---------···> <-Conversation
>···-------------···> <-Lunch
Past >-------------------------------------> Future</pre>
<pre>
</pre>
<p><b>megh vISoptaHvIS maja'chuqta' jIH DeghwI' je<br>
</b><i>while I ate lunch, the helmsman and I had a conversation
(probably planned)</i></p>
<pre> • <-Conversation
>···-------------···> <-Lunch
Past >-------------------------------------> Future
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Do you see how aspect is affecting the meanings of these
sentences? The aspect suffixes are not optional—you must use them
or not use them as required by your meaning. But you can mean to
say different things about a single event. You can treat an action
as an atomic whole, temporally indivisible, not talking about its
parts. You can talk about the same action as a continuous stream,
not starting or ending in the context of your sentence, and these
non-endpoints are relevant. Or you can leave off aspect and talk
about an action that is simply a truth, or a habit, or a regular
occurrence but neither completed nor continuous, or hypothetical,
or a bunch of other things.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><b>tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'?<br>
</b><i>Do you speak Klingon?</i><b><br>
</b></p>
<p><b>HIja', tlhIngan Hol vIjatlh.<br>
</b><i>Yes, I speak Klingon.</i><br>
(It is a general truth that I speak Klingon. I am not talking
about completing an act of speaking Klingon, I am not talking
about an act of continuously speaking Klingon.)</p>
<p><b>qaStaHvIS qep'a' tlhIngan Hol vIjatlh.<br>
</b><i>During the conference, I spoke Klingon.<br>
</i>(I'm not saying whether I spoke Klingon all the time during
the conference, or only once, or occasionally.)</p>
<p><b>qaSchugh qep'a' tlhIngan Hol vIjatlh.<br>
</b><i>If the conference occurs, I will speak Klingon.<br>
</i>(I am describing my hypothetical speaking of Klingon, not an
actual event. Klingon has no subjunctive mood; this is as close
as you get to it.)</p>
<p><b>qaStaHvIS qep'a' tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhtaH.<br>
</b><i>During the conference, I was speaking Klingon.<br>
</i>(This might be used as a setup for something that happened <i>while</i>
I was speaking Klingon.)</p>
<p><b>qaStaHvIS qep'a' tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhpu'.<br>
</b><i>During the conference, I spoke Klingon.<br>
</i>(This says that there was a particular incident in which I
spoke Klingon, and then the speaking in Klingon was over.)</p>
<p><b>qep'a'Daq tlhIngan Hol vIjatlhpu'.<br>
</b><i>At the conference, I spoke Klingon.<br>
I have spoken Klingon at a conference.<br>
</i>(How this is interpreted depends on whether your listener
thinks you're talking about a specific conference or a set of
conferences. In the former case it means you engaged in a
completed episode of speaking Klingon at a conference. The
latter means that at past conferences, you have spoken Klingon,
though you're not talking about a specific instance of Klingon
speech.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lots of time spent here! Does this help any?<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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