<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/21/2020 9:04 AM, mayqel qunen'oS
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAP7F2cLr1xxpVUWrr+xf3nyZsksPxcSS2=dKb72=78ewbjL2nA@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="auto">SuStel:
<div dir="auto">> It's not about whether you're looking back</div>
<div dir="auto">> on an event; it's whether you're describing</div>
<div dir="auto">> an event as completed.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">ok, I understand this.. But there's something
which confuses me..</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Imagine this: While I'm driving from new york to
colorado, I see a cat.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">If I say {nyuyorghvo' *colorado*Daq jISeDtaHvIS
vIghro' vIlegh}, then doesn't that mean that "throughout the
journey I see the cat" ?</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">So, shouldn' we say instead {nyuyorghvo'
*colorado*Daq jISeDtaHvIS vIghro' vIleghpu'} ?</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Two things. First, using <b>-taH + vIS</b> doesn't imply <i>throughout;</i>
it means <i>while, during.</i> If an action happens <i>during</i>
another action and the two actions take the same amount of time,
then you might say throughout. But if one action is momentary <i>during</i>
another action, this isn't <i>throughout.</i></p>
<p>I'm going to simplify your sentence for the second part. <i>While
I travel, I see a cat.</i> I intend here to say that I spot a
cat on the side of the road as I pass it, not that I am staring at
a cat the whole time I'm journeying.</p>
<p>In the English sentence, the tenses employed mean that traveling
is an ongoing activity that I am currently engaged in, and I am
currently passing the cat and noticing it. The English sentence
has put the listener or reader in the very moment of spotting the
cat. They are not looking back on the moment of spotting the cat;
the sentence puts the listener into the very moment of the
spotting.</p>
<p>To do this in Klingon, say <b>jIlengtaHvIS vIghro' vIlegh.</b>
Lacking perfective or continuous on <b>legh</b> means the seeing
is neither completed nor ongoing. I'm putting the listener into
the moment of the seeing, so it's not completed. I'm not
describing for the listener an activity of looking at the cat over
a period of time, so it's not continuous. Use the unaspected verb.
It doesn't matter whether the seeing of the cat happened before or
is happening now; what matters is that I'm describing being in the
moment of the seeing, not looking back at it after it's over.<br>
</p>
<p>Now, if I wanted to put the listener in the position of looking
back at the spotting of the cat after it's already happened, you
need perfective, because that's what perfective does. <b>jIlengtaHvIS
vIghro' vIleghpu'</b><i> While I traveled, I saw a cat. </i>The
listener is asked to put themselves in a position to look back at
an event. The traveling remains continuous because continuousness
is required to use <b>-vIS,</b> but now we're not looking at the
seeing from the moment of the seeing; we're looking back at it as
a completed event. The Klingon sentence needs to be perfective.</p>
<p>When you lack a perfective (and continuous) suffix on a verb,
that verb usually cannot be interpreted as placing the listener at
a point where they can look back at the completed event.
(Exceptions include times when you are not allowed to use aspect
suffixes, like on the second verb of a sentence-as-object
construction, and when you use <b>rIntaH</b> instead of a
suffix.) This is why <b>jIlengtaHvIS vIghro' vIlegh</b> cannot
mean <i>While I traveled, I saw a cat</i> in the sense of a
completed-from-my-viewpoint, one-time event of seeing. If an
action is to be described as completed, it MUST have perfective on
it. If <b>jIlengtaHvIS vIghro' vIlegh</b> is to be interpreted as
happening in the past, it either means the speaker is asking the
listener to inhabit a viewpoint in the past (like the historical
present tense of English) or the seeing was a habitual or regular
thing during the trip (while I was journeying, I would see this
cat from time to time).<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
</body>
</html>