<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">SuStel, the lack of tense, but presence of perfective in Klingon is a major stumbling block for humans speaking Klingon, and I respect you for your unusual clarity both in understanding and explaining this bit of Klingon grammar, as well as your patience doing it repeatedly as need arises. <br><br><div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPad</div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Feb 14, 2021, at 8:43 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/14/2021 8:31 AM, mayqel qunen'oS
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAP7F2cK-tC3nK1qFy2=V6RXzQaU9q=cR6editr7=pHz_Zxp-Yg@mail.gmail.com">SuStel:
<div dir="auto">> You still tend to use -pu' as a tense-</div>
<div dir="auto">> marker instead of a perfective-marker. -</div>
<div dir="auto">> pu' doesn't mean happened before — </div>
<div dir="auto">> that's tense. It means expressed as a </div>
<div dir="auto">> completed whole or comes to an end in </div>
<div dir="auto">> the moment being described.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">I thought that since at the moment when 'a'Serbut
says the {'e' neHbe' vavoy} her father is dead, his desire is a
completed event, thus the (rule-breaking) perfective on the
{neH} of the sao.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>She was describing what her father didn't want, not what her
father finished not wanting. You don't use the perfective suffix
because something is over now. You use it because you're
expressing something as completed. If you're expressing something
as it existed in the past, that's not expressing it as completed.</p>
<p><b>wa'Hu' jIQuch.</b><i> Yesterday, I was happy.</i></p>
<p>I'm not going to use the perfective here because I'm describing
my state as it existed yesterday, not the ending of my happiness.</p>
<p><b>bIpawpu'DI', qagh vIneH.</b><i> When you arrived, I wanted
gagh.</i></p>
<p>I'm describing your arrival as completed: you're standing before
me. I'm describing my desire without the perfective, because my
desire is not completed when you arrive.<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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