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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/1/2022 2:48 PM, Will Martin wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DECA61F3-458D-4B66-9611-FFAC9725C723@gmail.com">
<div class="">When I read the end of this, I thought {ngugh
bIpujpu’} could mean something close to {ngugh bIpujHa’choH}
before realizing, nope. That’s what {bIpujHa’choH} is for. If
you had previously been weak and that status became “complete”,
as in, you are done with it, then you are undoing being weak,
and the change is worth noting with {-choH}. Using {-pu’}
instead would be weird enough to consider wrong.</div>
</blockquote>
<p><b>-pu'</b> does imply that some change occurred somewhere,
somewhen, but the whole point of perfective is that you're not
witness to the internal flow of the action expressed. You're told
that it happened in its entirety, but you're not told anything
about how it changed or flowed through time. That's what
perfective means, and in Klingon, perfective implies a completed
action. Not "the action became complete," just "a completed
action." Understand the difference between these two, and you
understand Klingon perfective.</p>
<p>Let's take an obviously active verb to avoid any questions of
meaning. If I say <b>wa'Hu' jIqetpu'</b><i> I ran yesterday,</i>
I am naming myself as the performer of <b>qet,</b> I am
identifying yesterday as the point on the timeline that <b>qet</b>
occurs, and I am saying that <b>qet</b> was performed in its
entirety. That doesn't mean I necessarily got to where I was going
or that I didn't trip along the way or anything; it just means I
performed a whole action of <b>qet.</b></p>
<p>Importantly, it does NOT express the idea that <b>jIqetchoH</b><i>
I began to run,</i> <b>jIqettaH</b><i> I continued to run,</i>
or <b>jIqetbe'choH</b><i> I stopped running.</i> Those views of
this one action have zoomed in to certain... ahem... "aspects" of
the action to look how they flow over time. <b>jIqetchoH</b>
zooms in to the start of the running and expresses it as a change
of state from not running to running. <b>jIqettaH</b> zooms in to
the middle of the running and expresses it as a moment before
which the running was already happening and after which the
running will still be happening. <b>jIqetbe'choH</b> zooms in to
the end of the running and expresses it as a change of state from
running to not running.</p>
<p>It's this zooming in that <b>-pu'</b> absolutely prohibits. By
definition, perfective is that aspect in which the flow of time of
an action is compressed into a single, featureless point. You
can't zoom in to it to examine its parts. Perfective exists
precisely to enable describing actions in this way. It doesn't
describe "coming to an end"... that would be zooming in to the
ending to examine it.</p>
<p>(And TKD tells us that, in general, leaving off an aspect suffix
means a verb is neither continuous nor perfective. If I don't
include any "zooming" on the verb, if I just say <b>jIqet</b><i>
I ran,</i> it is neither zooming in on any part of the running
nor zooming out to compress the running into a single dot on the
timeline. It is a formless fact. It might be timelessly true or
habitual that I used to run, but without a specific time in which
to describe me doing it it can't be put on the timeline. Or it
might mean that I'm excluding the entire timeline from my view,
able to perceive only the single point that is the current moment,
which moment moves along with me as I tell the story.)</p>
<p>So now try to apply this to a quality verb. If I say <b>ngugh
bIpujpu',</b> I'm picking out a specific point on the timeline,
<i>that time,</i> and saying that at that time there's a dot that
represents your being weak. It's not that you were weak for only a
moment; it's that you've zoomed out from an act of being weak and
can't view its internal structure. This is not a state; it's an
action. If your "dots" on the timeline represent big enough
periods of time, you MIGHT get away with expressing being weak as
an action performed rather than a state experienced, but it would
be an unusual thing to do.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DECA61F3-458D-4B66-9611-FFAC9725C723@gmail.com">
<div class="">And if you wanted to interpret {bIpujpu’} the OTHER
way, to say, “You’ve been working your way toward becoming weak
and now the process is complete,” that doesn’t work because the
state of weakness is not finished, assuming that you are still
weak. That’s more like {bIpujchoHchu’} or {bIpujchoHbej},
depending on the quality/threshold of weakness you are going
for.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, <b>-pu'</b> does not include the concept of <b>-chu'.</b>
It doesn't imply that anything was done correctly or completely,
just that the action is being viewed as a "completed" whole.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DECA61F3-458D-4B66-9611-FFAC9725C723@gmail.com">
<div class="">Or maybe {bIpujchoHpu’} could mean that you’ve been
becoming weak, and you are no longer becoming weak. You just ARE
weak. The beginning of your weakness is complete.</div>
</blockquote>
<p><b>bIpujchoHpu'</b> describes an act of changing state from not
weak to weak. It is this act of changing state that is being
described, not the weakness itself. We've zoomed out from the act,
unable to see it flow over time. We can assume the being weak goes
on, but the being weak isn't described here; the change is.<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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