<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/12/2022 6:11 AM,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:luis.chaparro@web.de">luis.chaparro@web.de</a> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:trinity-12f8448f-0792-4b6b-8cc6-77b41c36c43b-1649758299449@3c-app-webde-bs20">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">1. I know now that there's no significant canonical example of qualities with *pu'*. That's a fact I'm not discussing and I'm ready to accept it without problem. Unfortunately, since we make in Spanish a difference between qualities in perfective and imperfective tenses, it's very *unnutural* for me not to use perfective in some situations. I just want to give an example of this and if you say: *Ok, maybe that's possible in Spanish, but in Klingon we don't do that*, then I won't do that in Klingon :-)</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Okay, maybe that's possible in Spanish, but in Klingon we haven't
seen Okrand doing that.</p>
<p>That's as definitive as I can get.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:trinity-12f8448f-0792-4b6b-8cc6-77b41c36c43b-1649758299449@3c-app-webde-bs20">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">In Spanish there is a big difference between:
*La conversación era muy desagradable, así que decidí irme* (*The conversation was very unpleasant, so I decided to leave*) - Imperfective: The situation is presented to the listeners as not completed, as an open box into which they can go and look, so they are put *in medias res*, in the middle of the narrated situation (in their imagination they see the speaker in the middle of an unpleasant conversation and then leaving *before* the conversation was finished).
*La conversación fue muy desagradable, así que decidí irme* (*The conversation was very unpleasant, so I decided to leave*) - Perfective: The situation is presented to the listeners as completed, as a closed box they are looking at from the outside and into which they cannot look (in their imagination they see an unpleasant conversation finished and the speaker leaving *after* that).</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I understand the difference. In English you can replicate this
with simple past and past perfect tenses:</p>
<p><i>The conversation was very unpleasant, so I decided to leave.</i>
(The decision took place during the unpleasant conversation.)<br>
<i>The conversation had been very unpleasant, so I decided to
leave.</i> (The decision took place after the unpleasant
conversation was over.)</p>
<p> All I can say is that Spanish imperfect and preterite tenses
include a sense of "past" that Klingon verbs don't have. You can't
set up multiple levels of being in the past just with verbs. You
need other words to establish contexts.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:trinity-12f8448f-0792-4b6b-8cc6-77b41c36c43b-1649758299449@3c-app-webde-bs20">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">By the way, how can I say *the conversation was unpleasant* in Klingon? *naH ja'chuqtaHghach*? Supossing this is correct, would it make any sense in Klingon to distinguish between *naH* and *naHpu'* in this context?</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I would choose a more specific word; I don't think Klingon has
one that covers everything that <i>unpleasant</i> does. Examples:
<b>baw'Ha'moH ja'chuqghach</b><i> The conversation makes one
uncomfortable, worried, hesitant;</i> <b>nuQ ja'chuqghach</b><i>
The conversation annoys;</i> <b>'IQmoH ja'chuqghach</b><i> The
conversation makes one sad.</i> You can also say <b>naH
ja'chuqghach</b><i> The conversation was hostile, malicious,
unfriendly, antagonistic,</i> but whether that is unpleasant to
the participants is relative (remember that <b>SeymoH QeH.</b>)</p>
<p>If I say <b>naH ja'chuqghach, vaj jImejpu' 'e' vIwuq*</b><i> The
conversation was hostile, so I decided to leave,</i> I'm saying
the conversation's quality of hostility prompted me to leave, NOT
that I left during the conversation. I might have left during the
conversation or afterward. If I want to specify whether the
leaving took place during or after the conversation, I have to
express this with other words than the verbs:</p>
<p><b>DaSjaj naH ja'chuqghach, ngugh vaj jImejpu' 'e' vIwuq.</b> <i>On
Monday, the conversation was hostile, so I decided to leave at
that time.<br>
</i><b>DaSjaj naH ja'chuqghach, povjaj vaj jImejpu' 'e' vIwuq.</b><i>
On Monday, the conversation was hostile, so on Tuesday I decided
to leave.</i><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:trinity-12f8448f-0792-4b6b-8cc6-77b41c36c43b-1649758299449@3c-app-webde-bs20">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">2. *wa'Hu' rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu'* could have two interpretations, right?: *Yesterday, I ate at 12 pm* (perfective) or *Yesterday, I had (already) eaten at 12 pm*. Is context (or maybe adding something like *wejHa'*) the only way to distinguish these meanings?</pre>
</blockquote>
<p><b>wa'Hu' rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu'</b> means that you ate lunch
at noon, not that you had already eaten lunch when noon rolled
around.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:trinity-12f8448f-0792-4b6b-8cc6-77b41c36c43b-1649758299449@3c-app-webde-bs20">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">3. I discussed this in another thread, I only want to be sure I understood it correctly: Although the sentence in 2 has for the past those two interpretations (perfective not perfect and perfective perfect), for the future (despite the fact this could be otherway in other languages) there is in Klingon only a *perfective perfect* interpretation (not a *perfective not perfect* one): *wa'leS rep wa'maH cha' jISoppu'* can only be *Tomorrow, I will have eaten at 12 pm*, right?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>It just so happens that in English we have only one kind of
perfective future tense: the future perfect. This doesn't affect
what the Klingon means; it only affects our translations of the
Klingon. Without any time context given, <b>jISoppu'</b> means
that I perform an act of eating, expressed as a completed whole
with no view of the flow of time within it. It can equally take
place in the past, present, or future without any change in
meaning. It's just the case that when translating into other
languages that DO change tenses based on past, present, and
future, you don't get equal treatment of Klingon perfective.</p>
<p>So, when I translate <b>jISoppu'</b> into all possible English
sentences, not all the output sentences have equal meaning, and
there aren't an equal number in the past, present, or future,
because English doesn't treat the past, present, and future
identically.</p>
<p>ENGLISH PAST TENSES<br>
Simple past: <i>I ate.<br>
</i>Past perfect: <i>I had eaten.</i></p>
<p>ENGLISH PRESENT TENSES<br>
Present perfect: <i>I have eaten.</i></p>
<p>ENGLISH FUTURE TENSES<br>
Future perfect: <i>I will have eaten.</i></p>
<p>None of these English sentences quite capture the exact meaning
of <b>jISoppu',</b> just as how no Klingon form of <b>Sop</b>
can quite capture the exact meaning of <i>I ate.</i> That's the
nature of translation.<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>