SuStel:
> I don't think you're identifying the time context correctly. In po ram je qubbID HaDtaH ghaH, jaj veb vaj qaD Qappu' 'ej ngeD qaD, we have two distinct time contexts. po ram qubbID HaDtaH ghaH is set in po ram qubbID the time between morning and night, and jaj veb vaj qaD Qappu' is set in jaj veb the next day. HaDtaH is continuous over po ram qubbID, and Qappu' takes place sometime in jaj veb. (ngeD qaD is a sort of timeless fact, though it refers to something that existed during jaj veb). They take place when their time expressions say they do.
Sorry, I was actually referring to the time context of the second sentence, but that's not important anymore: your reply has solved my doubts anyway. Thank you!
So, I (*really*) hope I've understood your point:
Let's say I want to express in Klingon *I ate at 2 p.m. and then I went home*. That would be *jISoppu'* and *vIjaHpu'*.
Correct.
*I ate from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and then I went home*, assuming the similarity to *She had studied from morning to evening*, would be *jISoptaH* and *vIjaHpu'* (despite the fact that I would use the perfective *Pretérito Indefinido* in both cases in Spanish).
Correct.
*I will eat at 2 p.m. and then I will go home* would also be *jISoppu'* and *vIjaHpu'*.
No, I will eat is not perfective. It isn't describing a
completed action. The eating is not being described as a completed
whole. Same with the going home. wa'maH cha' vatlh rep jISop;
ghIq juH vIjaH.
*I will eat more vegetables from today* would be *vISop*.
Yes, although the from is not contained in the meaing of
the verb. latlh naH vISop said about the future just means
I will eat more vegetables. I will eat more vegetables
from today isn't quite grammatical in English. You'd have to
say from today on or a more formal starting today.
In Klingon the whole thing would be two separate clauses,
something like latlh naH vISop; DaHjaj jIruchchoH I
(will) eat more vegetables; today I start doing it.
*I haven't eaten today* would be *jISoppu'be'*.
Yes, DaHjaj jISoppu'be'.
*I've lived here for two months* would be *vIDabtaH*.
Correct.
*I've eaten this type of food before* / *I have eaten this type of food five times before* - I'm not sure about these ones. I would use *vISoppu'*, because I think we refer to several completed actions, any of them considered as a whole: we say we completed the eating once, two times etc. We're not speaking about the action from its inside, as it unfolds over time, without considering a beginning and an end (as we do when we speak about general truths, habits or actions that repeat an unspecified number of times).
You are correct: these are perfective. The collection of actions
isn't important. What's important is that eating is being
described as a completed whole. Whether you consider the entire
collection as a completed whole or an individual act as a
completed whole, it's perfective.
Well, if I still don't understand, then it's probably time to close this thread :-) I will think more about it and, above all, I will read more Klingon.
There are some subtleties we haven't discussed. If you're telling a story, for instance, rather than reporting events, you might be trying to position the listener's viewpoint in the middle of the actions as they occur. This will affect the aspect. In storytelling, for instance, it is a convention of English (I don't know about Spanish) that a story is told in the past tense. Klingon doesn't work this way (see paq'batlh); the storyteller puts his or her audience in the middle of the action as if it's in progress, even if they tell you that the story happens in the past. (For instance, when telling a story, you might say something like, jaj wejDIch ghIq ghaH vIleghqa', 'ej jaj loSDIch murI' And then on the third day I saw him again, and on the fourth day he hailed me... If you were just reporting these things as completed events, you'd use perfective, but if you're telling them as an ongoing story, you wouldn't.
And not all possible combinations are significantly different
that they really matter. For instance, I don't think the
difference between qaStaHvIS cha' jar, naDev vIDabtaH and
qaStaHvIS cha' jar, naDev vIDab is significant. One
describes your habitation as ongoing; the other describes it as a
timeless fact, but one which in context is true during a
particular period. I don't think it would make a difference
whether you used the -taH here or not. So it's not
absolutely cut and dried, and you shouldn't get too bogged down in
the bits that aren't important.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name