Thank you for taking the time to *translate* it into the Spanish grammar! ¿Hablas español?
Solo un poco.
bIpawDI', qaStaHvIS wa' rep jIghItlhtaH. bIpawDI', jIghItlhtaH. I'm not sure what you're last one means. When you arrive, I will start writing and do it for an hour? bIpawDI', jIghItlhchoH; qaStaHvIS wa' rep jIghItlhtaH.Yes, that was exactly what I was trying to say. I find this subject really interesting, so I hope you excuse me if I still have a couple of questions I would like to discuss. I understand what you mean when you say that Klingon breaks apart Spanish imperfective into *-taH* (*estaba escribiendo*, *I was writing*) and *no-aspect-suffix* (*escribía*, *I wrote*). However, *estuve escribiendo* (*I was writing*, *Pretérito Indefinido*) is for me, as Spanish speaker, something with represents a mix between continuous and perfective. For example, I cannot say: *Cuando llegaste, estuve escribiendo un texto* if what I want to say is *When you arrived, I was writing a text*, because *estuve escribiendo* presents the ongoing action of writing as a whole and completed *before* the arriving, although not focusing on the result of the action like *había escrito* (*had written*, *Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto*: focus on the result, the text is here finished).
You've exhausted my knowledge of Spanish tenses, I'm afraid. The
best I can do is summarize the Klingon situation from the point of
view of someone speaking from "now":
-pu' and -ta' mean I'm describing the action as a
completed whole, without inspecting its interior structure.
-taH and -lI' mean I'm describing the action as
having an "ongoing" structure, already happening before the given
moment and still happening after the given moment.
Lacking any of these suffixes means I'm describing the
action as neither completed nor as ongoing. I might be describing
being in the moment of the action, or I might be describing a
timeless or general truth.
wa'Hu' jIghItlhpu': I performed an act of writing
yesterday and competed it. I'm not describing how the act went,
just that it was finished.
DaH jIghItlhpu': I have performed an act of writing that is
finished now, or who prior completion is relevant now.
wa'leS jIghItlhpu': At some point tomorrow I will be
looking back at a competed act of writing.
wa'Hu' jIghItlhtaH: I am describing a moment that occurred
yesterday in which I was writing, and describing it as an ongoing
action. Shortly before the moment I was writing, and after the
moment I'll still be writing.
DaH jIghItlhtaH: At this moment I am in the act of writing.
I was doing this before this moment, and I'll still be doing it
after this moment.
wa'leS jIghItlhtaH: At some point tomorrow I'll be in the
act of writing. I will have been doing this before that point, and
I'll still be doing it after that point.
wa'Hu' jIghItlh: Yesterday was a day for writing for me.
OR I am describing a moment yesterday in which I was writing,
without any reference to writing before that moment or after that
moment, and without any indication that I completed the act of
writing.
DaH jIghItlh: Right now writing is something I do,
generally. OR I am in the middle of an act of writing, but I'm not
making any suggestion that I was writing before this moment or
that I'll be writing after this moment, or that my writing is in
any way complete.
wa'leS jIghItlh: Tomorrow will be a day for writing for me.
OR I am describing a moment that will occur tomorrow in which I
will be writing, but I don't give any indication that I was
writing before this moment or after this moment, and I don't give
any indication that the writing will be complete.
That's the reason why something like *bIpawDI', qaStaHvIS wa' rep jIghItlhtaH* sounds for me, as Spanish speaker, really strange. I would interpret it probably as the third option, *When you arrive, I will be writing for an hour (I will start writing and do it for an hour)*,
In English, you would have to say When you arrive, I will
write for an hour. I was confused about your meaning,
because in English you don't say I will be writing to
indicate an action that you just started; it means you're
describing a moment in which writing was already happening.
and in order to get the meaning *I will have been writing for an hour* I would probably decide to give up the continuous aspect and say something like *jIghItlhpu'* (*I will have written*).
I will have been writing is not perfective; it's the future perfect progressive tense. (Remember, perfect is not perfective.) There is no perfective in I will have been writing, so translating it as jIghItlhpu' isn't right. But it is progressive, and the progressiveness of it is part of the actual meaning (ongoing writing), so -taH is the correct Klingon translation.
Again, perfect means an action is prior to the time of the sentence but somehow relevant to the time of the sentence, while perfective means an action described as a whole without reference to how it unfolds over time. Klingon has explicit perfective aspect, not a perfect tense.
I'm not trying to say that Klingon must work as Spanish does, I'm just trying to understand how Klingon works in order to avoid *Spanish* mistakes. From what you are saying I see three possibilities: 1. *-taH* always expresses continuous and imperfective aspect, so if I want to express perfective aspect I must use *-pu'* and give up *-taH*.
Continuous and perfective are mutually exclusive in Klingon, yes.
-taH describes the internal structure of an action as
already happening before now and still happening after now (where
"now" is the time of the sentence). -pu' describes a
completed, whole action with no description of how the action
unfolded over time. You have to figure out which of these things
your sentence wants to express — or, if neither, to leave off any
type 7 suffix.
2. *-taH* always expresses continuous aspect and we should use it when we prefer, for whatever reason, to present the action as continuous - the perfective or imperfective aspect of the action comes from the context.
-taH will never be perfective, and Klingon doesn't have an
explicit imperfective aspect. If you want to identify imperfective
in Klingon, it's just everything that doesn't have perfective.
"Imperfective" isn't a very useful label in Klingon.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name