both are equally useless
e Recently I saw a picture of two cats, posted by their owner; and their owner had written under the picture: "I named one 'prayer' and the other 'hope', since both are equally useless". At first, seeing the pic of the two silly cats, and the things their owner wrote, I laughed.. But then I realize he was right. I don't know whether his cats were truly useless, but prayers and hopes definitely are. t qen cha' vIghro' mIllogh vIleghpu'; mIlloghvam 'agh vIghro'meyvam ghajwI'. mIlloghvam bIngDaq qonpu' nuvvam: < wa'vaD {QunvaD jatlh} vIpong, latlhvaD {tul} vIpong. lI'Ha'chu'mo' wa', 'ej jaSHa' lI'Ha'chu'mo' latlh, bIHvaD pongmeyvam vIwIvpu' >. bI'reS, cha' vIghro'vam Dogh mIllogh vIleghpu'DI', jIHaghchoHpu'.. 'a lugh loDvam ghIq 'e' vItlhoj. lI'Ha'chu' vIghro'meyDaj 'e' vISovbe'; 'a QunvaD jatlh vay' qoj tul vay'; lI'Ha'bej wanI'meyvam. ~ Dana'an
I find {qen cha’ vIghro’ mIllogh vIleghpu’} worthy of contemplation as I continue to try to improve my understanding of the difference between tense, which Klingon lacks, and the perfective, which Klingon has. Were I writing it, I would have either used {qen} or {-pu’}, but not both because right now, seeing the picture is a completed action, and “recently” the action was taking place, with no significance placed upon the completion of the action of seeing. The rest of the post follows with either the statement that I recently saw the pictures, or I have seen the pictures, but “I recently had seen the pictures” seems unnecessarily restrictive in terms of setting the time context of what follows. I don’t think it’s grammatically wrong. I just think it pulls the focus of my attention in an unnecessary time-centric direction which doesn’t serve the point of the message, which is that the speaker thinks hope and prayers are equally useless. Meanwhile, on the topic, I think that hope and prayers are both internal, possibly useful in terms of sustaining ones attention toward specific goals beyond the point where they would otherwise be forgotten, even as these internally sustained focuses on one’s attention are externally useless in terms of influencing Fate. If you act based upon hopes and prayers, you might influence Fate, but if you passively hope and pray and do nothing, the only significant feature of your behavior is that you do nothing, and you might as well hope and pray that your cat fetch the morning paper and make you some coffee. Your internal “actions” might entertain you, but they won’t influence the cat. SoHvaD qa’vIn vut vIghro’ QunvaD Dajalbogh ‘e’ Dachupchugh tu’HomI’raH DaDaba’. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)
On Aug 25, 2021, at 8:59 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
e
Recently I saw a picture of two cats, posted by their owner; and their owner had written under the picture: "I named one 'prayer' and the other 'hope', since both are equally useless".
At first, seeing the pic of the two silly cats, and the things their owner wrote, I laughed.. But then I realize he was right.
I don't know whether his cats were truly useless, but prayers and hopes definitely are.
t
qen cha' vIghro' mIllogh vIleghpu'; mIlloghvam 'agh vIghro'meyvam ghajwI'. mIlloghvam bIngDaq qonpu' nuvvam: < wa'vaD {QunvaD jatlh} vIpong, latlhvaD {tul} vIpong. lI'Ha'chu'mo' wa', 'ej jaSHa' lI'Ha'chu'mo' latlh, bIHvaD pongmeyvam vIwIvpu' >.
bI'reS, cha' vIghro'vam Dogh mIllogh vIleghpu'DI', jIHaghchoHpu'.. 'a lugh loDvam ghIq 'e' vItlhoj.
lI'Ha'chu' vIghro'meyDaj 'e' vISovbe'; 'a QunvaD jatlh vay' qoj tul vay'; lI'Ha'bej wanI'meyvam.
~ Dana'an _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 8/25/2021 11:39 AM, Will Martin wrote:
I find {qen cha’ vIghro’ mIllogh vIleghpu’} worthy of contemplation as I continue to try to improve my understanding of the difference between tense, which Klingon lacks, and the perfective, which Klingon has.
Were I writing it, I would have either used {qen} or {-pu’}, but not both because right now, seeing the picture is a completed action, and “recently” the action was taking place, with no significance placed upon the completion of the action of seeing. The rest of the post follows with either the statement that I recently saw the pictures, or I have seen the pictures, but “I recently had seen the pictures” seems unnecessarily restrictive in terms of setting the time context of what follows.
You are interpreting the Klingon grammar according to your English translation, not according to the actual meaning of the Klingon. You are using English past perfect tense with the adverb /recently./ Past perfective means that, at a point in the past, the state caused by an action even further back in the past was relevant. /Recently I had seen the pictures:/ at a point in the recent past, my act of seeing that was even further in the past was relevant. (vp is the viewpoint of the sentence, the point at which you are placing your perspective of the sentence.) /Recently I had seen the pictures./ PAST >-----^----------------RECENTLY---------------NOW--------------------> FUTURE see vp That's not what *qen mIlloghmey vIleghpu'* means. Klingon doesn't have any perfect tenses; it doesn't have an "action in the past is relevant to the time context" tense. The *-pu'* is /perfective,/ not /perfect./ In general, perfective aspect is used to express an action as a unit, indivisible in its flow over time. In Klingon, this is expressed as an action being /completed./ From whatever viewpoint the sentence or context sets up, the action is already done. The viewpoint is /not/ the same as the time context of the action itself. *qen mIlloghmey vIleghpu'* means that at a recent point in the past, I performed the act of seeing, and I am further expressing my viewpoint (vp) of that act as from a point when it was already done. *qen mIlloghmey vIleghpu'* PAST >------------RECENTLY---^---------------------NOW--------------------> FUTURE *legh* vp The job of *-pu'* is not to tell you that a past action is still relevant (perfect); it is to tell you that you are taking a viewpoint that looks on an action as completed. *tugh mIlloghmey vIleghpu'* PAST >----------------NOW-----------------SOON----^-----------------> FUTURE *legh* vp This sentence means /Soon I will have seen the pictures,/ and it means that seeing the pictures will take place soon, and I am viewing this action from a point after it's done. If you fail to use a *-pu'* or a *-taH,* then you are saying that the viewpoint is in the middle of the action. *qen mIlloghmey vIlegh* PAST >------------RECENTLY-------------------------NOW--------------------> FUTURE *legh *vp** This means that you're not viewing the action from a point at which it's completed; you're expressing the action as it is occurring. The difference between this and using *-taH* is that with *-taH* the action continues before and after the viewpoint: *qen mIlloghmey vIleghtaH* PAST >------------RECENTLY-------------------------NOW--------------------> FUTURE <----*legh---->* vp /Recently I was seeing the pictures./ At a recent point in the past, I had been seeing them, I was still seeing them, and I would be seeing them for some time after that. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
participants (3)
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mayqel qunen'oS -
SuStel -
Will Martin