Re: [tlhIngan Hol] thoughts on the perfective {-pu'}
Dana'an:
Yes, you're right. And unfortunately, as much as I try to get things right, in the end I get confused.
I don't know much about Modern Greek, but I think you distinguish between imperfective and perfective in the past with παρατατικός (imperfective) and αόριστος (perfective). I'm sure that's not the same as in Klingon, but for me the difference between imperfective and perfective in Spanish has been a great help, and I just try to keep a note of the cases where it doesn't match the Klingon. Doesn't it work with Modern Greek?
Thank you SuStel for having the patience to explain all this. As a result of this thread, I'm actually for the first time optimistic that I'll succeed in reducing the frequency I misuse aspect. But there's something which I still wonder. jIH:
6. If I'm looking back from the present on quality verbs, but the quality described can't be described by the "used to", perfective is used: In the past the water has been hot In the past there was just one (or maybe two/three/more) occasion(s) when the water was hot (the second sentence describes the intended meaning) pa'logh tujpu' bIQ In the past the water often has been hot pa'logh pIj tujpu' bIQ SuStel: This one I don't agree with. The words used to aren't necessary to avoid perfective; they're just a convenient, but incomplete, test to see if you're thinking in terms of perfective or not. Besides, I don't see why the water has often been hot couldn't be said as the water often used to be hot. So I don't think you're looking at used to in quite the right way.
Reading your reply, at first I couldn't understand the reason which made you disagree. But then I read your next comments: SuStel:
it means if you want to describe possessing a quality in the past, you're describing having that quality, not having completed having that quality Even if you're describing water that was only hot two or three times, you're still describing the being hot, not a completed action of being hot
(the former comment is from the < {je} "too" applying to the adverb > thread http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/2022-March/019586.html)) And these two comments made me understand. But there's still something I'm wondering. When would it be appropriate for us to put the {-pu'} on a quality verb? Because -if my understanding is correct- I can't think of an occasion when something like this would be needed. So could you write an example where the {-pu'} would be necessary on a quality verb? Or perhaps does voragh know of a Ca'Non example where we have the {-pu'} on a quality/stative verb? luis.chaparro:
I don't know much about Modern Greek, but I think you distinguish between imperfective and perfective in the past with παρατατικός (imperfective) and αόριστος (perfective). [...] Doesn't it work with Modern Greek?
I wish I could answer, but the problem with me is that I don't know nor can I understand grammar. Whatever English, German, and Klingon I ever learned, I learned by following examples. Perhaps it sounds strange, but it is true. As I regularly say "at the brain factory, someone forgot to install in my mind the ability-to-understand-grammar circuit". -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
On 4/5/2022 8:16 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
But there's still something I'm wondering. When would it be appropriate for us to put the {-pu'} on a quality verb? Because -if my understanding is correct- I can't think of an occasion when something like this would be needed. So could you write an example where the {-pu'} would be necessary on a quality verb?
I don't think it's a very sensible thing to do, but it might be possible. An analogy would be using the English word /know/ in the present progressive tense. Normally, one wouldn't say /I am knowing it,/ but there might be special circumstances where you would say it. /Aha! Now I'm learning it and I'm knowing it!/ Someone might say something like this to deliberately make the learning and knowing parallel by forcing both into the same tense. You might do something similar with Klingon perfective. Basically, saying things like *jIQuchpu'* and *SuDalpu'* would sound like /I happied/ and Y/ou boringed./
Or perhaps does voragh know of a Ca'Non example where we have the {-pu'} on a quality/stative verb?
The only possibility I'm aware of is *woQ luSuqmeH jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e' je* from Skybox S26, but this is a bad data point, because *jIj* was originally glossed as /cooperate/ and only got the further gloss of /be cooperative/ after this card was published. I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with /be/ as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced *jIj *is one. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
I don't automatically take every gloss that starts withbeas proving a quality verb, so I'm not convincedjIjis one.
jIj is used in yuQjIjDIvI' etc. where it seems to be used adjectivally (Union of cooperative planets). As it's a compound we cannot be sure that its components can be used individually, but it's some evidence for jIj being a quality verb. It should be noted that the "be cooperative" meaning was given after the "cooperate" meaning. I don't see why to publish this new gloss unless the reason was to clarify that jIj indeed can be used as a quality verb. As for using perfective with the quality verbs, I don't see why they'd work any differently than other intransitive verbs. Why would jIQongpu' "I was asleep" be allowed, but jIQuppu' "I was young" not? Just as sleeping is a completed event, being young is also a completed event. I was young, I can look that as a completed whole. Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 16.03, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 8:16 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
But there's still something I'm wondering. When would it be appropriate for us to put the {-pu'} on a quality verb? Because -if my understanding is correct- I can't think of an occasion when something like this would be needed. So could you write an example where the {-pu'} would be necessary on a quality verb?
I don't think it's a very sensible thing to do, but it might be possible. An analogy would be using the English word know in the present progressive tense. Normally, one wouldn't say I am knowing it, but there might be special circumstances where you would say it. Aha! Now I'm learning it and I'm knowing it! Someone might say something like this to deliberately make the learning and knowing parallel by forcing both into the same tense. You might do something similar with Klingon perfective.
Basically, saying things like jIQuchpu' and SuDalpu' would sound like I happied and You boringed.
Or perhaps does voragh know of a Ca'Non example where we have the {-pu'} on a quality/stative verb?
The only possibility I'm aware of is woQ luSuqmeH jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e' je from Skybox S26, but this is a bad data point, because jIj was originally glossed as cooperate and only got the further gloss of be cooperative after this card was published. I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with be as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced jIj is one.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
I don’t think we should assume that {jIj} isn’t a pair of homophones, one of which can be used adjectivally. Additionally, we don’t know for sure what the object of {jIj} would be, or if it can take objects when used as a non-adjectival verb. I can cooperate during a specific event without generally being cooperative. If I cooperate WITH someone, that someone might be an object, or maybe they’d need {-vaD}. It can be effectively (dare I use the word) intransitive, yet still be not adjectival, like {Qong}. You don’t sleep something, but when you are sleeping, you are not a sleep person. My vote, until we get something more specific about this, is that {jIj} is actually two different words that sound alike and have similar meanings, just like in English you can cooperate or be cooperative. You can’t cooperative, and you can’t be cooperate. In English, “cooperate” and “cooperative” are different words, sound different, but they share etymological roots. In Klingon, perhaps they simply sound alike, but are used differently. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)
On Apr 5, 2022, at 10:23 AM, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> wrote:
I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with be as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced jIj is one. jIj is used in yuQjIjDIvI' etc. where it seems to be used adjectivally (Union of cooperative planets). As it's a compound we cannot be sure that its components can be used individually, but it's some evidence for jIj being a quality verb.
It should be noted that the "be cooperative" meaning was given after the "cooperate" meaning. I don't see why to publish this new gloss unless the reason was to clarify that jIj indeed can be used as a quality verb.
As for using perfective with the quality verbs, I don't see why they'd work any differently than other intransitive verbs. Why would jIQongpu' "I was asleep" be allowed, but jIQuppu' "I was young" not? Just as sleeping is a completed event, being young is also a completed event. I was young, I can look that as a completed whole.
Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 16.03, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 8:16 AM, mayqel qunen'oS wrote:
But there's still something I'm wondering. When would it be appropriate for us to put the {-pu'} on a quality verb? Because -if my understanding is correct- I can't think of an occasion when something like this would be needed. So could you write an example where the {-pu'} would be necessary on a quality verb?
I don't think it's a very sensible thing to do, but it might be possible. An analogy would be using the English word know in the present progressive tense. Normally, one wouldn't say I am knowing it, but there might be special circumstances where you would say it. Aha! Now I'm learning it and I'm knowing it! Someone might say something like this to deliberately make the learning and knowing parallel by forcing both into the same tense. You might do something similar with Klingon perfective.
Basically, saying things like jIQuchpu' and SuDalpu' would sound like I happied and You boringed.
Or perhaps does voragh know of a Ca'Non example where we have the {-pu'} on a quality/stative verb? The only possibility I'm aware of is woQ luSuqmeH jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e' je from Skybox S26, but this is a bad data point, because jIj was originally glossed as cooperate and only got the further gloss of be cooperative after this card was published. I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with be as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced jIj is one.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>
tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 4/5/2022 10:52 AM, Will Martin wrote:
I don’t think we should assume that {jIj} isn’t a pair of homophones, one of which can be used adjectivally.
It's entirely possible. The example in question doesn't make it clear one way or another. *woQ luSuqmeH jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e' je.* Again, it's a bad data point, and shouldn't be used to draw any conclusions on this matter. (I'll note that the English translation, /work with Romulan factions,/ is not stative or a quality, so this sentence is unlikely to be the source of the later /be cooperative/ gloss for *jIj.*) -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Tue, 5 Apr 2022 at 17:06, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 10:52 AM, Will Martin wrote:
I don’t think we should assume that {jIj} isn’t a pair of homophones, one of which can be used adjectivally.
This is also effectively how I see it, even if a Klingon grammarian might see it differently.
It's entirely possible. The example in question doesn't make it clear one way or another. *woQ luSuqmeH jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e' je.* Again, it's a bad data point, and shouldn't be used to draw any conclusions on this matter.
(I'll note that the English translation, *work with Romulan factions,* is not stative or a quality, so this sentence is unlikely to be the source of the later *be cooperative* gloss for *jIj.*)
It might be helpful to look at the chronology of how the word was defined and used. TKD (1992) has {jIj} "cooperate" in the K-E side word list. It's missing from the E-K side, which has {yeq} instead. It also has {yuQjIjQa'} "United Federation of Planets" in the K-E word list, but {yuQjIjDIvI'} in the E-K one. The K-E word list has {DIvI'} "federation, organization" (lowercase) while the E-K side has "Federation" (uppercase) as the definition for {DIvI'}, while {Qa'} is "type of animal" in the K-E side and appears listed with other animals under "animal: different types of animal" in the E-K side. SkyBox card #26 (1996) has the above sentence with {jIjpu'}, translated as "work with [Romulan factions]". It's clearly not a verb of quality here. KGT (1997) has {reH jIj} "always be cooperative" in the body (p.159) and {jIj} "be cooperative" in both K-E and E-K word lists. Whether one treats {jIj} as two homophones, one meaning "cooperate" and one meaning "be cooperative", or as one word with two senses, in the sentence {jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e' je} on the SkyBox card, it's clearly being used with the "cooperate" meaning. The sentence says that they and the Romulans cooperate (with each other), not that they are being cooperative. So this can't be used as an example of {-pu'} on a verb of quality. The "be cooperative" meaning didn't exist yet, whether it's considered the same word or a homophone, and even if it's the same word, the instance of its usage to which {-pu'} was applied clearly has the "cooperate" meaning. I think it's clear based on what's in TKD that Okrand changed his mind several times on how to translate "United Federation of Planets" while writing TKD, before he finally settled on {DIvI'}. The introduction of {jIj} to mean "be cooperative" was probably to retrofit the meaning of {yuQjIjDIvI'/Qa'}, i.e., to give it an etymology after the fact. -- De'vID
FYI {jIj} also shows up in {yuQjIjQa'} United Federation of Planets, {'amerI'qa' SepjIjQa'} United States of America and {tuqjIjQa'} United Kingdom. (I don’t believe we’ve ever discovered the difference for the two words for the United Federation of Planets. Note that there are three types of *{jIjQa’} – {yuQ} (planet), {Sep} (region, country) and {tuq} (tribe, House, ancestral unit, lineage) – and that a *{Qa’} seems to be some sort of political union. See also {qarDaSQa'} for the Cardassian Union. How a *{Qa’} is different from a {DIvI'} “federation, organization, association, league, union” is unknown AFAIK.) The confusion WRT {jIj} was clarified in KGT: (KGT 159): The slang term [{qang} “always agree with/go along/cooperate with (someone)”] may be found in such sentences as {jIHDaq Daqang} (“You always agree with me, you always cooperate with me”; literally, "You pour [something] into me"). To say that someone “pours (always agrees)” is somewhat derogatory, implying that the agreeing or cooperating may be for ulterior motives. Nonslang equivalents of {qang}, though lacking the negative connotation, are {reH Qochbe'} (“always agree”), {reH yeq} (“always cooperate”), and {reH jIj} (“always be cooperative”). --Voragh From: Will Martin My vote, until we get something more specific about this, is that {jIj} is actually two different words that sound alike and have similar meanings, just like in English you can cooperate or be cooperative. You can’t cooperative, and you can’t be cooperate. In English, “cooperate” and “cooperative” are different words, sound different, but they share etymological roots. In Klingon, perhaps they simply sound alike, but are used differently. On Apr 5, 2022, at 10:23 AM, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com<mailto:fergusq@protonmail.com>> wrote: I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with be as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced jIj is one. jIj is used in yuQjIjDIvI' etc. where it seems to be used adjectivally (Union of cooperative planets). As it's a compound we cannot be sure that its components can be used individually, but it's some evidence for jIj being a quality verb. It should be noted that the "be cooperative" meaning was given after the "cooperate" meaning. I don't see why to publish this new gloss unless the reason was to clarify that jIj indeed can be used as a quality verb.
On 4/5/2022 10:23 AM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with/be/as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced*jIj*is one.
*jIj* is used in *yuQjIjDIvI' *etc. where it seems to be used adjectivally (Union of cooperative planets). As it's a compound we cannot be sure that its components can be used individually, but it's some evidence for *jIj* being a quality verb.
I said it was a bad data point, not that I have judged it to be not a quality verb. Don't read more into my words than what I said.
It should be noted that the "be cooperative" meaning was given after the "cooperate" meaning. I don't see why to publish this new gloss unless the reason was to clarify that *jIj* indeed can be used as a quality verb.
That's possible. But given the initial gloss, that makes *jIj* a bad data point for the question of using perfective on quality verbs.
As for using perfective with the quality verbs, I don't see why they'd work any differently than other intransitive verbs. Why would *jIQongpu' */"I was asleep" /be allowed, but *jIQuppu' */"I was young" /not? Just as sleeping is a completed event, being young is also a completed event. I was young, I can look that as a completed whole.
For the same reason that you can say *ghu Qup* but not *ghu Qong.* Sleeping is an event; being young is not an event. Being asleep is a state. The issue is more complicated for *Qong,* because in English /sleep/ is an event and /be asleep/ is a state. *jIQongpu'* would be most accurately translated as /I slept/ and would be used in a context of looking back at a point where I engaged in the single act of sleeping, whose flow over time is compressed. *jIQong* would be most accurately translated in the past tense as /I was asleep/ and would be used in a context of describing my state at a particular point in the past. Anyway, the point here is that there is a dearth of perfective on quality verbs in Klingon that may be significant. I'm not saying outright that you can't put perfective on a quality, but I am saying that it may be unusual and probably doesn't mean what you think it means. If you're thinking that it means that at some point in the past the subject had the quality and that point is over now, that's not using perfective correctly. That's just past tense. By using perfective on a quality, you're saying that the expression of the quality includes not only the quality but the completion of the quality, all in one "moment" (however long a moment is in context). -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
I disagree that quality verbs cannot describe events. If we look at: Hogh vorgh jIQongpu' Hogh vorgh jIroppu' In both cases, I'm looking back to two events: my sleep and my illnesss, both of which I consider as completed wholes, without inner structure. They were two events that happened last week. Sleeping and being ill are both biological conditions that my body has. Both only last for a certain period of time. Both can be described as events. It's a grammatical feature of Klingon that ghu rop is accepted and ghu Qong is not, but semantically they don't differ much. Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 18.00, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 10:23 AM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
I don't automatically take every gloss that starts withbeas proving a quality verb, so I'm not convincedjIjis one.
jIj is used in yuQjIjDIvI' etc. where it seems to be used adjectivally (Union of cooperative planets). As it's a compound we cannot be sure that its components can be used individually, but it's some evidence for jIj being a quality verb.
I said it was a bad data point, not that I have judged it to be not a quality verb. Don't read more into my words than what I said.
It should be noted that the "be cooperative" meaning was given after the "cooperate" meaning. I don't see why to publish this new gloss unless the reason was to clarify that jIj indeed can be used as a quality verb.
That's possible. But given the initial gloss, that makes jIj a bad data point for the question of using perfective on quality verbs.
As for using perfective with the quality verbs, I don't see why they'd work any differently than other intransitive verbs. Why would jIQongpu' "I was asleep" be allowed, but jIQuppu' "I was young" not? Just as sleeping is a completed event, being young is also a completed event. I was young, I can look that as a completed whole.
For the same reason that you can say ghu Qup but not ghu Qong. Sleeping is an event; being young is not an event. Being asleep is a state. The issue is more complicated for Qong, because in English sleep is an event and be asleep is a state. jIQongpu' would be most accurately translated as I slept and would be used in a context of looking back at a point where I engaged in the single act of sleeping, whose flow over time is compressed. jIQong would be most accurately translated in the past tense as I was asleep and would be used in a context of describing my state at a particular point in the past.
Anyway, the point here is that there is a dearth of perfective on quality verbs in Klingon that may be significant. I'm not saying outright that you can't put perfective on a quality, but I am saying that it may be unusual and probably doesn't mean what you think it means. If you're thinking that it means that at some point in the past the subject had the quality and that point is over now, that's not using perfective correctly. That's just past tense. By using perfective on a quality, you're saying that the expression of the quality includes not only the quality but the completion of the quality, all in one "moment" (however long a moment is in context).
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On 4/5/2022 11:13 AM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
I disagree that quality verbs cannot describe events.
If we look at:
*Hogh vorgh jIQongpu'* *Hogh vorgh jIroppu'* * * In both cases, I'm looking back to two events: my sleep and my illnesss, both of which I consider as completed wholes, without inner structure. They were two events that happened last week. Sleeping and being ill are both biological conditions that my body has. Both only last for a certain period of time. Both can be described as events. It's a grammatical feature of Klingon that *ghu rop* is accepted and *ghu Qong* is not, but semantically they don't differ much.
Sorry, but no. Having the quality of illness is not an event in the linguistic meaning of that term. Sleeping is. Sure, you can describe them both as biological functions, but that's not the linguistic meaning of the term /state,/ and it's not what we mean when we talk about /quality/ in Klingon. Now, I'm not saying that *Hogh vorgh jIroppu'* is necessarily wrong. But what this says isn't that during last week I had the quality of being sick. It says that at some point during last week I experienced the event of being sick, and that the entire event is described in that one sentence. But it remains undemonstrated to me that Klingon allows being sick to be an event, and your simply declaring it so doesn't provide any evidence. The fact is that we have a notable lack of this in Klingon. While that doesn't prove it can't be done, it does prevent you from doing anything to prove it other than to declare it to be so. Who knows? Maybe there's an unambigous perfective quality verb in canon somewhere that we haven't brought up. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On 4/5/2022 11:30 AM, SuStel wrote:
Who knows? Maybe there's an unambigous perfective quality verb in canon somewhere that we haven't brought up.
By the way, when I say "quality verb," I mean one that hasn't been modified to describe something that is no longer a quality. For instance, /paq'batlh/ has *bInenchoHpu',* but that*-choH* turns the quality *nen*/be mature/ into an event *nenchoH*/become mature./ /paq'batlh/ has quite a few *-choHpu'* words in it. Words like these don't count. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Just to clarify, if I wanted to say, “I was sick last week,” meaning that all week, I was sick, I’d say {Hogh vorgh jIroptaH}. I wouldn’t say {Hogh vorgh jIroppu’} unless I meant that I started getting sick last week, I was sick for a while, and I stopped being sick, all within the boundary of last week. That perhaps brings up a condition that makes {-pu’} sensible on a stative verb. If the Time Stamp has a duration that completely contains the duration of the stative verb, I now see that this could make sense, given the model of the perfective as being an action (or state) that is “compressed” into the moment of its cessation, so the reference is to the cessation, not the duration. If the context was my awareness that you were gone all last week and I ask you why you are here now, you might reasonably answer {Hogh vorgh jIroppu’.} If, instead, I asked why you were gone last week, it might make less sense, since my question has less to do with the cessation of your illness than with the duration and your answer would not have addressed my question. Am I getting warm yet in terms of my understanding of the Perfective? pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)
On Apr 5, 2022, at 11:13 AM, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> wrote:
I disagree that quality verbs cannot describe events.
If we look at:
Hogh vorgh jIQongpu' Hogh vorgh jIroppu'
In both cases, I'm looking back to two events: my sleep and my illnesss, both of which I consider as completed wholes, without inner structure. They were two events that happened last week. Sleeping and being ill are both biological conditions that my body has. Both only last for a certain period of time. Both can be described as events. It's a grammatical feature of Klingon that ghu rop is accepted and ghu Qong is not, but semantically they don't differ much.
Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 18.00, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 10:23 AM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with be as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced jIj is one. jIj is used in yuQjIjDIvI' etc. where it seems to be used adjectivally (Union of cooperative planets). As it's a compound we cannot be sure that its components can be used individually, but it's some evidence for jIj being a quality verb. I said it was a bad data point, not that I have judged it to be not a quality verb. Don't read more into my words than what I said.
It should be noted that the "be cooperative" meaning was given after the "cooperate" meaning. I don't see why to publish this new gloss unless the reason was to clarify that jIj indeed can be used as a quality verb. That's possible. But given the initial gloss, that makes jIj a bad data point for the question of using perfective on quality verbs.
As for using perfective with the quality verbs, I don't see why they'd work any differently than other intransitive verbs. Why would jIQongpu' "I was asleep" be allowed, but jIQuppu' "I was young" not? Just as sleeping is a completed event, being young is also a completed event. I was young, I can look that as a completed whole. For the same reason that you can say ghu Qup but not ghu Qong. Sleeping is an event; being young is not an event. Being asleep is a state. The issue is more complicated for Qong, because in English sleep is an event and be asleep is a state. jIQongpu' would be most accurately translated as I slept and would be used in a context of looking back at a point where I engaged in the single act of sleeping, whose flow over time is compressed. jIQong would be most accurately translated in the past tense as I was asleep and would be used in a context of describing my state at a particular point in the past.
Anyway, the point here is that there is a dearth of perfective on quality verbs in Klingon that may be significant. I'm not saying outright that you can't put perfective on a quality, but I am saying that it may be unusual and probably doesn't mean what you think it means. If you're thinking that it means that at some point in the past the subject had the quality and that point is over now, that's not using perfective correctly. That's just past tense. By using perfective on a quality, you're saying that the expression of the quality includes not only the quality but the completion of the quality, all in one "moment" (however long a moment is in context).
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>
tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 4/5/2022 12:09 PM, Will Martin wrote:
Just to clarify, if I wanted to say, “I was sick last week,” meaning that all week, I was sick, I’d say {Hogh vorgh jIroptaH}. I wouldn’t say {Hogh vorgh jIroppu’} unless I meant that I started getting sick last week, I was sick for a while, and I stopped being sick, all within the boundary of last week.
I would translate as follows: *Hogh vorgh jIrop.*/I was sick last week. /*Hogh vorgh jIroptaH.*/I was sick all last week./ For a quality to be true over a period of time doesn't require *-taH.* When you add *-taH,* what you're doing is expressing its flow over time and saying that it was continuous. Lacking *-taH* doesn't necessarily mean it was discontinuous; it just means that you're not describing its flow over time. You're just identifying a quality that applied. *Hogh vorgh jIroppu'* wouldn't describe getting sick, being sick for a while, and stopping being sick. All that does happen within the week by implication, but all the verb actually expresses is a complete event of sickness. If I say /I ran home,/ it's true by implication that I started to run, I spent some time running, and I finally stopped running. But none of that is expressed in the sentence. All it expresses is a complete event of running, without expressing any internal flow of that event. That's what *Hogh vorgh jIroppu'* is doing, and for a quality, that's weird. Again, I'm not saying it's possible, but it's weird, and I'm still not aware of any evidence that Klingon does it, just as a non-native English speaker might not be aware that one cannot say /I am knowing you./ It seems to follow the rules, so it should be allowed, right? Not necessarily.
That perhaps brings up a condition that makes {-pu’} sensible on a stative verb. If the Time Stamp has a duration that completely contains the duration of the stative verb, I now see that this could make sense, given the model of the perfective as being an action (or state) that is “compressed” into the moment of its cessation, so the reference is to the cessation, not the duration.
Think of it rather this way: the "moment" isn't necessarily a single instant. If I say /The United States won its independence in 1776,/ that's perfective. The winning's internal flow isn't being described at all; it just happened and was done. It didn't happen in just one singular instant; it happened throughout 1776, but this sentence treats the entire year as a single "moment." This is a common thing to do.
If the context was my awareness that you were gone all last week and I ask you why you are here now, you might reasonably answer {Hogh vorgh jIroppu’.}
You could answer *Hogh vorgh jIrop*/I was sick last week./ The perfective is not required to make this meaning clear. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
SuStel:
for a quality, that's weird. Again, I'm not saying it's possible, but it's weird, and I'm still not aware of any evidence that Klingon does it
I don't think it's weird. I've explained how such a word has a useful meaning. I think you too see how it could have a meaning, as you have multiple times described what it would mean, and I agree with your analysis. It seems the only reason you have to argue against this construct is that it is "weird" and doesn't fit to your personal model of how Klingon works.
I don't think you can answer it just by declaring a yes or a no as Iikka is doing.
Please don't put words in my mouth. All I've said is that there is no intrinsic semantic distinction between a quality verb and a non-quality verb. There is a grammatical distinction: quality verbs can be used as "adjective attributes". That is the only canonical distinction there is between these two parts of speech. All I've said is that 1) using perfective on quality verbs is both meaningful and useful 2) it isn't forbidden and 3) the lack of evidence is not proof of ungrammaticality. We cannot expect there to be a canonical sentence for every possible combination of words and suffixes, so just that there are not good data points doesn't mean anything. Instead, to support this kind of claim, one should find a sentence that should have a perfective suffix but doesn't, and argue that the lack of suffix is due to an unwritten rule. One interesting canon sentence to consider is vIneHpu' I wanted them that uses -pu' on neH which is a verb describing a state. While not an "adjective" like rop, it isn't an "action" either. If words like neH and Sov can have the perfective aspect, why wouldn't quality verbs too? Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 19.40, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 12:09 PM, Will Martin wrote:
Just to clarify, if I wanted to say, “I was sick last week,” meaning that all week, I was sick, I’d say {Hogh vorgh jIroptaH}. I wouldn’t say {Hogh vorgh jIroppu’} unless I meant that I started getting sick last week, I was sick for a while, and I stopped being sick, all within the boundary of last week.
I would translate as follows:
Hogh vorgh jIrop. I was sick last week.Hogh vorgh jIroptaH. I was sick all last week.
For a quality to be true over a period of time doesn't require -taH. When you add -taH, what you're doing is expressing its flow over time and saying that it was continuous. Lacking -taH doesn't necessarily mean it was discontinuous; it just means that you're not describing its flow over time. You're just identifying a quality that applied.
Hogh vorgh jIroppu' wouldn't describe getting sick, being sick for a while, and stopping being sick. All that does happen within the week by implication, but all the verb actually expresses is a complete event of sickness.
If I say I ran home, it's true by implication that I started to run, I spent some time running, and I finally stopped running. But none of that is expressed in the sentence. All it expresses is a complete event of running, without expressing any internal flow of that event. That's what Hogh vorgh jIroppu' is doing, and for a quality, that's weird. Again, I'm not saying it's possible, but it's weird, and I'm still not aware of any evidence that Klingon does it, just as a non-native English speaker might not be aware that one cannot say I am knowing you. It seems to follow the rules, so it should be allowed, right? Not necessarily.
That perhaps brings up a condition that makes {-pu’} sensible on a stative verb. If the Time Stamp has a duration that completely contains the duration of the stative verb, I now see that this could make sense, given the model of the perfective as being an action (or state) that is “compressed” into the moment of its cessation, so the reference is to the cessation, not the duration.
Think of it rather this way: the "moment" isn't necessarily a single instant. If I say The United States won its independence in 1776, that's perfective. The winning's internal flow isn't being described at all; it just happened and was done. It didn't happen in just one singular instant; it happened throughout 1776, but this sentence treats the entire year as a single "moment." This is a common thing to do.
If the context was my awareness that you were gone all last week and I ask you why you are here now, you might reasonably answer {Hogh vorgh jIroppu’.}
You could answer Hogh vorgh jIrop I was sick last week. The perfective is not required to make this meaning clear.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On 4/5/2022 2:19 PM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
SuStel:
for a quality, that's weird. Again, I'm not saying it's possible, but it's weird, and I'm still not aware of any evidence that Klingon does it
I don't think it's weird. I've explained how such a word has a useful meaning. I think you too see how it could have a meaning, as you have multiple times described what it would mean, and I agree with your analysis. It seems the only reason you have to argue against this construct is that it is "weird" and doesn't fit to your personal model of how Klingon works.
I don't think you can answer it just by declaring a yes or a no as Iikka is doing.
Please don't put words in my mouth.
Okay. I'm not going to read further. Every time we argue, you just project back what I've said to you, regardless of how accurate it is. You don't bring up evidence; you just claim that you do. So you go ahead and keep misrepresenting me. Have fun. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Why is it that you are the only person I have problems with communicating. I wish to discuss this in a civilized manner, but it's impossible if you keep accusing me of dishonesty. I consider that insulting. I never misrepresent you intentionally. I might have misunderstood what you have said. If this is the case, you could explain yourself in other words. But it seems your mistrust is so great nothing I can do to convince you of this. You see malicious intent in every word I say, read them like the devil reads the bible and find every inconsistency there is to accuse me of. Please stop. It is rude and against the principle of charity. You have a tendency to write about your speculation like it's an established truth. I will respond to your messages I honestly disagree with and want to tell my opinion of. Please do not respond me back if you have nothing nice to say. Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 21.30, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 2:19 PM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
SuStel:
for a quality, that's weird. Again, I'm not saying it's possible, but it's weird, and I'm still not aware of any evidence that Klingon does it
I don't think it's weird. I've explained how such a word has a useful meaning. I think you too see how it could have a meaning, as you have multiple times described what it would mean, and I agree with your analysis. It seems the only reason you have to argue against this construct is that it is "weird" and doesn't fit to your personal model of how Klingon works.
I don't think you can answer it just by declaring a yes or a no as Iikka is doing.
Please don't put words in my mouth.
Okay. I'm not going to read further. Every time we argue, you just project back what I've said to you, regardless of how accurate it is. You don't bring up evidence; you just claim that you do.
So you go ahead and keep misrepresenting me. Have fun.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
I’ll just comment that text sucks as a communication medium, and the Klingon Language list has long proven this to be true. People tend to skim messages with presumptions loaded based on who sent it and any controversial phrase leaps out like a signal flare, prompting them to respond in what they honestly feel is a justified, similar heat level. Ping pong. It’s a recursive, amplifying function. I’m always sorry to see it happen, especially when I’m one of the parties involved, but it still sucks to see people I respect going at each other via a medium that sucks for emotional content. We read emotional content that isn’t really there and add some heat. They see heat and add more. Flame. I’m old enough to (sometimes, but not always) just let go of it. It’s not really that important. It passes. Justice is an artificial abstract. We sincerely believe things should be “fair”, though we don’t agree on what is fair, and it spirals to levels beneath either party. I wish you both peace and disengagement, since engagement over this history has no “fair" resolution. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj)
On Apr 5, 2022, at 2:52 PM, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> wrote:
Why is it that you are the only person I have problems with communicating. I wish to discuss this in a civilized manner, but it's impossible if you keep accusing me of dishonesty.
I consider that insulting. I never misrepresent you intentionally. I might have misunderstood what you have said. If this is the case, you could explain yourself in other words. But it seems your mistrust is so great nothing I can do to convince you of this. You see malicious intent in every word I say, read them like the devil reads the bible and find every inconsistency there is to accuse me of. Please stop. It is rude and against the principle of charity.
You have a tendency to write about your speculation like it's an established truth. I will respond to your messages I honestly disagree with and want to tell my opinion of. Please do not respond me back if you have nothing nice to say.
Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 21.30, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 2:19 PM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
SuStel:
for a quality, that's weird. Again, I'm not saying it's possible, but it's weird, and I'm still not aware of any evidence that Klingon does it I don't think it's weird. I've explained how such a word has a useful meaning. I think you too see how it could have a meaning, as you have multiple times described what it would mean, and I agree with your analysis. It seems the only reason you have to argue against this construct is that it is "weird" and doesn't fit to your personal model of how Klingon works.
I don't think you can answer it just by declaring a yes or a no as Iikka is doing. Please don't put words in my mouth. Okay. I'm not going to read further. Every time we argue, you just project back what I've said to you, regardless of how accurate it is. You don't bring up evidence; you just claim that you do.
So you go ahead and keep misrepresenting me. Have fun.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>
tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 4/5/2022 2:52 PM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
Why is it that you are the only person I have problems with communicating.
I'm not. I've seen you do the same things to others on Discord. A certain moderator has told you you do the same things on Discord.
I consider that insulting. I never misrepresent you intentionally.
You do it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I say X. You tell me I've said X-squared. I say I didn't say X-squared, I said X. You say X-squared is just X times itself, so how is that any different than X-squared? I say because X means one thing and X-squared means another. You say that X-squared is just X times itself, and if I didn't mean X-squared, why didn't I say so, and why am I getting angry at you when you're just trying to have a nice discussion? I'm tired of this conversation.
I might have misunderstood what you have said.
I don't think you misunderstood me. I think you understood me just fine, disagreed with me, and tried to say my opinion was wrong because you said so. Up to that point, I'm fine — you're entitled to your opinion. I explain why I find your opinion unconvincing — i.e., you haven't provided any evidence. You repeat it, still without evidence, and turning my I-don't-think-it-works-this-way-but-maybe-it-would-work-like-this into "this cannot happen." (And before you start demanding citations, insisting that I put together a defense of this that you yourself wouldn't do the work to look into, this happened in your message where you began with, "I disagree that quality verbs cannot describe events.") And so on.
If this is the case, you could explain yourself in other words.
I have explained myself umpteen times already. If you are genuinely interested in my opinions on the subject (I don't believe you are), and you genuinely didn't understand the first time, go back and think about it some more. People will less linguistic training than you understood me.
But it seems your mistrust is so great nothing I can do to convince you of this.
Evidence will convince me.
You see malicious intent in every word I say, read them like the devil reads the bible and find every inconsistency there is to accuse me of. Please stop. It is rude and against the principle of charity.
*bIqIj, pubmeH balvaD jatlh 'un.*
You have a tendency to write about your speculation like it's an established truth.
A certain Discord moderator has recently leveled the same accusation against you multiple times. I, on the other hand, write with conviction when I have it, put in disclaimers all over the place to make the limits of my understanding and evidence plain, and back up my opinions with as many known facts and qualifications as I can find. My opinions change when I learn new things or someone brings up evidence that I hadn't considered. I, for instance, am the one who first pointed out that we lack any convincing examples of perfective on quality verbs, but I was also the one who brought up the *jIj* example, /which you yourself mentioned in Discord the other day./ I hadn't considered that, and it was good to consider it. But I also gave my reasons for rejecting it as evidence. You, on the other hand, just declared that you couldn't see why it wouldn't work. When telling you why I don't think it works, with all those qualifications and possibilities, with all the work /I/ did, your response was just "Here's two words that /I/ think are parallel." That's all well and good, but it ignores everything I did in response to /your/ implied question, why couldn't it work? And it just spirals from there. *bI'Ich; ghargh Darur.*
I will respond to your messages I honestly disagree with and want to tell my opinion of. Please do not respond me back if you have nothing nice to say.
You go right ahead. If you want to talk to me, or over me, do me the courtesy of genuinely trying to understand what I say before arguing against it. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Everything you wrote applies to you as well as to me. I don't think we are different. There is something in the way we talk that irritates the other. We both have a sense of justice and want to correct another if we think they are wrong. We both might talk about our theories as if they are facts and defend them strongly. These theories often have a lot of fuzzy and ill-defined concepts, which makes it easy for us to misunderstand each other, which makes us feel that we are misrepresented. Several incidents have lead to mistrust, which amplifies these problems. I'm not sure how to fix this situation. Building trust is a difficult path, but one that we need to take. Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 22.36, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 2:52 PM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
Why is it that you are the only person I have problems with communicating.
I'm not. I've seen you do the same things to others on Discord. A certain moderator has told you you do the same things on Discord.
I consider that insulting. I never misrepresent you intentionally.
You do it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I say X. You tell me I've said X-squared. I say I didn't say X-squared, I said X. You say X-squared is just X times itself, so how is that any different than X-squared? I say because X means one thing and X-squared means another. You say that X-squared is just X times itself, and if I didn't mean X-squared, why didn't I say so, and why am I getting angry at you when you're just trying to have a nice discussion?
I'm tired of this conversation.
I might have misunderstood what you have said.
I don't think you misunderstood me. I think you understood me just fine, disagreed with me, and tried to say my opinion was wrong because you said so. Up to that point, I'm fine — you're entitled to your opinion. I explain why I find your opinion unconvincing — i.e., you haven't provided any evidence. You repeat it, still without evidence, and turning my I-don't-think-it-works-this-way-but-maybe-it-would-work-like-this into "this cannot happen." (And before you start demanding citations, insisting that I put together a defense of this that you yourself wouldn't do the work to look into, this happened in your message where you began with, "I disagree that quality verbs cannot describe events.") And so on.
If this is the case, you could explain yourself in other words.
I have explained myself umpteen times already. If you are genuinely interested in my opinions on the subject (I don't believe you are), and you genuinely didn't understand the first time, go back and think about it some more. People will less linguistic training than you understood me.
But it seems your mistrust is so great nothing I can do to convince you of this.
Evidence will convince me.
You see malicious intent in every word I say, read them like the devil reads the bible and find every inconsistency there is to accuse me of. Please stop. It is rude and against the principle of charity.
bIqIj, pubmeH balvaD jatlh 'un.
You have a tendency to write about your speculation like it's an established truth.
A certain Discord moderator has recently leveled the same accusation against you multiple times.
I, on the other hand, write with conviction when I have it, put in disclaimers all over the place to make the limits of my understanding and evidence plain, and back up my opinions with as many known facts and qualifications as I can find. My opinions change when I learn new things or someone brings up evidence that I hadn't considered.
I, for instance, am the one who first pointed out that we lack any convincing examples of perfective on quality verbs, but I was also the one who brought up the jIj example, which you yourself mentioned in Discord the other day. I hadn't considered that, and it was good to consider it. But I also gave my reasons for rejecting it as evidence.
You, on the other hand, just declared that you couldn't see why it wouldn't work. When telling you why I don't think it works, with all those qualifications and possibilities, with all the work I did, your response was just "Here's two words that I think are parallel." That's all well and good, but it ignores everything I did in response to your implied question, why couldn't it work? And it just spirals from there. bI'Ich; ghargh Darur.
I will respond to your messages I honestly disagree with and want to tell my opinion of. Please do not respond me back if you have nothing nice to say.
You go right ahead. If you want to talk to me, or over me, do me the courtesy of genuinely trying to understand what I say before arguing against it.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Tue, 5 Apr 2022 at 21:36, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 2:52 PM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
I consider that insulting. I never misrepresent you intentionally.
You do it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I say X. You tell me I've said X-squared. I say I didn't say X-squared, I said X. You say X-squared is just X times itself, so how is that any different than X-squared? I say because X means one thing and X-squared means another. You say that X-squared is just X times itself, and if I didn't mean X-squared, why didn't I say so, and why am I getting angry at you when you're just trying to have a nice discussion?
I'm tired of this conversation.
I might have misunderstood what you have said.
I don't think you misunderstood me. I think you understood me just fine, disagreed with me, and tried to say my opinion was wrong because you said so. Up to that point, I'm fine — you're entitled to your opinion. I explain why I find your opinion unconvincing — i.e., you haven't provided any evidence.
I'll make the observation that you (Iikka) have the tendency to seemingly ignore what the other person says, repeat what they wrote back to them in a way that ignores their main point, and then claim that you agree with them. But this comes across essentially as declaring that you're right, which might be irritating to many people. For example, consider what you wrote to SuStel: "I think you too see how it could have a meaning, as you have multiple times described what it would mean, and I agree with your analysis." SuStel has described multiple times why the meaning of {roppu'} would be "weird", i.e., it indicates the completion of an action on a non-action. Instead of acknowledging or addressing this, you've simply declared that it can be done, and then claimed that you agree with him. Effectively, this is saying that he agrees with you, which I can see why would be infuriating. Very clearly, if you did agree with his analysis, you'd recognise that {roppu'} doesn't make sense; so either you actually disagree with his analysis, or you don't fully understand it. If I may make a suggestion, instead of "You said X, and I agree with you" (where the other person might not feel that X accurately represents what they said), it might be more conducive to a productive conversation to phrase it like, "I think you said X; is that right, and if not, what am I missing?" (Or, you know, challenge the other person to a {vItHay'}, as is the Klingon custom.) -- De'vID
On Apr 5, 2022, at 2:52 PM, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> wrote:
Why is it that you are the only person I have problems with communicating.
He’s the only one remaining who hasn’t yet decided to stop challenging your promotion of unproven Klingon grammar. I have had communication problems with you, pointed out the difficulties in your “style” of argument, complained about your habit of misrepresenting my words, and eventually given up on productive discussion. I think that’s true of others too. In this particular case, it’s apparent that either you aren’t reading what is being written, or you are intentionally twisting it so you can disagree. Neither option makes for a reasonable conversation.
On Tue, 5 Apr 2022 at 20:20, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> wrote:
SuStel:
for a quality, that's weird. Again, I'm not saying it's possible, but it's weird, and I'm still not aware of any evidence that Klingon does it
I don't think it's weird. I've explained how such a word has a useful meaning. I think you too see how it could have a meaning, as you have multiple times described what it would mean, and I agree with your analysis. It seems the only reason you have to argue against this construct is that it is "weird" and doesn't fit to your personal model of how Klingon works.
He wasn't just saying it was "weird" as a sort of personal feeling. He explained *how* it was weird: it treats a quality as an event (in the linguistic sense). TKD says that {-pu'} indicates that "an action is completed" and {-ta'} is used when "an activity was deliberately undertaken". Applying these to a state or quality is "weird" because actions or activities have a kind of internal structure or flow that a state or quality does not. An action is what something *does*, and putting {-pu'} on an action makes sense because it's saying that the action was completed (i.e., it expresses that the action is done). A state or quality is what something *is*, and putting {-pu'} on a state or quality doesn't make sense (is "weird"), because it's indicating that an action is completed when the verb doesn't express an action in the first place (i.e., it expresses that the quality is been? has been? I can't even describe what it would be doing). In {jIroppu'}, what is the "action" (in the linguistic sense) that's completed? It makes sense to say something like {rojchoHpu'} (because the {-choH} turns the verb into an action), but what would {roppu'} mean?
I don't think you can answer it just by declaring a yes or a no as Iikka is doing.
Please don't put words in my mouth. All I've said is that there is no intrinsic semantic distinction between a quality verb and a non-quality verb. There is a grammatical distinction: quality verbs can be used as "adjective attributes". That is the only canonical distinction there is between these two parts of speech.
All I've said is that 1) using perfective on quality verbs is both meaningful and useful 2) it isn't forbidden and 3) the lack of evidence is not proof of ungrammaticality.
Just because something isn't ungrammatical doesn't mean it makes sense. There's no explicit rule that prevents suffixes that apply only to actions from being attached to verbs which are non-actions, but the result doesn't make sense.
We cannot expect there to be a canonical sentence for every possible combination of words and suffixes, so just that there are not good data points doesn't mean anything. Instead, to support this kind of claim, one should find a sentence that should have a perfective suffix but doesn't, and argue that the lack of suffix is due to an unwritten rule.
That seems like begging the question to me. If it doesn't make sense to ever put a perfective suffix on a non-action verb, as I believe, then there can never be a sentence with a non-action verb which "should have a perfective suffix but doesn't". The fact that no perfective suffix is found on a non-action verb in canon *is* evidence that the two normally don't go together, even if it doesn't prove that they can't.
One interesting canon sentence to consider is *vIneHpu' **I wanted them* that uses *-pu'* on *neH* which is a verb describing a state.
It is? It seems pretty clear to me that {neH} is an action and not a state (in the senses of these words as used in TKD). {vIneHpu'} is even used as an example for {-pu'}, right after it's explained that the suffix indicates that "an action is completed". (A verb expressing a state can be used as an adjective following a noun, whereas {neH} clearly can't.)
While not an "adjective" like *rop*, it isn't an "action" either. If words like *neH* and *Sov* can have the perfective aspect, why wouldn't quality verbs too?
Because the meaning of {-pu'} makes sense on {neH} and {Sov} (which are both actions), and it doesn't seem to make sense on a verb of quality or state. -- De'vID
It is? It seems pretty clear to me that {neH} is an action and not a state (in the senses of these words as used in TKD). {vIneHpu'} is even used as an example for {-pu'}, right after it's explained that the suffix indicates that "an action is completed". (A verb expressing a state can be used as an adjective following a noun, whereas {neH} clearly can't.)
I'm not sayin gthat neH is a quality verb. I'm saying I think it's a stative verb. The English want is a so called stative verb. jIvem, jISay'eghmoH, Soj vIneH, vaj jISop. yaH vIghoS. Here vem, Say'moH, Sop and ghoS are actions that happen in an order: first I wake up, then I wash myself, then I eat, then I go to the duty station. But I don't think neH is an action. I don't first do a wanting-action and then eat. Wanting food is a state I have before eating, but I probably wanted to eat before washing myself too. Same goes for quality verbs: jIvem, jISay'eghmoH, jIghung, vaj jISop. yaH vIghoS. Being hungry is a state I have before eating, not an action. I do agree that these verbs aren't actions as such. But if we apply perfective to them, I think we can force them to describe events by compressing the state to a single point in the timeline. For example: Hogh vorgh jIrop. Last week I was sick. Hogh vorgh jIroppu'. Last week I had an illness. I think by adding -pu', I can make it an event. In my opinion, this is useful and meaningful. Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Wednesday, April 6th, 2022 at 02.46, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, 5 Apr 2022 at 20:20, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> wrote:
SuStel:
for a quality, that's weird. Again, I'm not saying it's possible, but it's weird, and I'm still not aware of any evidence that Klingon does it
I don't think it's weird. I've explained how such a word has a useful meaning. I think you too see how it could have a meaning, as you have multiple times described what it would mean, and I agree with your analysis. It seems the only reason you have to argue against this construct is that it is "weird" and doesn't fit to your personal model of how Klingon works.
He wasn't just saying it was "weird" as a sort of personal feeling. He explained *how* it was weird: it treats a quality as an event (in the linguistic sense).
TKD says that {-pu'} indicates that "an action is completed" and {-ta'} is used when "an activity was deliberately undertaken". Applying these to a state or quality is "weird" because actions or activities have a kind of internal structure or flow that a state or quality does not. An action is what something *does*, and putting {-pu'} on an action makes sense because it's saying that the action was completed (i.e., it expresses that the action is done). A state or quality is what something *is*, and putting {-pu'} on a state or quality doesn't make sense (is "weird"), because it's indicating that an action is completed when the verb doesn't express an action in the first place (i.e., it expresses that the quality is been? has been? I can't even describe what it would be doing).
In {jIroppu'}, what is the "action" (in the linguistic sense) that's completed? It makes sense to say something like {rojchoHpu'} (because the {-choH} turns the verb into an action), but what would {roppu'} mean?
I don't think you can answer it just by declaring a yes or a no as Iikka is doing.
Please don't put words in my mouth. All I've said is that there is no intrinsic semantic distinction between a quality verb and a non-quality verb. There is a grammatical distinction: quality verbs can be used as "adjective attributes". That is the only canonical distinction there is between these two parts of speech.
All I've said is that 1) using perfective on quality verbs is both meaningful and useful 2) it isn't forbidden and 3) the lack of evidence is not proof of ungrammaticality.
Just because something isn't ungrammatical doesn't mean it makes sense. There's no explicit rule that prevents suffixes that apply only to actions from being attached to verbs which are non-actions, but the result doesn't make sense.
We cannot expect there to be a canonical sentence for every possible combination of words and suffixes, so just that there are not good data points doesn't mean anything. Instead, to support this kind of claim, one should find a sentence that should have a perfective suffix but doesn't, and argue that the lack of suffix is due to an unwritten rule.
That seems like begging the question to me. If it doesn't make sense to ever put a perfective suffix on a non-action verb, as I believe, then there can never be a sentence with a non-action verb which "should have a perfective suffix but doesn't". The fact that no perfective suffix is found on a non-action verb in canon *is* evidence that the two normally don't go together, even if it doesn't prove that they can't.
One interesting canon sentence to consider is vIneHpu' I wanted them that uses -pu' on neH which is a verb describing a state.
It is? It seems pretty clear to me that {neH} is an action and not a state (in the senses of these words as used in TKD). {vIneHpu'} is even used as an example for {-pu'}, right after it's explained that the suffix indicates that "an action is completed". (A verb expressing a state can be used as an adjective following a noun, whereas {neH} clearly can't.)
While not an "adjective" like rop, it isn't an "action" either. If words like neH and Sov can have the perfective aspect, why wouldn't quality verbs too?
Because the meaning of {-pu'} makes sense on {neH} and {Sov} (which are both actions), and it doesn't seem to make sense on a verb of quality or state.
--
De'vID
On Wed, 6 Apr 2022 at 09:48, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> wrote:
It is? It seems pretty clear to me that {neH} is an action and not a state (in the senses of these words as used in TKD). {vIneHpu'} is even used as an example for {-pu'}, right after it's explained that the suffix indicates that "an action is completed". (A verb expressing a state can be used as an adjective following a noun, whereas {neH} clearly can't.)
I'm not sayin gthat *neH* is a quality verb. I'm saying I think it's a stative verb. The English *want* is a so called stative verb.
What you wrote was "a verb describing a state". This has a specific meaning in TKD. Verbs describing a state or quality behave differently than states describing actions. You're equivocating between different meanings of words like "state" and "event" to make your case. Those words have specific meanings in the context of linguistics. In Klingon, {neH} is an action, whereas {rop} is a state or quality. This is pretty clear from TKD. It does not matter that "want" is a "stative verb" in English or that being sick is a biological "event". That's not what those words mean in this context.
*jIvem, jISay'eghmoH, Soj vIneH, vaj jISop. yaH vIghoS.*
Here *vem*,* Say'moH*,* Sop *and* ghoS *are actions that happen in an order: first I wake up, then I wash myself, then I eat, then I go to the duty station. But I don't think *neH* is an action. I don't first do a wanting-action and then eat. Wanting food is a state I have before eating, but I probably wanted to eat before washing myself too.
It doesn't matter that you don't think {neH} is an action. TKD literally uses {vIneHpu'} as an example to illustrate "an action is completed". Whatever the colloquial meaning of the word "action" is, {neH} is an action when we're talking about Klingon linguistics.
Same goes for quality verbs:
*jIvem, jISay'eghmoH, jIghung, vaj jISop. yaH vIghoS.*
Being hungry is a state I have before eating, not an action.
That may be true, but irrelevant. {ghung} is a verb expressing a state or quality in Klingon, whether or not being hungry is a "state" in a biological sense. If Okrand had wanted to be weird, he could've defined {ghung} to be "hunger" and {'oj} as "thirst", and they'd have been action verbs in Klingon (like {Qong} is), regardless of the fact that the corresponding verbs in English are states.
I do agree that these verbs aren't actions as such. But if we apply perfective to them, I think we can force them to describe events by compressing the state to a single point in the timeline. For example:
*Hogh vorgh jIrop. *Last week I was sick. *Hogh vorgh jIroppu'. *Last week I had an illness.
I think by adding *-pu'*, I can make it an event. In my opinion, this is useful and meaningful.
Going by what's in TKD, which says that {-pu'} indicates "an action is completed", {jIroppu'} does not mean what you think it means. It means "The action of the quality of my being sick is completed", which is self-contradictory because a quality is not an action (or event). Quoting SuStel: "But what this says isn't that during last week I had the quality of being sick. It says that at some point during last week I experienced the event of being sick, and that the entire event is described in that one sentence. But it remains undemonstrated to me that Klingon allows being sick to be an event, and your simply declaring it so doesn't provide any evidence." You've just declared "I can make it an event", but how? Klingon verbs can be classified as expressing states or qualities ("be" verbs) and expressing actions or activities (and maybe some are both). You've simply *declared* that you can turn one into the other, but what is it (what is the rule or linguistic procedure or whatever) that allows you to do it? We have known means of doing so involving suffixes like {-choH} and {-moH}, but there's no evidence that "be" verbs can be turned into actions without such modifications. You can't simply declare that you can do this, any more than you can declare that one can turn a noun into a verb by putting verb prefixes on it (*{DIp vIwotpu'!}). It might turn out that what you claim is possible, but if so, there's no evidence that it can be done and the result doesn't make sense, so people are naturally pushing back on it. -- De'vID
De'vID:
What you wrote was "a verb describing a state". This has a specific meaning in TKD. Verbs describing a state or quality behave differently than states describing actions.
You're equivocating between different meanings of words like "state" and "event" to make your case. Those words have specific meanings in the context of linguistics.
You misunderstood me. "Stative verb" is a term used in linguistics, not specific to Klingon. SuStel has previously used this term a lot (see for example Discord #language-chat 26.3.), and I'm using it similarly in this discussion. My point is not to discuss the grammar but the semantics. Semantically verbs like neH and ghung are stative as they both describe a state instead of an action. This has nothing to do with the syntax of Klingon, where certain words can modify nouns and certain words cannot. That is an entirely separate classification that is not based on the meanings of the words but their grammar.
It doesn't matter that you don't think {neH} is an action. TKD literally uses {vIneHpu'} as an example to illustrate "an action is completed". Whatever the colloquial meaning of the word "action" is, {neH} is an action when we're talking about Klingon linguistics.
Yes, neH is an "action" in the sense that you can use perfective aspect with it. So while semantically stative, it can be syntactically an action. This is my main argument: stative verbs can be in the perfective aspect meaningfully.
If Okrand had wanted to be weird, he could've defined {ghung} to be "hunger" and {'oj} as "thirst", and they'd have been action verbs in Klingon (like {Qong} is), regardless of the fact that the corresponding verbs in English are states.
Here you are again confusing the semantic and syntactic viewpoints. Okrand is notoriously unclear when writting glosses. I think that the reason why some verbs are glossed as "be+adjective" and some not is to make sure the reader knows which words are syntactically quality verbs, ie. which verbs can modify nouns. If this is true, the glosses tell us nothing certain about the semantics of those words. Both I and SuStel have many times said that we don't think that it is syntactically forbidden to add -pu'to a quality verb (compare to eg. adding aspect to a verb that has 'e' as object: that is syntactically forbidden even when it makes sense). What we are discussing here is whether using perfective aspect is meaningful. Therefore, it doesn't matter what syntactic feature the words we discuss have. Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio ------- Original Message ------- On Wednesday, April 6th, 2022 at 14.00, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 6 Apr 2022 at 09:48, Iikka Hauhio <fergusq@protonmail.com> wrote:
It is? It seems pretty clear to me that {neH} is an action and not a state (in the senses of these words as used in TKD). {vIneHpu'} is even used as an example for {-pu'}, right after it's explained that the suffix indicates that "an action is completed". (A verb expressing a state can be used as an adjective following a noun, whereas {neH} clearly can't.)
I'm not sayin gthat neH is a quality verb. I'm saying I think it's a stative verb. The English want is a so called stative verb.
What you wrote was "a verb describing a state". This has a specific meaning in TKD. Verbs describing a state or quality behave differently than states describing actions.
You're equivocating between different meanings of words like "state" and "event" to make your case. Those words have specific meanings in the context of linguistics.
In Klingon, {neH} is an action, whereas {rop} is a state or quality. This is pretty clear from TKD. It does not matter that "want" is a "stative verb" in English or that being sick is a biological "event". That's not what those words mean in this context.
jIvem, jISay'eghmoH, Soj vIneH, vaj jISop. yaH vIghoS.
Here vem, Say'moH, Sop and ghoS are actions that happen in an order: first I wake up, then I wash myself, then I eat, then I go to the duty station. But I don't think neH is an action. I don't first do a wanting-action and then eat. Wanting food is a state I have before eating, but I probably wanted to eat before washing myself too.
It doesn't matter that you don't think {neH} is an action. TKD literally uses {vIneHpu'} as an example to illustrate "an action is completed". Whatever the colloquial meaning of the word "action" is, {neH} is an action when we're talking about Klingon linguistics.
Same goes for quality verbs:
jIvem, jISay'eghmoH, jIghung, vaj jISop. yaH vIghoS.
Being hungry is a state I have before eating, not an action.
That may be true, but irrelevant. {ghung} is a verb expressing a state or quality in Klingon, whether or not being hungry is a "state" in a biological sense. If Okrand had wanted to be weird, he could've defined {ghung} to be "hunger" and {'oj} as "thirst", and they'd have been action verbs in Klingon (like {Qong} is), regardless of the fact that the corresponding verbs in English are states.
I do agree that these verbs aren't actions as such. But if we apply perfective to them, I think we can force them to describe events by compressing the state to a single point in the timeline. For example:
Hogh vorgh jIrop. Last week I was sick. Hogh vorgh jIroppu'. Last week I had an illness.
I think by adding -pu', I can make it an event. In my opinion, this is useful and meaningful.
Going by what's in TKD, which says that {-pu'} indicates "an action is completed", {jIroppu'} does not mean what you think it means. It means "The action of the quality of my being sick is completed", which is self-contradictory because a quality is not an action (or event).
Quoting SuStel: "But what this says isn't that during last week I had the quality of being sick. It says that at some point during last week I experienced the event of being sick, and that the entire event is described in that one sentence. But it remains undemonstrated to me that Klingon allows being sick to be an event, and your simply declaring it so doesn't provide any evidence."
You've just declared "I can make it an event", but how? Klingon verbs can be classified as expressing states or qualities ("be" verbs) and expressing actions or activities (and maybe some are both). You've simply *declared* that you can turn one into the other, but what is it (what is the rule or linguistic procedure or whatever) that allows you to do it? We have known means of doing so involving suffixes like {-choH} and {-moH}, but there's no evidence that "be" verbs can be turned into actions without such modifications. You can't simply declare that you can do this, any more than you can declare that one can turn a noun into a verb by putting verb prefixes on it (*{DIp vIwotpu'!}). It might turn out that what you claim is possible, but if so, there's no evidence that it can be done and the result doesn't make sense, so people are naturally pushing back on it.
--
De'vID
On 4/6/2022 8:44 AM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
De'vID:
What you wrote was "a verb describing a state". This has a specific meaning in TKD. Verbs describing a state or quality behave differently than states describing actions.
You're equivocating between different meanings of words like "state" and "event" to make your case. Those words have specific meanings in the context of linguistics.
You misunderstood me. "Stative verb" is a term used in linguistics, not specific to Klingon. SuStel has previously used this term a lot (see for example Discord #language-chat 26.3.), and I'm using it similarly in this discussion.
He hasn't misunderstood you. He is specifically invoking the word "state" as it is used in /The Klingon Dictionary/ and distinguishing it from the word "stative" as used generally in linguistics. My argument all along has been about what I'm calling "quality verbs," which is what TKD calls "verbs expressing a state or quality," and I've been calling them that to try to avoid confusion with "stative" verbs, because they were never the subject of what I was talking about. But you've insisted on talking about them.
My point is not to discuss the grammar but the semantics. /Semantically/ verbs like *neH* and *ghung* are stative as they both describe a state instead of an action.
Yes, I agree: both are "stative." Only one is what Klingon calls "state or quality." We have evidence in Klingon that perfective can appear on stative verbs that are not quality verbs. We have no evidence in Klingon that perfective can appear on quality verbs.
Yes, *neH* is an "action" in the sense that you can use perfective aspect with it. So while /semantically /stative, it can be/ syntactically/ an action. This is my main argument: stative verbs can be in the perfective aspect meaningfully.
But that is not the topic of conversation. What started this off, and what I've been talking about, is whether perfective can appear on a quality verb, and what it would mean.
Both I and SuStel have many times said that we don't think that it is /syntactically/ forbidden to add *-pu'*//to a quality verb (compare to eg. adding aspect to a verb that has *'e'* as object: that is syntactically forbidden even when it makes sense). What we are discussing here is whether using perfective aspect is /meaningful/. Therefore, it doesn't matter what syntactic feature the words we discuss have.
Yes, there is no known rule prohibiting a perfective suffix on a quality verb. Yes, what we are discussing here is whether using perfective aspect on a /quality verb/ is meaningful. What we are /not/ discussing is whether perfective aspect is meaningful on a /stative verb./ We already know the answer to that: yes, stative verbs that are not quality verbs have been seen with perfective on them. They are actions in Klingon, not qualities. I do not accept the argument that because Klingon allows one kind of stative verb to have perfective that it must necessarily allow all kinds of stative verbs to have perfective. In Klingon, the significant distinction between words is whether a word is an "action" or a "quality." In Klingon, *HoH, Qong, *and*neH* are all considered actions. The semantic distinction between "event" and "state" does not appear to have any impact on Klingon grammar in this context. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
Thank you SuStel and De'vID for taking the time to explain all this. For the first time after 6 years, I feel that I start to understand the basics of aspect. It feels as if I was in a dark unfamiliar room, constantly bumping into stuff in my effort to find my way, and all of a sudden someone has turned on the lights. So again thanks, I'm grateful. There are two more subjects regarding aspect which I'd like to discuss, but I'll post them as separate threads. But before moving on, I'll paste here some parts of the discussion which took place in the < {je} "too" applying to the adverb > thread (http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/2022-March/019586.html ). I'm adding these parts of that discussion here too for ease of reference, since I think they are directly related to this thread as well. ********** quote starts ********** jIH:
I can't understand this. Does this mean that one can use the perfective {-pu'} only on action verbs, and not on quality verbs?
SuStel: No, it means if you want to describe possessing a quality in the past, you're describing having that quality, not having completed having that quality. -pu' doesn't just mean "it's over now"; it means you're describing an action as a completed whole. But when you want to say that at a specific time you had a specific quality, this isn't perfective, it's imperfective. In that moment, you have the quality puj. You're not describing anything as a completed whole. I think you're still confusing past tense with perfective aspect. [...] I think to put a Klingon stative verb into the perfective would be to alter it from a state to an event. The effect of saying ngugh bIpujpu' would be like saying "At that time, you weaked." There might be an unusual circumstance where you might want to say such a thing, just as there might be an unusual circumstance in English where you might want to say "I am knowing you," but it's not standard. [...] If I say ngugh bIpujpu', I'm picking out a specific point on the timeline, that time, 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. ********** quote ends ********** -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
On Wed, 6 Apr 2022 at 01:46, De'vID <de.vid.jonpin@gmail.com> wrote:
We cannot expect there to be a canonical sentence for every possible
combination of words and suffixes, so just that there are not good data points doesn't mean anything. Instead, to support this kind of claim, one should find a sentence that should have a perfective suffix but doesn't, and argue that the lack of suffix is due to an unwritten rule.
That seems like begging the question to me. If it doesn't make sense to ever put a perfective suffix on a non-action verb, as I believe, then there can never be a sentence with a non-action verb which "should have a perfective suffix but doesn't". The fact that no perfective suffix is found on a non-action verb in canon *is* evidence that the two normally don't go together, even if it doesn't prove that they can't.
Even though I believe the requirements of your test can never be satisfied, it just occurred to me that there are examples in canon which demonstrate why not. {ghorgh tujchoHpu' bIQ?} "When will the water be hot?" (from TKD) Of course, one can simply ask {ghorgh tuj bIQ?} to mean "when will the water be hot?" as a general question about the temperature of the water. But there is an implicit context here that the asker is expecting the water to have completed being hot. But {ghorgh tujpu' bIQ} doesn't make sense, because {tuj} (being hot) is not an event, action, or process. {tujchoH} (becoming hot) is, though. It was explained at qep'a' cha'maH loSDIch that {ngI'chu' muD} indicates that the air pressure is correct. To indicate that this is the result of a process, one might use {ngI'choHchu'pu' muD}. Note that the former wasn't {ngI'chu'pu'}, and the latter has a {-choH}. I believe this is because {-pu'} doesn't make sense on a state (the air pressure is correct), whereas it does make sense on a process (the air pressure becoming correct). Of course, this doesn't *prove* that {-pu'} can't be put on a verb expressing a quality or state. I can't think of any quality verb where it makes sense to say it was "completed", without first turning that verb into an action (with {-choH} or {-moH} or whatever). (This includes {rop}, which both SuStel and I have explained doesn't make sense with {-pu'}, or at least doesn't mean what you claim it does.) You asked for examples of a sentence that should have a perfective suffix but doesn't, but the point is that no verb of state or quality can be a completed action, so what you're asking for can't exist (except as an error). But where we have a state or quality which is completed (as a result of a process), we do have examples of {-pu'}, but they are always accompanied by {-choH}. ({jIropchoHpu'} has a perfectly sensible meaning, for example, for "I'm sick, I've completed the process of getting sick".) -- De'vID
...
On Apr 5, 2022, at 11:00 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 10:23 AM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with be as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced jIj is one. jIj is used in yuQjIjDIvI' etc. where it seems to be used adjectivally (Union of cooperative planets). As it's a compound we cannot be sure that its components can be used individually, but it's some evidence for jIj being a quality verb. I said it was a bad data point, not that I have judged it to be not a quality verb. Don't read more into my words than what I said.
While I very much respect your expertise and your analysis, in this case I was not reading things into what you said. I was offering a reasonable explanation for the “bad data point”. We know that Klingon has homophones. Sometimes one is a noun and the other is a verb. We know that {lo’laHbe’} can be either an adjectival root verb, or an appended {lo’}. We don’t have any evidence that it’s impossible for {jIj} to be, like {lo’laHbe’}, two different homophonic verbs that can’t be differentiated by sound, but can be differentiated by usage.
It should be noted that the "be cooperative" meaning was given after the "cooperate" meaning. I don't see why to publish this new gloss unless the reason was to clarify that jIj indeed can be used as a quality verb. That's possible. But given the initial gloss, that makes jIj a bad data point for the question of using perfective on quality verbs.
Quite true. I’m with you on perfective quality verbs being weird. But “cooperate” isn’t stative. That’s my whole point. “Cooperate” is an active verb, whether or not it can take an object. It’s not adjectival. When woQ luSuqmeH jIjpu' chaH romuluSngan'e’ je was written on the card, the definition was “cooperate”. If that is a homophone for the stative homophonic verb {jIj}, then this canon use of {jIj} isn’t stative. If that’s what you mean by “bad data point”, then we are in agreement and simply miscommunicating. I’m not saying YOU are miscommunicating. I’m saying WE are miscommunicating. My bad as much as yours, or maybe exclusively my bad. I only suggest the the homophone to back up your argument, not to challenge it.
As for using perfective with the quality verbs, I don't see why they'd work any differently than other intransitive verbs. Why would jIQongpu' "I was asleep" be allowed, but jIQuppu' "I was young" not? Just as sleeping is a completed event, being young is also a completed event. I was young, I can look that as a completed whole. For the same reason that you can say ghu Qup but not ghu Qong. Sleeping is an event; being young is not an event. Being asleep is a state. The issue is more complicated for Qong, because in English sleep is an event and be asleep is a state. jIQongpu' would be most accurately translated as I slept and would be used in a context of looking back at a point where I engaged in the single act of sleeping, whose flow over time is compressed. jIQong would be most accurately translated in the past tense as I was asleep and would be used in a context of describing my state at a particular point in the past.
I really like this specific model you suggest in terms of the perfective. The perfective sees the completion of the action as a point in time without reference to the duration of the action. The continuous aspect refers to the duration of the action as a fat thing with no reference to the beginning or end. Those boundaries are left vague and unstated. With no affix, you refer to some fractional duration of the activity without reference to that ending boundary or to the duration as a whole. The fraction can be a point in time (other than the end) or of some duration shorter than the entire duration. The focus is on the activity itself instead of any reference to duration. The length of the duration can be vague because it is insignificant to the meaning of the statement.
Anyway, the point here is that there is a dearth of perfective on quality verbs in Klingon that may be significant. I'm not saying outright that you can't put perfective on a quality, but I am saying that it may be unusual and probably doesn't mean what you think it means. If you're thinking that it means that at some point in the past the subject had the quality and that point is over now, that's not using perfective correctly. That's just past tense. By using perfective on a quality, you're saying that the expression of the quality includes not only the quality but the completion of the quality, all in one "moment" (however long a moment is in context).
Yep. If you had something specific to say that you think would be meaningfully expressed with {-pu’} on a stative verb, then you’d have a reason to explore this, but like you, I don’t foresee that circumstance. Starting with “Okay, so we put {-pu’} on a stative verb. What does this mean?” I think you are putting the cart in front of the Sargh, and the tail is wagging the targh.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>_______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 4/5/2022 11:50 AM, Will Martin wrote:
...
On Apr 5, 2022, at 11:00 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 4/5/2022 10:23 AM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
I don't automatically take every gloss that starts with/be/as proving a quality verb, so I'm not convinced*jIj*is one.
*jIj* is used in *yuQjIjDIvI' *etc. where it seems to be used adjectivally (Union of cooperative planets). As it's a compound we cannot be sure that its components can be used individually, but it's some evidence for *jIj* being a quality verb.
I said it was a bad data point, not that I have judged it to be not a quality verb. Don't read more into my words than what I said.
While I very much respect your expertise and your analysis, in this case I was not reading things into what you said. I was offering a reasonable explanation for the “bad data point”.
Nono, I was replying to Iikka, not you. I agreed with what you said there.
As for using perfective with the quality verbs, I don't see why they'd work any differently than other intransitive verbs. Why would *jIQongpu' */"I was asleep" /be allowed, but *jIQuppu' */"I was young" /not? Just as sleeping is a completed event, being young is also a completed event. I was young, I can look that as a completed whole.
For the same reason that you can say *ghu Qup* but not *ghu Qong.* Sleeping is an event; being young is not an event. Being asleep is a state. The issue is more complicated for *Qong,* because in English /sleep/ is an event and /be asleep/ is a state. *jIQongpu'* would be most accurately translated as /I slept/ and would be used in a context of looking back at a point where I engaged in the single act of sleeping, whose flow over time is compressed. *jIQong* would be most accurately translated in the past tense as /I was asleep/ and would be used in a context of describing my state at a particular point in the past.
I really like this specific model you suggest in terms of the perfective. The perfective sees the completion of the action as a point in time without reference to the duration of the action.
It sees the action itself, including its completion, as a point in time without reference to duration (or frequency, or habitualness, etc.). By saying *jIQongpu',* you're not just saying that there is a point on the timeline where you finish sleeping; you're saying there's a point on the timeline where you performed a complete act of sleeping.
The continuous aspect refers to the duration of the action as a fat thing with no reference to the beginning or end. Those boundaries are left vague and unstated. With no affix, you refer to some fractional duration of the activity without reference to that ending boundary or to the duration as a whole.
Or you refer to some timeless activity or state that doesn't have a place on the timeline. For instance, *reH yIHmey HoH tlhInganpu'*/Klingons always kill tribbles./ This doesn't happen at a specific time; it's a timeless fact. Without the *reH, *just *yIHmey HoH tlhInganpu'* could mean /Klingons kill tribbles/ (a timeless fact) or /the Klingons kill the tribbles/ (a specific event, described in the act of killing).//(In English, the distinction is made with the determiner /the/.)
The fraction can be a point in time (other than the end) or of some duration shorter than the entire duration. The focus is on the activity itself instead of any reference to duration. The length of the duration can be vague because it is insignificant to the meaning of the statement.
Exactly!
Anyway, the point here is that there is a dearth of perfective on quality verbs in Klingon that may be significant. I'm not saying outright that you can't put perfective on a quality, but I am saying that it may be unusual and probably doesn't mean what you think it means. If you're thinking that it means that at some point in the past the subject had the quality and that point is over now, that's not using perfective correctly. That's just past tense. By using perfective on a quality, you're saying that the expression of the quality includes not only the quality but the completion of the quality, all in one "moment" (however long a moment is in context).
Yep. If you had something specific to say that you think would be meaningfully expressed with {-pu’} on a stative verb, then you’d have a reason to explore this, but like you, I don’t foresee that circumstance. Starting with “Okay, so we put {-pu’} on a stative verb. What does this mean?” I think you are putting the cart in front of the Sargh, and the tail is wagging the targh.
I think exploring the question of perfective on qualities is a good one to ask (because this discussion was started by someone doing just that), but I don't think you can answer it just by declaring a yes or a no as Iikka is doing. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
On Tue, 5 Apr 2022 at 14:16, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
Or perhaps does voragh know of a Ca'Non example where we have the {-pu'} on a quality/stative verb?
I just encountered an example of this that I'd forgotten about earlier as I was checking through the revisions for the paq'batlh. But since it's been revised, it doesn't really exist as an example any more. That line was (in the 1st edition): "Kahless the unforgettable, / I welcome you in Sto-vo-kor, / For you lived wise and honorable." {qeylIS lIjlaHbogh pagh / Suto'vo'qorDaq qavan / batlh bIyInta' 'ej bIvalta'} The revised line in the 2nd edition will be: "Kahless the unforgettable, / I welcome you in Sto-vo-kor, / For you lived wise and honorable." {qeylIS lIjlaHbogh pagh / Suto’vo’qorDaq qavan / bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ ’ej batlh bIvangta'} First, the verb {val} "be clever" (from TKD) was changed to {chul} "be wise" (revealed in 2020). Second, the entire sentence was revised because its meaning wasn't a good match for or expression of the meaning of the English version. The original sentence was trying to apply {val} as if it were an adverb to {yIn}, which just didn't work. -- De'vID
De'vID:
The revised line in the 2nd edition will be: "Kahless the unforgettable, / I welcome you in Sto-vo-kor, / For you lived wise and honorable." {qeylIS lIjlaHbogh pagh / Suto’vo’qorDaq qavan / bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ ’ej batlh bIvangta'}
Thanks for sharing this. But I see something strange: {bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’} Did 'oqranD comment as to why he decided to keep the {-ta'} on the verb of the sao? As a side note to this, I find it interesting that it's {bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’}, rather than {bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ bIyIntaHvIS}, a thing which shows that the {'e'} of a sao can refer to something preceding the sentence which it has as an object. -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
On 7/16/2022 4:19 AM, D qunen'oS wrote:
As a side note to this, I find it interesting that it's {bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’}, rather than {bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ bIyIntaHvIS}, a thing which shows that the {'e'} of a sao can refer to something preceding the sentence which it has as an object.
It doesn't show that. The *'e'* refers to the immediately preceding sentence, *bIyIntaHvIS bIchul.* *'e'* doesn't just refer only to independent clauses, but to entire sentences. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
SuStel:
It doesn't show that. The 'e' refers to the immediately preceding sentence, bIyIntaHvIS bIchul. 'e' doesn't just refer only to independent clauses, but to entire sentences.
Hmm.. Ok, let me ask this another way.. If instead of {bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’} we had {bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ bIyIntaHvIS}, would there be any difference? -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
On Jul 16, 2022, at 9:35 AM, D q<mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
If instead of {bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’} we had {bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ bIyIntaHvIS}, would there be any difference?
There is certainly a difference. You have moved the dependent clause to a different sentence, applying it to {'aghta'} instead of {chul}. (It also seems odd style to have a V-taHvIS providing context for a V-ta', but I suppose it works.) — ghunchu'wI'
jIH:
If instead of {bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’} we had {bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ bIyIntaHvIS}, would there be any difference? ghunchu'wI': There is certainly a difference. You have moved the dependent clause to a different sentence, applying it to {'aghta'} instead of {chul}.
Thanks for replying. I think I understand your comment, but I can't *feel* what the (considerable) difference between the two is. bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ while you were living you were wise; you displayed that bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ bIyIntaHvIS you were wise; while you were living you displayed that Meaning-wise I can't *feel* any significant difference. ghunchu'wI':
It also seems odd style to have a V- taHvIS providing context for a V-ta', but I suppose it works
I'm afraid I don't understand this. Why would that be odd? -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
On 7/16/2022 9:29 AM, D qunen'oS wrote:
If instead of {bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’} we had {bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ bIyIntaHvIS}, would there be any difference?
(I'm going to drop the *-ta'* because it freaks me out.) *bIyIntaHvIS bIchul 'e' Da'agh. */You are wise while you live. You show that./ *bIchul 'e' Da'agh bIyIntaHvIS. */You are wise. You show that while you live./ In the first sentence, you are being wise while living. In the second, you are showing while living. If the showing and the being wise cover the same time span, then there is no practical difference between these even though there is a conceptual difference. If showing and being wise are not identical in time span, then the difference between being wise while living and showing while living is significant. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
So, since there’s no {bIchultaH} in the sentence, we’re not really saying much in terms of the duration of Kahless being wise. At some point while he was living, he was wise, at least once. Maybe several times. Maybe a lot of times, but certainly not continuously. So, really it sounds like we’re just saying that he was occasionally wise or at least once he was wise before he crossed over to the great beyond, but if he was wise in the afterlife, we don’t know about it. We’ll just dodge the issue with “No comment.” Also, before he was born, if there’s a place Kahless existed, he wasn’t noted for being wise there, either. We are limiting ourselves to the time period during which he was alive, and we are noting that for at least one moment during one event within his lifespan, he was wise. We are offering rather limited praise here.
On Jul 16, 2022, at 10:56 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 7/16/2022 9:29 AM, D qunen'oS wrote: If instead of {bIyIntaHvIS bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’} we had {bIchul ’e’ Da’aghta’ bIyIntaHvIS}, would there be any difference? (I'm going to drop the -ta' because it freaks me out.)
bIyIntaHvIS bIchul 'e' Da'agh. You are wise while you live. You show that.
bIchul 'e' Da'agh bIyIntaHvIS. You are wise. You show that while you live.
In the first sentence, you are being wise while living. In the second, you are showing while living. If the showing and the being wise cover the same time span, then there is no practical difference between these even though there is a conceptual difference. If showing and being wise are not identical in time span, then the difference between being wise while living and showing while living is significant.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On 7/16/2022 4:01 PM, Will Martin wrote:
So, since there’s no {bIchultaH} in the sentence, we’re not really saying much in terms of the duration of Kahless being wise. At some point while he was living, he was wise, at least once. Maybe several times. Maybe a lot of times, but certainly not continuously.
That's not how *-taH* works. You don't need *-taH* on a quality verb that has its quality for more than a moment. *bIchul* doesn't mean you were wise in one instance. It means you have the quality of wisdom and doesn't say anything about how long you had that quality. To say *bIchultaH,* on the other hand, is to say that you have the quality of wisdom for an ongoing period. *bIyIntaHvIS bIchul* could mean you are wise some or all of the time you are alive. You might be wise occasionally or constantly. *bIyIntaHvIS bIchultaH* would almost always be interpreted as saying that you are wise throughout your life. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
No argument with any of that, except, why bother saying “while he lived”? Like, he had some OTHER opportunity to be wise? Will Martin, retired.
On Jul 16, 2022, at 4:34 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 7/16/2022 4:01 PM, Will Martin wrote:
So, since there’s no {bIchultaH} in the sentence, we’re not really saying much in terms of the duration of Kahless being wise. At some point while he was living, he was wise, at least once. Maybe several times. Maybe a lot of times, but certainly not continuously. That's not how -taH works. You don't need -taH on a quality verb that has its quality for more than a moment. bIchul doesn't mean you were wise in one instance. It means you have the quality of wisdom and doesn't say anything about how long you had that quality. To say bIchultaH, on the other hand, is to say that you have the quality of wisdom for an ongoing period. bIyIntaHvIS bIchul could mean you are wise some or all of the time you are alive. You might be wise occasionally or constantly. bIyIntaHvIS bIchultaH would almost always be interpreted as saying that you are wise throughout your life.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 11:42 PM Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:
No argument with any of that, except, why bother saying “while he lived”?
The statement is being made to him as he enters the afterlife. He has died. That's why. -- ghunchu'wI'
SuStel:
I'm going to drop the -ta' because it freaks me out
Yes, this disturbs me too. It seems "unnatural". But the problem here is that De'vID said that this is the corrected version of that sentence. Meaning that 'oqranD decided to keep this {-ta'}, which shows that perhaps there's some grammar at work, which he hasn't yet explained, perhaps as was the case with the {xlu' 'e' ylu'}. And I'm wondering what is he ('oqranD) expecting before he clarifies this. As was the case with the {tlheD} where he didn't answer if and when we'd need to add {-vo'} on the departure point. -- Dana'an https://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/ Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
It wasn't relevant to the question being asked, so it wasn't needed for my examples. -------- Original message --------From: D qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> Date: 7/17/22 2:29 AM (GMT-05:00) To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list <tlhingan-hol@kli.org> Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] thoughts on the perfective {-pu'} SuStel:> I'm going to drop the -ta' because it freaks me outYes, this disturbs me too. It seems "unnatural".But the problem here is that De'vID said that this is the corrected version of that sentence. Meaning that 'oqranD decided to keep this {-ta'}, which shows that perhaps there's some grammar at work, which he hasn't yet explained, perhaps as was the case with the {xlu' 'e' ylu'}.And I'm wondering what is he ('oqranD) expecting before he clarifies this. As was the case with the {tlheD} where he didn't answer if and when we'd need to add {-vo'} on the departure point.-- Dana'anhttps://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
It wasn't relevant to the question being asked, so it wasn't needed for my examples. -------- Original message --------From: D qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> Date: 7/17/22 2:29 AM (GMT-05:00) To: tlhIngan Hol mailing list <tlhingan-hol@kli.org> Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] thoughts on the perfective {-pu'} SuStel:> I'm going to drop the -ta' because it freaks me outYes, this disturbs me too. It seems "unnatural".But the problem here is that De'vID said that this is the corrected version of that sentence. Meaning that 'oqranD decided to keep this {-ta'}, which shows that perhaps there's some grammar at work, which he hasn't yet explained, perhaps as was the case with the {xlu' 'e' ylu'}.And I'm wondering what is he ('oqranD) expecting before he clarifies this. As was the case with the {tlheD} where he didn't answer if and when we'd need to add {-vo'} on the departure point.-- Dana'anhttps://sacredtextsinklingon.wordpress.com/Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἐστίν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται· ὦ μεγάλε Ζεῦ
On 7/17/2022 2:29 AM, D qunen'oS wrote:
SuStel:
I'm going to drop the -ta' because it freaks me out
Yes, this disturbs me too. It seems "unnatural".
But the problem here is that De'vID said that this is the corrected version of that sentence. Meaning that 'oqranD decided to keep this {-ta'}, which shows that perhaps there's some grammar at work, which he hasn't yet explained, perhaps as was the case with the {xlu' 'e' ylu'}.
It wasn't relevant to the question being asked, so it wasn't needed in my examples. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name
participants (11)
-
Alan Anderson -
D qunen'oS -
De'vID -
ghunchu'wI' 'utlh
-
Iikka Hauhio -
luis.chaparro＠web.de -
mayqel qunen'oS
-
Steven Boozer -
SuStel -
Will Martin -
Will Martin