Time 2: Time Markers

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Telling The Time

Following on from the "When?" post, apart from using suffixes to tell when an activity is occurring, Klingon uses other markers to mark a specific time - such as today, yesterday, tomorrow, soon, now, never and so on.

DaHjaj	today
wa'Hu'	yesterday
wa'leS	tomorrow
tugh	soon
DaH	now
not	never

These words always come in the sentence before the object-verb-subject part, in effect in the place where the word ghorgh When? would be if the sentence was phrased as a question.

So, for example, taking one sentence

Hegh tlhIngan

The Klingon dies

we can construct

ghorgh Hegh tlhIngan	When did the Klingon die?/ When will the Klingon die?
DaHjaj Hegh tlhIngan	The Klingon dies (or died) today
wa'Hu' Hegh tlhIngan	The Klingon died yesterday
wa'leS Hegh tlhIngan	The Klingon dies tomorrow
tugh Hegh tlhIngan	The Klingon will die soon
DaH Hegh tlhIngan	The Klingon dies now
not Hegh tlhIngan	The Klingon will never die!

Note how in each case the time marker words occupy the location in the sentence where ghorgh goes.

You can use these time markers to further refine sentences featuring subordinate clauses and verbs with suffixes -DI' when, as soon as, -pa' before and -taHvIS while, during, as long as and -pu' perfective, -ta' accomplished, done, -taH continuous and -lI' in progress as described in the previous lessons.

wa'Hu' Dargh lutlhutlhDI' tar lutlhutlhpu'	Yesterday, when they drank the tea, they drank a poison
wa'leS maHeghpa' yIja'	Tell him tomorrow, before we die
wa'Hu' Doy'DI' ghu tugh QongchoH ghu	Yesterday, when the baby grew tired it soon fell asleep
wa'leS pawDI' parmaqqaywI' De' wIghaj	Tomorrow, when my beloved arrives, we will have the knowledge
not 'oy' bechmo' be'vetlh, 'oy' bechDI' be' maw'choH be'	Because that woman had never suffered pain, when the woman did suffer pain, she went crazy

Next: more of these time markers, and a look at some numbers.

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