Greek to Tibetan: a completed event does not specify how the speaker knows
Keep tense, aspect and evidence distinct
Modern Greek distinguishes perfective and imperfective verbal aspect and forms perfect tenses with έχω, have, plus a special nonfinite form. These structures contribute information about the event and its temporal presentation. They do not, by themselves, supply every evidential distinction relevant to a Standard Tibetan auxiliary. A translator should not choose a Tibetan form solely because both grammar descriptions use the English label perfect.
The Standard Tibetan lesson distinguishes directly observed past events from an experiential perfect connecting present observations with an earlier action. Its comparison concerning Tendzin’s departure illustrates a genuine difference in how the speaker supports the statement. A Greek completed-event form should therefore not automatically become a Tibetan inference claim. The source may report an observed departure, a remembered event or a conclusion from evidence elsewhere in the passage.
Inference is more specific than an ordinary past report
The lesson illustrates the experiential perfect through འདུག in writing and བཞག in ordinary speech. In its departure example, the speaker has not watched the person leave but interprets traces such as absent belongings. The target consequently relates an observable present situation to a previous event. A Greek sentence about someone having left may fit that interpretation when the surrounding account actually supplies such evidence; grammatical resemblance alone does not establish it.
Consider two original situations for interpreting the Greek source: the writer watched a colleague walk out, or the writer arrived later and found the colleague’s desk empty. Both can support a statement that the colleague has left, but they offer different access to the event. The Tibetan wording should not collapse those accounts merely because the source uses the same broad temporal description. Equally, it should not invent an observation the writer never claims to have made.
Sensory events complicate the simple eyewitness rule
The lesson also treats other people’s sensations and thoughts differently from visibly observable actions. It explains that someone can observe another person falling, whereas another person’s hearing is inferred through outward behaviour. This makes a purely mechanical rule such as first person observed, third person inferred inadequate. The kind of event and the speaker’s access to it both matter.
Greek agreement identifies person and number, and its aspectual forms organize the presentation of actions, but those source features do not independently decide the Tibetan knowledge relation. In a report about hearing a message, preserve who heard it and whether the writer reports their own experience, interprets someone’s response, or quotes another account. Then select the appropriate Standard Tibetan construction. The distinction between perfect and perfective also matters: the English similarity of those labels must not make a Greek aspect category synonymous with a Tibetan evidential auxiliary. These observations concern the lesson’s Standard Tibetan system, rather than every Tibetan regional variety or every possible use of a written auxiliary.
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