tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Apr 27 20:30:25 1995
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topic/focus (Re: law'-puS in reverse?)
On Thu, 27 Apr 1995 22:41:20 -0400, "R.B Franklin" <[email protected]> said:
> (On the other hand, I am still rather fuzzy on the difference
> between the linguistic concepts of "focus" and "topic". Perhaps some
> linguist would be kind enough to explain it to me in layman's terms.)
_X_ is a topic if you can paraphrase the sentence as _Talking of X, ..._.
(What did the captain do?)
The captain [TOP] killed the prisoner.
(As for the captain, he killed the prisoner.)
See Okrand's literal translation of {Y ghaH/'oH X'e'} in _tKD_;
there {-'e'} is a prime example of a topic marker.
_X_ is a focus if you can paraphrase the sentence as _It is X that ..._.
(Who killed the prisoner?)
The captain [FOC] killed the prisoner.
(It was the captain that killed the prisoner.)
The accompanying intonation is often represented by italics or by
capital letters in writing. This is what makes it look as though
{-'e'} is a focus marker in most cases where it appears in _tKD_;
topics are always pronounced in lower case :-).
--'Iwvan