tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 17 10:14:37 1996

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Re: thursday:today



I had written:

> >or if you want the second reading you can nicely illustrate the Type 5 noun 
> >suffix for topics
> 
> ><<qatlh maHvaD ja' ghaH'e'>>

to which Mark Shoulson responded:

> This also puts the emphasis in the wrong place.  Seems to imply that I wwas
> expecting someone else to tell the story ("Why is it HE who told it to
> us?")

Hmm, that's certainly one interpretation (not the one that came to *my* mind, 
but I'll grant it as viable, maybe even probably).  However, as I noted 
elsewhere, the use of ghaH is not so much for emphasis (admittedly, the 
traditional use of a pronoun) but for clarity as we shift from one third person 
subject to another.  The use of the suffix -'e' is not for emphasis, it is for 
topicalization.  While the two are often confounded, one does not necessarily 
imply the other.

Lawrence


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