tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Jun 19 12:10:11 1996
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Re: thursday:today
- From: "Dr. Lawrence M. Schoen" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: thursday:today
- Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 12:10:11 -0700
I had written:
> >I'm not trying to "bullshit" my way out of a corner, but I am asking you to
> look
> >at the whole picture.
Mark Shoulson responded:
> I dunno, Lawrence... Sounds like it passes the duck test for bullshit to
> me. :)
Quack quack.
> In fact, the arguments against "ghaH'e'" here really all HAVE been on the
> higher level, the pragmatic/discourse level you're talking about. There's
> no denying that "ghaH" is not required... but there's also no denying that
> it's permitted. The question is, is it appropriate from a pragmatic
> perspective. That's the "big picture" you want us to look at: does the
> sentence work at the level of a whole sentence, in the context of
> discourse? The fact that it's grammatical in isolation isn't at issue
> here.
Actually, you're talking about two different things here. You're mixing
sentential analysis with still larger levels of analysis. I was alluding to the
latter (i.e., discourse analysis of the entire chunk of text, in this case the
three sentences, seen as a whole), not to yet another sentential analysis.
> Adding the "ghaH'e'" as you did emphasizes the subject, according to TKD.
> - From what Okrand has told us, generally -'e' functions as a focus marker
> (tho it's erroneously labeled a topic marker) when attached to a noun.
> That means it emphasizes something as new information: jIluj jIH'e': it was
> *I* who failed, not someone else. The failure is not at issue, and is not
> being questioned; the sentence's main point is *who* was the one that did
> it. I know there have been a few questions as to some cases where -'e'
> seesm to be a topic marker (As for me, I failed), but so far as I know the
> official meaning is focus.
This I think is where my senility is showing. I remember the argument about
whether -'e' was a topic marker or a focus marker. I remember that ultimately
we got Marc to pin it down for us. But in my world, I am remembering that he
came down on the side of -'e' being a topic marker, which as you say, is where
I'm coming from with all of this. If I am (conveniently) misremembering the
final decision on -'e' that explains two things. 1) why you're all against me
(pant gasp) and don't see what the hell I'm talking about, and 2) why I'm not a
grammarian! ;)
Lawrence
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