tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 26 21:07:06 1998
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Re: KLBC Poetry (the child is happy)
ja'chuq Edy Qov je:
>}>I believe I see what you are thinking, though. Let me explain.
>}
>} [..]
>}
>}>killed the bug" OR "the bug which the child has killed" (ambiguous)
>}
>} I would like to discuss this topic later.
>}
>}>Resolve the ambiguity with the {-'e'} topic marker on the subject of
>}
>} I know it and I did it in the sentence below.
>
>Yes, I was explaining that step by step for the benefit of other people who
>could learn from what you were doing. I try to make explainations useful
>for more than one person.
>
>}>{Quch ghew HoHpu'bogh puq'e'} - "The child who has killed the bug is
>>happy."
>}>
>}>Yes, the word {Quch} is closer to the word {ghew} than the word
>}>{puq}, but that's ok. It is perfectly clear that it is the child
>}>that is happy. The whole relative clause is the subject of the verb
>>{Quch}.
>}
>} Ahhh .. This is the point. If the subject has the
>}topic 'e' suffix, the it refers to the previous
>}sentence (in this case).
>
>yay! I hoped that was the point you needed.
Oops. I think Edy is confusing the "topic" suffix and the "previous sentence"
pronoun. They are spelled the same, but they are unrelated to one another.
There are three reasons one might use {-'e'} the suffix. Its primary role
is to make the noun it's attached to into the topic of the sentence.
{taj jejmoHpu' yaS'e'} "It was the *officer* who sharpened the knife."
{taj'e' jejmoHpu' yaS} "It was the *knife* that the officer sharpened."
When a pronoun is used as the verb "to be", an explicit subject always gets
the topic suffix {-'e'}.
{nuH 'oH butlh'e'} "Dirt under the fingernails is a weapon."
{ravDaq 'oHtaH waqwIj'e'} "My shoe is on the floor."
In a relative clause with both a stated object and a stated subject, {-'e'}
is used to mark the head noun. That's what is happening in the sentence
being discussed above.
{Quch ghew HoHpu'bogh puq'e'} "The child who killed the bug is happy."
{Quch ghew'e' HoHpu'bogh puq} "The bug that the child killed is happy."
None of these involve a reference to the previous sentence. That would be
the role of the pronoun {'e'}, which is *always* used as the object of a
sentence, as a separate word.
{Quch puq 'e' vIlegh} "I see that the child is happy."
{ghew HoHpu' puq 'e' vIHar} "I believe that the child has killed the bug."
I hope this cleared up some confusion without causing more.
-- ghunchu'wI'