tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 26 17:24:05 2003

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Re: Dumb Question -- Emphasis

David Trimboli ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

From: "Steven Boozer" <[email protected]>

> ...Paul wrote:
> how would I emphasize, I guess, pronouns?
>
> >Case in point, here at work, someone said, "Thanks" and I turned around
> >and said, "No, thank *YOU*".  How would I convey that in Klingon?
> >Admittedly this is a little silly, it's a question of verbal emphasis.
> >But I think there can be some syntactical sugar there...
> >
> >   qatlho'  "I thank you"
> >   SoH qatlho'  "I thank *you*"  ?
> >   SoH'e' qatlho'  "I thank YOU!"  ?
> >
> >Is that last one even legit?
>
> It's possible.  Okrand has used {-'e'} on a pronoun twice AFAIK:
>
>    lujpu' jIH'e'
>    I, and only I, have failed. TKD
>    [sic, for {jIlujpu'} (unless it's clipped)]
>
>    'ach HoD, Hevetlh wIghoSchugh veH tIn wI'el maH'e'!
>    But Captain, that course will take us into the [Great] Barrier as well.
ST5

That first one is exactly what Paul is trying to do.

SoH'e' qatlho'
I thank YOU (not someone else, YOU).

> >   jatlh tlhIngan wa', "qatlho'"
> >   jatlh tlhIngan cha', "ghobe', SoH'e' qatlho'!"
>
> I think here you can safely drop {-'e'} unless there's another line:
>
>    jatlh tlhIngan wa', <<qatlho'.>>
>    jatlh tlhIngan cha', <<ghobe', SoH qatlho'!>>
>    jatlh tlhIngan wa', <<ghobe'! SoH'e' qatlho'!!>>
>
> Each one is emphasized one more degree than the last.  Beyond that, you'll
> have to rely on intonation or textual emphasis.

I tend to think that using a pronoun explicitly where it could be dropped
isn't necessarily just for semantic emphasis, but is done to provide
clarity.  /qa-/ has only one possible interpretation, but if you had a
complex sentence, it might be too difficult to parse even with /qa-/.  You
might help your listener along with an explicit pronoun.

A clearer example might be this:

Duj legh HoD.  Doq 'oH.
The captain sees the ship.  It is red/orange.

If you were to see the sentences /Duj legh HoD.  Doq./ without the explicit
pronoun at the end, you could work out that it's the ship, not the captain,
who is red/orange.  Common sense informs you of this.  But that's extra
mental work that the listener needs to do.  For a brief instant, if you say
the sentence really fast to yourself, you're forced to think, "Um, what's
red/orange?  The ship or the captain.  Oh, duh, the ship."  This takes time.

Adding the explicit pronoun eliminates this need for extra parsing.  It
doesn't mean you're necessarily emphasizing the pronoun.  /Doq 'oH/ doesn't
necessarily mean "*IT* is red/orange."  It means exactly the same thing as
/Doq/, only I'm making it a little clearer what is red/orange.

In any case, /Doq 'oH'e'/ certainly does include emphasis on the pronoun.
"*IT* (not something else) is red/orange."

SuStel
Stardate 3652.1

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