tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 22 07:53:40 1993

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Re: themscrewyrelativeclauses



On Nov 22, 10:14am, Nick Nicholas wrote:

> Would Klingon want to put the full referring expression in focus (subject)
> position, or in the temporally first position? One more area, I suspect,
> in which a cross-linguistic survey would be valuable! (There are few
> OS languages, but many free-order languages, in which OS order shows up.)

     I've repeatedly wondered if part of the alien mindset of Klingon is to
place the FOCUS on the OBJECT (which is why they put it first). From the
language, I would guess that Klingons think first about the object they are
about to do something to, then focus on what they are going to do with that
object and lastly, as an afterthought, mention what or who is doing the verb.

     Such a construction fits a very action oriented mindset, like kids
crashing toy trucks in a sand box. Klingons want to see things happen. The
agent of change is less important than the object of change and the nature of
the change.

     Just a thought, anyway.

--   chargwI'



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