tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 25 00:25:55 1995
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`less ... than', topic/focus
On Mon, 24 Apr 1995 21:41:15 -0400, "William H. Martin" <[email protected]> said:
> According to R.B Franklin:
> ..
>> It seems we have a way to say "X is more something than Y", but we don't
>> have a way to say "X is less something than Y".
>>
>> I wonder if it would work if you put {-'e'} on second half of the
>> sentence to indicate a "less than" comparison.
>>
>> E.g. la' jaq law' yaS jaq puS. The commander is bolder than the officer.
>> la' jaq law' yaS'e' jaq puS. The officer is less bold than the commander.
> Dajqu'. I'm not sure I'd endorse it wholeheartedly until Okrand
> rules on it, but it sure makes good sense. After all, the only
> REAL difference between the greater and lesser comparisons is
> which of the compared nouns is emphasized, right?
What do you mean by emphasis, though? The English sentences differ in
the choice of the term which is topicalised,
`As for the commander, he is bolder than the officer.'
`As for the officer, he is less bold than the commander.'
and {-'e'} acts as a focus marker in most examples in the Dictionary.
We don't want the second sentence to come across as meaning
`***The officer*** is less bold than the commander.'
that is
`It is the officer (not the prisoner, say) that is less bold [...].'
and this is what the Dictionary examples of the use of {-'e'}
suggest it should mean.
That said, {-'e'} does act as a topic marker in one environment,
and that is when it marks the subject of a copular construction,
which Okrand paraphrases as
`As for X, he/she/it is Y.' {Y ghaH/'oH X'e'.}
or something similar. (Compare the Japanese _X wa Y desu._, where
_wa_ is a topic marker.) And if it can be a topicaliser there,
then perhaps it can be one somewhere else as well.
--'Iwvan