tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 18 10:09:48 1995
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Re: KLBC: Win 95 "Klingon-ized"
>Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 11:26:21 -0800
>From: [email protected]
>In a message dated 95-12-15 08:12:21 EST, you write:
>>Okay, this blows my complaint out of the water. The sentence
>>{Qo'noSDaq qagh Sop SuvwI' Hoch} indeed is ambiguous; both of
>>the interpretations are grammatical. "All warriors eat worms
>>on Kronos" and "On Kronos, all warriors eat worms" both work.
>>
>>-- ghunchu'wI' batlh Suvchugh vaj batlh SovchoH vaj
>>
>>
>>
>I reiterate that have available the Noun Suffix Type 5 {-'e'}, "topicalizer"
>to specify Objects as well as Subjects. If we must specify that the worms
>are what are on Kronos, try {Qo'noSDaq qagh'e' Sop SuvwI' Hoch}.
I have no clue why the topicalizer should work as you claim it to. You
have topicalized the "qagh", so it could well mean:
"As for the qagh, all the warriors eat it/them on Qo'noS."
with no change in the ambiguity. I have seen no evidence that using "-'e'"
somehow magically contracts the scope of a preceding "-Daq". -'e' is a
focus marker (I know it's called a topic marker, but Okrand has told us he
meant it was a focus marker). It's not a scope-reducer, so far as we know.
~mark