tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Jan 06 07:28:08 1995
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Re: matlholbej
On Wed, 4 Jan 1995, William H. Martin wrote:
> According to [email protected]:
> > ...
> >
> > Also, just out of curiosity, I've noticed you (charghwI' again), in your
> > constructions using the {'e'} topic pronoun, have consistently put the
> > adverbial after the {'e'}, e.g. {'e' qatlh DaQub}. Any particular reason for
> > that, since we know that {'e'} is considered the object and adverbials come
> > before objects. (See TKD 5.4, 6.2.5; "HolQeD" 1:2, pp.4-5) Just wonderin'.
>
> It is probably wrong, though it seemed like the natural thing
> to do for legibility. Like the term "gooder" that I used as a
> kid, it seemed like a natural way to say what I wanted to say,
> but that doesn't make it right.
>
> Basically, the adverbial is associated with the main verb of
> the second sentence, so it seemed natural to place it in front
> of that verb. The {'e'} comes across as the boundary between
> the two sentences -- as much a conjunction as a pronoun -- and
> so it felt natural to place the adverbial after the
> pseudoconjunction instead of before it. It just takes a couple
> extra seconds to figure out that an adverbial is not part of
> the first sentence, and for words that could be more than one
> part of speech, this can be especially confusing to have the
> adverbial before the {'e'}.
>
> Still, I'll try to watch for this and place the adverbials
> before the {'e'}.
>
I was also guilty of this usage; it just seems more intuitive, but TKD
clearly states that {'e'} is an object pronoun. The logical thing is
to consider the entire first sentence the object of the second verb,
but recall that in this section Okrand actually refers to both components of
the {'e'} phrase as separate sentences linked by the object. So, we have
to put our adverbials before the {'e'}, but not before the entire first
sentence: {reH jIlugh wej 'e' DaSov.} "You do not yet know I'm always
right." (literally "I'm always right. This you do not yet know."], and
NOT *{wej reH jIlugh 'e' DaSov.}
> > Guido
> >
> charghwI'
ter'eS