tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Aug 09 10:40:16 1997
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Re: Location of {-mo'}
ja' guido:
>If I am forced to prepose everything before my main verb and subject, I may
>have a lot of trouble getting to the point.
Getting to the point is fine, but if you get there too soon, you risk my
not knowing *why* you got there. When I receive a main point, which can
stand alone as a sentence, I tend to stop parsing for a moment and think
about what it means. If the sentence continues beyond that point, while
I am already trying to make sense of it based on what I know, I often am
caught by surprise.
>vIHoH vIneH, reH SojwIj nIHmo' 'ej 'ongwI' Dalaw'mo' Soghvetlh'e'.
Because you already know the reason before you start speaking, you don't
have any trouble with this phrasing. But because I do not know what you
are thinking, I must wait until you are finished with the whole sentence
and then remember that the reasons apply to your wanting to kill him. I
always find that I must read your sentences twice in order to understand
them completely. The first time through, I get the main point, but I've
often forgotten it by the time I get the context behind it. Once I have
the background, I can read it again, and comprehend the fullness of what
you mean. If the subordinate clauses come first, I can stack them up in
memory without being tempted to collate them with what I've already read
before I get the full impact of the sentence.
In the final analysis, it's a matter of style and personal preference, a
choice to be made by the speaker. That I happen to prefer *reading* the
subordinate clauses first should not be a reason for you to be forced to
*write* them that way, but I still find it a lot harder to read when the
{-chugh} and {-mo'} etc. phrases follow the main clause.
[Maybe it has something to do with my being a Pascal programmer? :-)]
-- ghunchu'wI'