tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 10 12:19:02 1999
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Re: KLBC: Complex sentences
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: KLBC: Complex sentences
- Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 15:18:50 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- Priority: NORMAL
Good explanation, but just one little clarification:
On Wed, 10 Feb 1999 11:26:54 -0800 (PST) Steven Boozer
<[email protected]> wrote:
> : "I see" is <jIlegh> and "you run" is <bIqet>. But "I see you run"? Is it
> : <bIqet jIlegh>? I don't think so. That just seems silly to me.
> Good instincts. You connect the two verbs with the special
> topic pronouns {'e'} "that" and, less often, {net}. E.g.:
It is not really a "topic pronoun". {'e'} is a pronoun that
represents the sentence that preceeds it and acts as a direct
object to the verb that follows it. Those same three characters
also form a noun suffix. If you add {-'e'} to a noun, that noun
becomes the topic of the sentence (hence Okrand uses that word
when talking about it, and voragh used that word when talking
about the pronoun that is spelled exactly like the noun suffix).
But don't get confused about this. These are two completely
different sentences:
quv 'e' vIvuv.
quv'e' vIvuv.
The first one says, "I respect that he is honorable."
The second one says, "I respect HONOR!"
That blank space is obviously important. This example works
because {quv} can be either a noun (honor) or a verb (be
honored, be honorable). In the first example, {quv} is a verb
and {'e'} is a pronoun. In the second example, {quv'e'} is a
noun with a suffix.
Also, know that there have been a number of debates over whether
the suffix {-'e'} really refers to the topic of the sentence, or
if it is merely an emphasised noun. In different examples Okrnad
has produced, it takes on one or the other of these roles, so it
seems to work either to point out the topic or to merely
emphasize the noun.
Good post, though. I just saw that "topic" thing slipped in
there and it clicked into what I know is confusing for a lot of
beginners, so I wanted to step in and clear that up before it
grew.
> --
> Voragh
> Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
charghwI'