tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 11 20:52:13 1999

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Re: Emphasis



From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
>: Is that what pagh was saying?  I read his sentence, correctly, as "Today
*I*
>: considered only your grammar."  I don't recall exactly what he meant, but
>: that's what he said.            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Which is exactly my point: you're not sure what he means.  (BTW, who says
there's only one correct translation of a sentence from one language to
another?)

No, actually, I don't know exactly what he means because I wasn't paying
much attention to the beginning of the thread.

>:   {neH} doesn't emphasize anything.  After a noun it
>: means "only," "only that noun and no other."
>
>By you that's not emphasis?

You want to call that emphasis?  Fine.  But everyone had better make sure
they don't use one sort of emphasis when they mean another.  If I want to
spell out my pronouns for some reason, that doesn't make them the topic of
the sentence.  If I want to talk about only one of something, that something
isn't necessarily the topic of the sentence, either.  Explicit pronouns and
{neH} do not do the same thing as {-'e'}, which is EXACTLY what it sound
like people are saying when they talk about emphasis.

SuStel
Stardate 99116.2





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