tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 26 17:24:05 2003
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Re: Dumb Question -- Emphasis
From: "Steven Boozer" <[email protected]>
> ...Paul wrote:
> how would I emphasize, I guess, pronouns?
>
> >Case in point, here at work, someone said, "Thanks" and I turned around
> >and said, "No, thank *YOU*". How would I convey that in Klingon?
> >Admittedly this is a little silly, it's a question of verbal emphasis.
> >But I think there can be some syntactical sugar there...
> >
> > qatlho' "I thank you"
> > SoH qatlho' "I thank *you*" ?
> > SoH'e' qatlho' "I thank YOU!" ?
> >
> >Is that last one even legit?
>
> It's possible. Okrand has used {-'e'} on a pronoun twice AFAIK:
>
> lujpu' jIH'e'
> I, and only I, have failed. TKD
> [sic, for {jIlujpu'} (unless it's clipped)]
>
> 'ach HoD, Hevetlh wIghoSchugh veH tIn wI'el maH'e'!
> But Captain, that course will take us into the [Great] Barrier as well.
ST5
That first one is exactly what Paul is trying to do.
SoH'e' qatlho'
I thank YOU (not someone else, YOU).
> > jatlh tlhIngan wa', "qatlho'"
> > jatlh tlhIngan cha', "ghobe', SoH'e' qatlho'!"
>
> I think here you can safely drop {-'e'} unless there's another line:
>
> jatlh tlhIngan wa', <<qatlho'.>>
> jatlh tlhIngan cha', <<ghobe', SoH qatlho'!>>
> jatlh tlhIngan wa', <<ghobe'! SoH'e' qatlho'!!>>
>
> Each one is emphasized one more degree than the last. Beyond that, you'll
> have to rely on intonation or textual emphasis.
I tend to think that using a pronoun explicitly where it could be dropped
isn't necessarily just for semantic emphasis, but is done to provide
clarity. /qa-/ has only one possible interpretation, but if you had a
complex sentence, it might be too difficult to parse even with /qa-/. You
might help your listener along with an explicit pronoun.
A clearer example might be this:
Duj legh HoD. Doq 'oH.
The captain sees the ship. It is red/orange.
If you were to see the sentences /Duj legh HoD. Doq./ without the explicit
pronoun at the end, you could work out that it's the ship, not the captain,
who is red/orange. Common sense informs you of this. But that's extra
mental work that the listener needs to do. For a brief instant, if you say
the sentence really fast to yourself, you're forced to think, "Um, what's
red/orange? The ship or the captain. Oh, duh, the ship." This takes time.
Adding the explicit pronoun eliminates this need for extra parsing. It
doesn't mean you're necessarily emphasizing the pronoun. /Doq 'oH/ doesn't
necessarily mean "*IT* is red/orange." It means exactly the same thing as
/Doq/, only I'm making it a little clearer what is red/orange.
In any case, /Doq 'oH'e'/ certainly does include emphasis on the pronoun.
"*IT* (not something else) is red/orange."
SuStel
Stardate 3652.1