tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 20 14:25:51 2007

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Topic (was: Re: Dilbert Comic in Klingon for February 9, 2007)

Agnieszka Solska ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

ja' QeS 'utlh:

>(I don't see why it shouldn't be interpreted) as "topic" in the same way as 
>in Klingon {cheng'e' muqIppu'} "As for Chang, he hit me".

I doubt {cheng'e' muqIppu'} is grammatical unless we assume
that the noun <cheng'e'> is a stand-alone sentence fragment
followed by a grammatically complete verb/sentence <muqIppu'>.

Although in TKD (3.3.5) the suffix {-'e'} is presented
as the syntactic marker of the TOPIC of the sentence, the examples
of its use provided on page 29 indicate that it functions as the
marker of FOCUS, not topic.

In linguistics, FOCUS is a term that refers to information, in a sentence, 
that
- is new,
- is of high communicative interest,
- is marked by stress,
- typically occurs late in the sentence, and
- complements the presupposed information typically presented
  early in the sentence.

E.g.:    Your books are on the _shelf_.
          It was _math_ that gave him trouble.

(cf: www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsFocus.htm)

This is precisely how {-'e'} fuctions in the examples found in in TKD (p. 
29):

----------------
        {lujpu' jIH'e'} <I, and only I, have failed.>
                        (Obviously, that should be {jIlujpu'})
                        <It is I who has failed.>

        {De''e' vItlhapnISpu'} <I needed to get the INFORMATION.>
                               <It was the information (and not
                               something else) that I needed.>

    Without the {'e',} these same sentences would have
    no noun singled out for emphasis:

        {lujpu' jIH} <I have failed.>
                 [Again, it should be {jIlujpu'}]

        {De' vItlhapnISpu'} <I needed to get the information.>
----------------

Now, a TOPIC of a sentence is a noun phrase that expresses what
the sentence is about, and to which the rest of the sentence is
related as a comment.

E.g.: _That new Mazda_, I?d like to test-drive it.

(cf: www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsTopic.htm)

Do we in fact have any canon examples of nouns marked with {-'e'} which are 
truly topicalized and appear in sentence initial position?

'ISqu'

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