tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 21 06:29:28 2007

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

Doq ([email protected])



For me, {-'e'} as a topic marker is more interesting when it is more  
than just a redundant expression of a pronoun or implied pronoun  
later in the sentence. In other words, {cheng'e' muqIppu'} could have  
as easily been stated {muqIppu' cheng'e'} and once again {-'e') would  
have marked focus and not topic. The use of topic in this example  
adds nothing to the expressive capacity of the language over the use  
of focus. The other example is more interesting:

    qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS.
    You would be the greatest warrior in the galaxy. ST5

Here, "warriors of the galaxy" is the topic set before the  
comparative between "you" and "everybody" so that Klingon becomes  
capable of expressing "You will be the greatest warrior in the  
galaxy." This is the only canon example where this difference between  
"topic" and "focus" fully plays itself out. There is no pronoun in  
"You will be more wonderful than everyone" that is redundant to  
"warriors of the galaxy". Instead {qIbDaq SuvwI''e'} describes the  
scope of {Hoch}. It is less like "That new Honda -- I want to drive  
one," and more like "Those new Hondas -- I prefer their small  
efficient models to their SUVs."

If {-'e'} could not mark a topic and had simply been a misnamed focus  
marker, there would be no grammatical means of marking scope. We'd  
have to resort to yet another awkward syntactic construction like  
{qIbDaq SuvwI'pu' luqellu'taHvIS...}. It also suggests that perhaps  
we can use {-'e'} on a time stamp so that we can be less frequently  
forced to use the {qaStaHvIS} device. In other words:

wa'ben qatoy'taH. "A year ago, I was serving you."
wa'ben'e' qatoy'taH. I have served you for the past year.

The first example, "last year" is a simple time stamp. The second  
example offers "the past year" as a topic and within the scope of  
that topic, you offer a statement. Just as {qIbDaq SuvwI'pu''e'}  
offers boundaries to the otherwise infinite {Hoch}, {wa'ben} can  
offer boundaries to the otherwise infinite {-taH}.

I'm expecting this idea to be rejected, unless Dr. O signs off on it,  
but it sure would be nice if it worked this way.

The whole issue is that {wa'ben} (or {wa' ben}, if you insist on  
making it different from {wa'Hu'} and {wa'leS}) can point to the  
moment that occurred a year ago, or it can point to the duration  
between that moment and now. Technically, adding {qaStaHvIS} in front  
of it doesn't change that ambiguity. It just makes the implication  
that you are taking about the duration and not the moment a bit more  
obvious. So, if you can disambiguate with {qaStaHvIS}, why not with  
{-'e'}? We have an example where {-'e'} marks the scope for {Hoch}.  
Why can't it mark the scope for {-taH}?

Doq

On Feb 21, 2007, at 8:32 AM, QeS 'utlh wrote:

> jIja'pu':
>> (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".
>
> mujang 'ISqu', ja':
>> 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'>.
>
> Yes, that's how I interpret it. A noun marked with {-'e'}, being  
> Type 5,
> should in theory be allowed also to stand sentence-initially as a  
> header. In
> a sense, its behaviour on nouns in situ is the anomalous one, not its
> behaviour as a header.
>
> taH:
>> 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.
>
> The problem is that the examples from TKD that you cite don't  
> demonstrate
> the usage of an {-'e'}-marked noun as an unambiguous header (as  
> opposed to
> in direct object position). The examples Voragh cited - {cheng'e'  
> DaH yISam}
> and {qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS} - are  
> incontrovertibly
> being used as headers rather than as direct objects, and their
> interpretation as *topic* arguments, and not focus arguments, seems  
> the most
> likely one.
>
>> 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,
>
> This latter argument holds little weight when applied to Klingon,  
> because of
> its rigid sentence structure. As for the other points, you have no  
> argument
> from me.
>
> <poD>
>
>> 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?
>
> Yes, but Voragh beat me to the punch.
>
> Ultimately, I see no problem in interpreting the {-'e'} suffix as  
> being,
> rather than *solely* focus or *solely* topic, encompassing ideas  
> from both:
> it places particular emphasis on a noun in the sentence, and when  
> this noun
> is a subject or direct object, that emphasis surfaces as focus;  
> when the
> noun is a header, it surfaces as topicalisation.
>
> QeS 'utlh
> tlhIngan Hol yejHaD pabpo' / Grammarian of the Klingon Language  
> Institute
>
>
> not nItoj Hemey ngo' juppu' ngo' je
> (Old roads and old friends will never deceive you)
>      - Ubykh Hol vIttlhegh
>
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