tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 16 10:51:14 2007

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Re: Positioning for emphasis

Robyn Stewart ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

Okay, good point.

So if puq is the topic of the sentence, what's the subject of the 
sentence? Is there any reason to believe that the topic is also the 
grammatical subject?

While translating puq'e' yaS qIp as "as for the child, he hit the 
officer" makes it seem that puq would be interpreted as the subject, 
normal Klingon word order would make the sense closer to "He hit the 
officer, as for the child" -- a topic indeed, but not clearly 
attached to any part of the sentence.  In English "as for the child, 
he" is like a noun in apposition or an emphatic pronoun and just 
melds into the subject. It's not doing that in Klingon.

Oh!  I know what it might mean.  I've changed my interpretation after 
SuStel's post. I now think the wrongness of type-5 on head noun would 
dissuade a Klingon from interpreting puq'e' yaS as a noun-noun 
construction, and that the topic marker would set puq'e' off grammatically.

puq'e' yaS qIp I would now interpret as "He hit the officer, the 
CHILD."  Apparently one of the officers was a child, and that needs 
to be emphasized.

If you want to emphasize the subject you've got

yaS qIp puq'e' or even yaS qIp ghaH puq'e'.

Thanks whoever started this for a discussion that I don't think we've 
ever had before.

At 06:30 AM 9/16/2007, you wrote:
>Lieven Litaer wrote:
>
> >>> How would you go about translating {puq'e' yaS qIp ghaH}, then?
> >
> > I repeat: The SUBJECT comes at the END of the sentence, that's why I
> > would read "s/he hits the officer" and then "the child" is flying
> > around somewhere after the sentence.
>
>The answer is simple: {puq'e'} is not the subject of the sentence. It is
>the topic. Topics, as well as locatives, from-phrases, beneficiaries,
>timestamps, and adverbials, come before the object.
>
>{ghaH} is the subject. That {puq'e'} is the antecedent of {ghaH} is
>unimportant. This sentence is not ungrammatical.
>
>SuStel
>Stardate 7708.5

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