tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Sep 16 17:22:39 2007

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Re: Positioning for emphasis

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

At 04:18 PM 9/16/2007, lab QeS 'utlh:
>However, I'm very surprised that everyone deems {puq'e'} at the end of a
>sentence (i.e. in subject position) to be semantically different from
>{puq'e'} as a header. Why, and how, is {puq'e' yaS qIp} different from {yaS
>qIp puq'e'}?

yaS qIp puq'e' has an emphasized subject. Every word is in the slot 
where it belongs, and one of them has a legal affix with a defined 
meaning. Everyone understands the sentence.

puq'e' yaS qIp has a random noun with unspecified role tossed up at 
the beginning of the sentence. No one can agree what it means, so it 
doesn't communicate anything.

>Although we have no canon examples of
>{-'e'}-subject fronting, I don't see why this shift in position could occur
>with objects but not with subjects.

That's somewhat circular. First you postulate that the adverb move is 
actually an object move and then you use your own postulation as 
evidence that the subject can move.

>I think ghunchu'wI' and DloraH's explanation that {puq'e' yaS qIp} reads
>like "he or she hit the CHILD's officer" is flimsy. No Klingon would ever
>read it like that, whether punctuated or not, because of the rule
>prohibiting type 5 suffixes on the first noun of a noun-noun construction.
>For me at least, type 5 suffixes would serve as parsing signals, marking
>that you've reached the end of a noun phrase.

Agreed, as I posted recently. But there is a long journey from there 
to interpreting that stranded noun as the subject of the sentence.

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