tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 18 21:12:01 2007

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Re: Positioning for emphasis

Alan Anderson ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

ja' QeS 'utlh:

> In truth, it isn't the grammatical subject. It's the semantic  
> subject, but not the grammatical one.

Grammar is what lets semantic roles be expressed in a comprehensible  
sentence.  If it's the subject, it should be marked as the subject.   
In Klingon, that's done by putting it after the verb.  If you're not  
going to use grammatical cues to identify something as the subject,  
people aren't going to have any way of knowing you intend it to be  
the subject.

> It's tautological to suggest that subjects wouldn't be fronted  
> because they come after the verb, unless you're suggesting that the  
> verb represents a major syntactic division in the sentence across  
> which words can't move - that there's a preverbal, a verbal, and a  
> postverbal (= subject) unit in Klingon grammar, through which words  
> don't migrate. Is that what you mean?

I'm not "suggesting" that the basic structure of a Klingon sentence  
is OBJECT-VERB-SUBJECT.  I'm treating it as a solid definition.  It's  
the very first rule of Klingon syntax given in The Klingon Dictionary  
(Section 6.1).  Aside from the explicitly exceptional ritual toasts  
having -jaj at the end, I really don't see any room for disagreement  
on the subject (pun intended).

-- ghunchu'wI'

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