tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 04 21:59:27 2010
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Re: qoSwIj
- From: Christopher Doty <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: qoSwIj
- Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 21:58:06 -0800
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On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 21:47, David Trimboli <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Okrand tends to confuse the concepts of emphasis and topic (he allowed
> himself to be corrected in a HolQeD interview). In TKD he describes
> {-'e'} as topic, but then goes on to gives examples of emphasis.
>
> I believe, without direct evidence, that the noun to the right of the
> pronoun in "to be" sentences is in the role of topic, not emphasis. It
> doesn't mean "today, as opposed to some other day, is my birthday," it
> means "as for today, it's my birthday." The first noun and the pronoun
> are a complete sentence, and then you add the topic you're talking about
> at the end.
Well, I'm not going to touch the idea of a difference between 'topic'
and 'emphasis' (in any language; these words don't have clear meanings
that transfer across languages, and so pretty much when someone says
'topic', what they really mean is 'what I have in mind as a 'topic''),
but it seems that -'e' gets used for both things. I agree with your
analysis of -'e' in predicate nominals, for the most part, but the
example you gave earlier:
DaHjaj SuvwI''e' jIH.
Today I am a warrior. (TKW 203)
seem to me emphatic, not topic. It's not that we're talking about
warriors and, oh, hey! I'm one of those. It's that today I am a
WARRIOR, as opposed to whatever I was before. (Actually, in rereading
your bit above, maybe this is what you meant?)
> As to your first sentence, it's legal according to everything we know,
> but every case of this sort of thing has made the time stamp the topic
> (and thus the "subject"), following the second sentence, so it may be
> that in "to be" sentences it's just not done the first way.
I think I stopped following this, as it sounds like you're saying that
DaHjaj SuvwI''e' jIH.
Today I am a warrior. (TKW 203)
doesn't show up, but it does, as you yourself pointed out. :) Can you
clarify what you meant here?