[tlhIngan Hol] Beginner questions - SAO, SAS and pronouns

[SuStel]

On 9/29/2020 6:47 AM, Luis Chaparro Caballero wrote:
> Thank you for your detailed email! I understand it now much better.
>
> I have only two last questions:
>
>> Pronouns can and usually should be dropped when they're acting as nouns, but nouns shouldn't be turned into pronouns unless you've already made clear what the pronoun is.
> I understand what you mean when you explain the use of pronouns for clarity. But then I don't understand what TKD means with "for emphasis".

TKD throws around the term /emphasis/ with little regard for its 
meaning. In this case, just understand it as meaning clarity.


>> "Pronouns may be used as nouns, but only for emphasis or added clarity. They are not required."
> *yaS vIlegh jIH'e'* means "I, and not someone else, see the officer". That's clear, that's a semantic focus. But is there absolutly no difference between *yaS vIlegh* and *yaS vIlegh jIH*? I'm a Spanish native speaker and in Spanish personal pronouns are mostly not necessary. When we use them, we do it in order to clarify or to make them somehow "important" in the conversation. If we want to get the "and no someone else" effect, then we stress the pronoun or actually say "and not someone else", but without this extra stress saying a pronoun when it's not necessary to clarify just give it some "importance". For example, we have to print some documents and I say: "*I* have a printer at home". In Spanish I use the pronoun because the person who has a printer is here "important". But that's not the same as saying: "I, and not someone else here, have a printer at home". I would say it if someone is lying and saying he or she has a printer, but I know that only I have one.

There is no evidence that a Klingon pronoun used explicitly, without 
marking or stress, indicates some kind of importance. *yaS vIlegh* and 
*yaS vIlegh jIH* are semantically identical.


> My second question is again about punctuation. I have understood that these sentences have the same meaning:
>
> *paq Daje'pu' 'e' vISov*
> *paq Daje'pu'. 'e' vISov*
>
> But is there no difference even if someone makes a longer pause when speaking? Something like in English: "I want to eat something and then I will read" and "I want to eat something. And then I will read".

I would understand that as someone adding an afterthought after a pause. 
You don't say or write that way intentionally (unless you're affecting 
an afterthought).

You should think of sentence-as-object constructions as if they were 
single ideas. A Klingon who says *paq Daje'pu' 'e' vISov* isn't saying 
two separate things; it's just one idea. Consider the sentence 
*romuluSngan HoHpu' tlhIngan 'e' vIleghbe'*/I didn't see the Klingon 
kill the Romulan./ The idea here isn't that the Klingon killed the 
Romulan AND that I saw it. We don't know if the Klingon actually killed 
the Romulan; all we know is that I didn't see any such act. It's one idea.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name

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