[tlhIngan Hol] Question about the focus / topic meaning of *-'e'*

[l.cp at web.de]

Thank you, SuStel, for your reply!

> This is {-'e'} used for focus. Here it is with helpful punctuation:

> Dung qo' lupawDI' chaH, qeylIS qorDu'Daj je ta''e' neH bop bommey.
> As soon as they arrive in the upper world, it is only about the deeds of Kahless and his family that songs are about.

> (This is awkward grammar in English, but in Klingon it is just the addition of a syllable.)

But why *-'e'* and *neH* together? Wouldn't just *neH* translate as you propose?

> This is also focus. Adding punctuation and a bit of helping brackets:
> 
> veng 'elDI' ghaH, [pawpa' ghaH'e' paw lutDaj 'e' Sov qeylIS].
> As soon as he enters the city, Kahless knows that his story arrives before HE does.
> 
> The first subordinate clause is a subordinate clause to the entire line. The second subordinate clause is a subordinate clause of the first sentence of the sentence-as-object construction.
> 
> Put another way, in the sentence as object, sentence 1 is {pawpa' ghaH'e' paw lutDaj} and sentence 2 is {'e' Sov qeylIS}.

Yes, reading it so is helpful. I think I was just fixated on interpreting focus literally as "THIS and not something else", while it is more about emphasizing a noun out of whatever reason it may apply (here, e.g., because it is surprising and unexpected).

A last question: I don't want to reopen a long discussion about aspect, but wouldn't it make more sense to say *pawpu' lutDaj*?