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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/13/2019 2:17 PM, Will Martin
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7800BBDA-64E1-4384-B88C-D7F660AA76C1@mac.com">
<div class="">In TKD, Marc Okrand describes the use of {-‘e’}
placed on a noun at the beginning of a sentence as making the
noun the “topic” of the sentence. <br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>No he doesn't. He says "Any noun in the sentence indicating
something other than subject or object comes first, before the
object noun. Such nouns usually end in a Type 5 noun suffix..." He
gives us the example from <i>Star Trek V,</i> <b>qIbDaq
SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS.</b> But he otherwise had
given us no other indication that we can do this until he spoke to
qurgh and called it marked.</p>
<p>Now, it's not clear to me that Okrand was specifically talking
about topic nouns at the front of the sentence, or emphasized
subject or objects "fronted." He mixes up the concepts of topic
and focus in TKD, which Lawrence pointed out in an interview with
him in <i>HolQeD.</i> But let's assume he does, indeed, refer to
putting otherwise standalone topic nouns in front of the sentence
along with locatives and ablatives and so on. Putting a topic noun
there would fit right in with everything else, and there's no
prohibition against doing it, but we have learned that it is
marked to do so, so it should generally be avoided.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7800BBDA-64E1-4384-B88C-D7F660AA76C1@mac.com">
<div class="">Elsewhere in TKD, it is also used on the noun in the
subject position of a “to be” sentence, using a pronoun as the
verb. This is not to be misinterpreted as marking that noun as
the topic of the sentence. It is a separate grammatical function
of the suffix {-‘e’}. {tlhIngan ghaH HoDvetlh’e’.} “That captain
is a Klingon." The captain is not the topic of the sentence.
It’s just the X in the grammatical construction “X is Y.” It’s a
convention. Don’t try to apply outside grammatical rules to it.
Just accept that this is how this is done.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>As a matter of fact, it DOES mark the topic of the sentence. <b>puqpu'
chaH qama'pu''e'</b><i> as for the prisoners, they are children.
As for the prisoners</i> names the topic of the sentence. The
fact that it's a required grammatical form doesn't change the fact
that it's a topic. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7800BBDA-64E1-4384-B88C-D7F660AA76C1@mac.com">
<div class="">In early years of the language, SuStel pointed out
that in Okrand’s examples, he rarely marked the topic with
{-‘e’}, but instead used {-‘e’} for emphasis or focus. He and I
argued about this, and I was stubborn at the time, but more
recently have noticed, that, gee, he was right. I was wrong. My
bad.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>I only started pointing it out after Lawrence pointed it out to
Okrand. I wasn't clear on the distinction myself.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7800BBDA-64E1-4384-B88C-D7F660AA76C1@mac.com">So, the
primary example Okrand gives us in TKD for {-‘e’} used as the
topic of the sentence is in practice perhaps the most rare in
actual use. You can recognize it because you’ll note that there is
a noun at the beginning of the sentence with {-‘e’} on it that has
no grammatical reason for being in the sentence without the
{-‘e’}. It’s the topic, and nothing but the topic. It’s not the
subject. It’s not the object. It stands apart from the {OVS}
grammatical structure of the sentence, preceding it. It’s the
topic because that’s all it is. It gives you a context for the
rest of the sentence. You are being directed to narrow your
context of ideas for the following sentence to include only the
topic stated.
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">… or maybe SuStel called that “focus”. I get
confused. Anyway...</div>
</blockquote>
<p>No, <i>focus</i> is another word for what we're calling <i>emphasis.</i>
This is different than <i>topic.</i><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7800BBDA-64E1-4384-B88C-D7F660AA76C1@mac.com">
<div class="">The secondary example is similarly separate from all
other uses. In a “to be” sentence, (dialects aside) it marks the
noun used in the “S” position of “OVS” where “V” is a pronoun
functioning as the English verb “to be”.</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Pronoun-as-to-be sentences are not in an OVS form. They are their
own special thing, just like the <b>law'/puS</b> sentence is its
own special thing.<br>
</p>
<p>TKD says that in the sentences <b>tlhIngan jIH, yaS SoH,</b> and
<b>pa'wIjDaq jIHtaH,</b> the pronouns are the subjects of the
sentences. But if you've got a third-person noun being linked to
another noun, as in <b>puqpu' chaH qama'pu''e', </b>the noun
marked with the topic suffix is the subject.</p>
<p>It's easy to get confused and think of the pronoun as a verb
stand-in because it has verb suffixes on it. But it's still a
pronoun. This is not an OVS sentence; the Noun in <Noun Pronoun
Topic<b>'e'</b>> is not an object. The pronoun simply "follows
the noun."<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
SuStel
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://trimboli.name">http://trimboli.name</a></pre>
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