Thanks for the explanation and the other example.
When I start out from the potential answer DevwI' ghaH Qugh'e', this is a sentence that says something about Kruge. As for Kruge (whom we have been talking about), he is the leader. Kruge (TOP) would be the old information, and DevwI' ghaH would be the new information. But if I remember right, Uhura wasn't asking about a particular Klingon man, but asked the crowd to identify their leader, or for the leader to step forward. In that situation, a logical answer would be Qugh ghaH DevwI''e'. As for our leader, it/he is Kruge, acknowledging that the existence of a leader is a known or assumed fact in Uhura's question. Personally, in her place I would have asked 'Iv ghaH DevwI''e'.
Note that I picked Qugh as my favorite
I-need-a-Klingon's-name name. I haven't seen Star Trek: Into
Darkness, and I don't know who the leader being asked about
there was.
So while I can accept that the question words just replace the expected noun in the answer, that just shifts the problem to there: They were talking about the assumed leader, not about Kruge / that particular Klingon who I think stepped out of the crowd and took off his helmet. In such a situation, I could imagine Kruge being focussed, but not topicalized. Oh, KRUGE, just him, he is the leader.
I think it's similar with the PK sentence about the dish. Wasn't it a human visitor on Kronos, who got served some food, probably points at it and asks what that is? In that case, the old information would be the food (seen or known by both interlocutors), and the new information would be the name of the dish. As for this food, what's it? And the answer would be: roqegh'Iwchab 'oH Sojvetlh'e' (or whatever it was in PK). If the answer was Sojvetlh 'oH roqegh'Iwchab'e' (implied as an expected answer by the question in PK), then this sounds like the question asked would have intended: So, Rokeg Blood Pie, you know... which one of these is it? Such a dialogue makes only sense to me if the talk was about Rokeg Blood Pie even before the food was served... basically with the waiter picking up the topic from before and saying: Remember the Rokeg Blood Pie we talked about before? Well, that's that dish over there! (pointing to it).
Maybe I am overanalyzing this, but the only way I can explain it is that sentences of the type X 'oH Y'e' are another category and there the -'e' does not necessarily mark topic or focus, but just the subject, which in questions then can be either the question word or the old information about which is asked. If that's true, then would DevwI' ghaH 'Iv'e' and 'Iv ghaH DevwI''e' mean exactly the same, and imply the same?In this hypothetical case, since their leader is Kruge and Kruge is the only leader, presumably, there would not be a perceived difference. But when asking about cats, then it'd be quite different: Ha'DIbaHmey bIH vIghro'mey'e' = As for cats, they are animals. A logical and correct thing to say. But: vIghro'mey bIH Ha'DIbaHmey'e' = As for animals, they are cats. Without context, this wouldn't be right, as there are many kinds of animals. It could only be understood as asking about a particular group of animals ("the animals", perhaps pointed at or talked about before).
I don't think a grammatical topic need necessarily be literally "old information." That's a useful descriptor most of the time, when you're using a topic about something already established in the sentence, but it neglects the case where the topic noun itself introduced the topic.
Consider: you're in an unfamiliar place and you need to pee. You approach someone who looks like they belong there and ask them, nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e'?
Clearly, puchpa' is not "old information" in the sense
that it is part of the previous context. puchpa''e' itself
establishes the old information, and the comment nuqDaq 'oH
states the new content. The "old" information comes about by the
speaker essentially saying "Let's talk about the bathroom" before
asking "Where is it?" (Well, "before" in this case actually means
"after" in Klingon grammar. It's more like Where is it? The
bathroom, I mean.)
So I think maybe you're overanalyzing it. I feel pretty sure that
Okrand wasn't thinking very hard about the order of pronoun-based
sentences, especially in the early days. I suspect that DevwI'
ghaH 'Iv'e' and 'Iv ghaH DevwI''e' are pretty much
equivalent.
Regarding your example of cats, I don't see why limiting the interpretation of the latter sentence to "the animals" is a problem. I think you're mentally adding or removing English articles to Klingon words where they don't exist. Ha'DIbaH doesn't mean just the animal or an animal or animals in general; it means all of those at once. Ha'DIbaH bIH vIghro''e' As for cats (in general), they are animals (a type); as for the cats (that we're talking about), they are animals (a type); as for cats (in general), they are the animals (that we're talking about); as for the cats (that we're talking about); they are the animals (that we're talking about). vIghro' bIH Ha'DIbaH'e' As for the animals (the ones we're talking about), they are cats (in general); as for the animals (the ones we're talking about), they are the cats (the ones we're talking about). You've got fewer interpretations the latter way (not including science fiction stories about all animals being cats in disguise or some such), but those interpretations are still valid, and nothing you can do outside of providing context can distinguish which interpretation you intend.
I mean, in English, if I say I want water, do I mean
water in general, or a water (as in a cup or bottle of
water) or some water (an unspecified quantity of water)?
All of them at once, really; the distinction isn't important.
Sometimes context will give you a reason to choose one of those
specifically. It's the same with your Klingon vIghro' and
Ha'DIbaH, only in Klingon you don't have the choice of
being more specific, you can only supply context.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name