[Tlhingan-hol] Use of -'e' with relative clauses

[David Trimboli]

On 11/18/2011 10:51 AM, Philip Newton wrote:
>
> Not mentioned in TKD, but proposed in usage and (as far as I know)
> subsequently made official, is the ability to disambiguate which
> constituent(?) of the sentence you are relativising, by using -'e'.
> For example, {yaS qIppu'bogh puq} could mean either "The child who hit
> the officer" or "The officer whom the child hit", and you can
> disambiguate with {yaS qIppu'bogh puq'e'} for the first meaning and
> {yaS'e' qIppu'bogh puq}.
>
> Is this use of -'e' mandatory in such a case (where both subject and
> object are represented by nouns)?

No. There are several examples in which neither subject nor object have 
-'e'.

> If not, is the use of -'e' as a topicaliser still possible?

It's not clear, but I would say no. It becomes impossible to distinguish 
between topic or emphasis and head noun in this case, as you discovered.

However, when there is only an explicit subject or object, but not both, 
it should still be able to indicate a topic or emphasis. For instance:

    yaS'e' qIpbogh
    the OFFICER whom he hit
    the officer (as topic) whom he hit

-- 
SuStel
http://www.trimboli.name/