[Tlhingan-hol] Religious terminology

[SuStel]

On 12/4/2015 1:25 PM, Will Martin wrote:
> HoDpu'’e’ nIv Qanqor.
>
> It basically means, “Krankor is superior (while you think about
> captains).” So, you might translate that is “Krankor is superior among
> captains.” Okrand explains this as a “topicalizer”, suggesting that you
> are presenting the topic of the sentence, but given some of the canon
> examples, there are those here who strongly believe that he picked the
> wrong word, even though he apparently picked the RIGHT word when he
> picked “perfective” for {-pu’}, even as his description of {-pu’} didn’t
> really convey what perfective apparently means.

It's not the same thing. {-'e'} is described in TKD as a topicalizer, 
marking the topic of the sentence. The examples of its use in TKD that 
claim it's a topicalizer shows its use as emphasis, which is a different 
thing. TKD does not, I think, have a true example of {-'e'} as topic, 
though we have at least one in canon.

Meanwhile, {-pu'} is explained correctly by Okrand, but simplistically. 
"An action is completed" is what TKD says, and it is what perfective 
means. For years we tried to add the idea of "... before the time 
context," which does not appear in TKD, and which does not describe the 
perfective.

By the way, qunnoQ, using {-'e'} to mark to head noun of a relative 
clause is optional. Do it if you want to clarify whether the head noun 
is the subject or object of the relative clause.

Here's a canonical example of a relative clause without the optional {-'e'}:

    Hov ghajbe'bogh ram rur pegh ghajbe'bogh jaj
    a day without secrets is like a night without stars

If you wanted to use the optional {-'e'} on both relative clauses, it 
would look like this:

    Hov ghajbe'bogh ram'e' rur pegh ghajbe'bogh jaj'e'

Sometimes it is not important to disambiguate. Sometimes it is helpful 
not to. I once write a song called {yIH ghupbogh be' qan} and I liked 
the ambiguity: is it "the old woman who swallowed a tribble" or is it 
"the tribble which the old woman swallowed"? Does it matter?

(If I were writing it today, I'd have said {yIH ghuppu'bogh be' qan}.

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