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on 2/28/02 3:17 PM, Mike Wright at darwin@hidden.email wrote: > Rex May - Baloo wrote: >> >> If I follow you, the 'topic' marker in Ceqli, as I see it, is word >> order. >> >> Go xau to kan. I see the dog. >> >> To kan go xau. It's the dog, I see. >> >> Xau to kan go. I SEE the dog. > > This last one seems a bit odd. I don't expect the main verb to be > topicalized, since it leaves the sentence without a predicate. When > done this way, I feel as though it is the "go" that has been > topicalized: "It's _I_ who sees the dog". In Mandarin syntax, it would > end up as something like "Xau to kan sa bi go.", since the predicate > is necessary. Even though Japanese syntax is very different from that > of Mandarin, the basic nature of topicalization is much the same. Yes. Emphasized but not topicalized? Sounds like dialectal 'Saw the dog, I did.' Oh, hell ? it sounds like Yoda. > > Have you read section 4.1 of Li and Thompson? By george, I must have. Li & Thompson are also obsessed with seeing dogs. -- >PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS: rmay@hidden.email > Rex F. May (Baloo) > Daily cartoon at: http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp > Buy my book at: http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/gdummy.htm > Language site at: http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/Uploadexp.htm >Discuss my auxiliary language at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/txeqli/