Re: V2 languages

Raymond A. Brown wrote:


> >What you're really addressing here, Sally, is topicalization:
>
> Maybe, as in German, but.....
>
> at 10:18 pm -0700 28/5/99, Sally Caves wrote:
> ....
> >   Subjects are not barred from occupying initial
> >position, but verbs are.  You will never see a verb initial sentence.
> >And the constituents before the verb can be many, keeping it from
> >being a V2 language:
> >
> >        1)  The man in the park he walks.  An acceptable T. sentence
> >                that focusses on man.
>
> Sally explicitly says she is 'focussing' and she continues to use that
> term. And as Sally has knowledge of Welsh, I think it very likely that she
> has taken the Welsh practice of _focus first_ into Teonaht.
Hi Ray... thanks; I sometimes don't know WHAT I am doing with Teonaht.
Topic and focus in Teonaht definitely need prime attention.  Teonaht's
"normal" word order is so odd that it remains to be seen how people
would use it in a less formal way than I've devised it.  The rules and
the examples I've given are of HIGH Teonaht, the kind used in
newspapers,
articles, in royal charters, that kind of thing.  When I first logged on
I gave a sample, off the top of my head, of different levels of
politeness
in Teonaht.  I've lost those.  In the meantime, though, I need to
understand
what it means to focus in Teonaht as it is and to topicalize.  Until I
do,
I can't revise the Syntax part of my grammar (not loaded yet).

                TEBNAR, KWA'R   PERVA LO?
                Tebnar, what INT. place  he (is)? <--unexpressed copula
                ("where's Tebnar?")

                REVBOMCCOVAT LO.
                With outwalking he.
                ("He's out walking.")

                LO REVBOMCCOVAT KWA'R PERVA    AI?
                His outwalking  what INT place it (is)?
                "Where's he walking?"

                CELIL VERINYN LO ATWA.
                In the park   he walks.
                "He's walking in the park."

If topic (and I'm recalling this from memory) is the new information
that
forms the subject of the new sentence, then that gets fronted.  But it
also looks as though focus gets fronted as well.  How about with a verb?

                KWA'R    TOBRE LODDEY?
                What INT thing  he does?
                ("What's he doing?")

                ATWAREM CELIL VERINYN LODDEY, HDOVNAKA.
                Walking  in the park  he does, silly.
                ("He's walking in the park, you idiot.")
        --most T. would leave out the second "loddey."--

The verb can only be fronted if it's turned into a nominalization.
Let's
see:

                HOVAR KWA'R      TOBRE LODDEY?
                There what INT.  thing  he does?
                "What is he doing there?"

                BOMHHTINDELREM EUIL TAHN LO.
                With singing   to the songbirds he.  <--copula suppressed
                "He's singing to the songbirds."

Yep.  It's seems the opposite of English, that puts focus and new
information
at the end of the sentence.

Maybe I don't really understand the difference between topic and focus.

                KWA'R     FEPON HTINDEL?
                What INT. person sings?
                "Who's singing?"

                LO DEY, HDOVNAKA!
                "He does, stupid!"

                KWA'R TOBRE LODDEY?
                What INT. thing does he?

                THINDELREM LO DEY.
                Singing   he  does.

("thindelrem"--the gerund--answers "tobre"--a noun.)

                KWA'R HTELRE DOVNAKA EUIL TAHN HTINDEL?
                "What kind  (of) fool to the birds sings?

                or:  EUIL TAHN KWA'R HTELRA DOVNAKA HTINDEL?

The pattern seems to be there.  Maybe I need more complicated examples.

Sally