Re: Valentine's Day Translations

At 10:16 PM 2/12/99 +0100, Kristian Jensen wrote:
>Alright then, me too!
>
>In the languages I speak:
>     English: I love you
>     Danish: Jeg elsker dig
>     Tagalog: Mahal kita
>
>In my conlang, Boreanesian:
>     Kele'aihkuh kih
>     lit. "I'm your lover/endearer"
>or
>     Ke'aihkih kuh
>     lit. "You're my love/dear"
>or
>     Kuhke'aihkih
>     lit. "O you, my love/precious!" (addressing the loved-one)
>
>Once again, Boreanesian is highly sensitive to topic/focus. There
>are two ways of translating the English expression "I love you",
>depending on whether "I" or "you" is the topic/focus. In the first
>example, "I" the agent is topicalized/focused. In the next two,
>"you" the patient is topicalized/focused. The third way is the most
>intimate of focusing the patient.
This is very interesting.  But I'm a bit confused about what you mean by
"topic/focus".  It's easy to be unclear about these two terms because
they're used in different ways by different writers.  But most of the recent
linguistic literature that I've seen, they have very different, almost
opposite, meanings. The topic is what you're talking about; it's old, given
information.  The focus is the new information that you're trying to convey
about the topic, or (as some people use the term) a part of the new
information that you're singling out for special emphasis.  IIRC, Matt
Pearson once explained the difference by referring to the "as for"
construction and the cleft construction in English as examples of
topic-marking and focus-marking, respectively.  In the sentence, "as for
John, he went to the library", John is the topic; John is who we're talking
about, and what we're saying about him is that he went to the library.  But
in the clefted sentence, "it was John who went to the library", John is the
focus. The speaker is presupposing that the listener already knows that
someone went to the library, and is telling them who it was.  (Though of
course those are both very marked constructions; most of the time in English
we just rely on intonation and context to mark topic and focus.)

By these definitions (which I think are pretty standard today, although
they're not very precise), I have the impression that in Tagalog the trigger
can be either the topic or the focus.  From some stuff I've read that wasn't
entirely clear, it sounded to me as if the trigger is normally the topic,
but can be made the focus by putting it before the verb.  Does that sound
right to you?  (I gather you're a native speaker of Tagalog.)  And if so,
does Boreanesian work the same way?

-------------------------------------------------
Tim Smith
timsmith@global2000.net

The human mind is inherently fallible.  It sees patterns where there is only
random clustering, overestimates and underestimates odds depending on
emotional need, ignores obvious facts that contradict already established
conclusions.  Hopes and fears become detailed memories.  And absolutely
correct conclusions are drawn from completely inadequate evidence.
        - Alexander Jablokov, _Deepdrive_ (Avon Books, 1998, p. 269)