Re: Emphasis markers

Gary Shannon wrote:
> In English we can say "What are you doing?" or we can
> replace the simple "what" with the emphatic "what" by
> placing any one of a number of emphasis markers after
> the pronoun "what". Examples include "the hell", "in
> the world", "in the name of all that is holy", "in
> blue blazes", and so on. E.G. "What in the sam hill
> are you doing?" (What does "sam hill" mean, anyway?)
>
> These emphasis markers don't parse out in any
> meaningful way, but serve only as conventionalized
> signs to mark the emphatic "what".
>
> But couldn't the emphasis be marked on the verb just
> as easily? It's not done this way in English, but
> other languages might use verb marking for emphasis,
> as in "What are you by the hairs of Gaknar's beard
> doing?"
>
> I'm curious to see how other conlangs have marked
> emphatic forms. Do you use ephasis marking words or
> does your language have a different, emphatic form for
> some words? Which part of the sentence is marked?
>
> --gary
Word order can be used for emphasis, but Minza also has a particle "tø"
which is used for emphasis. It's an enclitic, which follows the first
word of whatever phrase is being emphasized. Minza has a small class of
words like this which change the tone, such as "łe" which is used to
mark polite speech.

Čui naňiena? [ˈtʃui naˈŋiɛna] What are you doing? (no emphasis)
what you.S-do-IMPF

Čui łe naňiena? Excuse me, would you mind telling me what you are doing?

Čui tø naňiena? WHAT [the hell] are you doing? (emphasis on "what")
Čui naňiena tø? What are you DOING? (emphasis on "doing")
Čui naňiena øyx? What are you doing? (slight emphasis on "you")
Čui naňiena tø øyx? What are YOU DOING? (emphasis on both "you" and "doing")
Čui tø naňiena øyx? What [the hell] are YOU doing (emphasis on both
"what" and "you").
Øyx čui naňiena? What are YOU doing? (more emphasis on "you")

Minza also has a word "igá" which is useful in this type of exclamation.

Igá! Čui tø ňiena ta? What the ... ? What [emph.] is being done here?

And the obligatory translation:

Ri dé tø sulúniči! They are not the hell your whales!
be not EMPH whale-PL-your.PL

(Correct usage is "ri tø dé".)