Commentary: Uses of suffix -'e' The Type 5 noun suffix -'e' has been a part of the language from the beginning, but has never been fully understood. I have recently had some ideas that could explore more fully some of its properties. There are three canon examples from TKD illustrating the use of -'e'. lujpu' jIH'e' "I and only I have failed." TKD 3.3.5 calls this use the "topic of the sentence", and says it is used to emphasize the marked word. puqpu' chaH qama'pu''e (TKD 6.3) – This is the classic formula for the "to be" sentence when the "subject" of the sentence is a third-person noun, in which the two halves of the formula are linked to each other. -'e' is used in this formula mechanically, as a matter of grammatical rule. It's tempting to consider this formula to be an equational sentence, where the nouns on either side of the pronoun are identified with each other, but the other example from this section, pa'DajDaq ghaHtaH la''e' "The commander is in his quarters" shows that the subject of the sentence can have other relationships with the rest of the sentence (in this case, pa'DajDaq is adverbial). HaqwI''e' DaH yISam. (TKD Addendum 6.7) "Find the SURGEON now!" Contrary to normal Klingon grammar, the object of the verb has been placed before the adverb, and has been "topicalized" with the suffix -'e'. Moving away from TKD examples, the only other common use of -'e' is to disambiguate subject from object in -bogh phrases, eg. HoD'e' leghbogh yaS "The captain whom the officer saw" (and not *"The officer who saw the captain"). Although this usage originated in fan circles (specifically, HoD Qanqor), it was later endorsed by Marc Okrand and so is now also considered canon. Note that in this case, what is being marked is the "head noun" of the relative clause, that is, the noun referenced by the rest of the sentence; its role as subject or object of either the outer sentence or the relative clause is not changed. The suffix -'e' is unusual among Type 5 suffixes, in that it can be applied to nouns that can also be the subject or object of the main (or relative) verb of the sentence; all other Type 5 suffixes put the nouns to which they are affixed in the "something else" category of nouns that act in a prepositional way in the sentence. But if we consider -'e' as a true Type 5 suffix, then we need to ask if there is some role in the "something else" category that a noun with -'e' could play in a sentence. After all, in the examples above, two (ex 1 & 4) use -'e' on nouns which are also subjects or objects of a verb, but ex. 2 does not, and, I will argue, neither does ex. 3. Instead, I think they illustrate the use of -'e' to mark the "something else" category of focus. In other words, although Okrand consistently describes the suffix -'e' as marking the topic of the sentence, much of the time, it is really marking focus, and that allows us to extend its focus-marking function into other territory, as well. Although there is some fuzziness amoung linguists in the definition of focus (Payne, pp266ff), the concensus is that the focus of a sentence introduces new information into the utterance. The focus of the sentence need not be the subject or the object of the main verb, but simply draws attention to something new in the sentence. In the example HaqwI''e' DaH yISam, is it possible to think of the noun HaqwI''e' as focus, and not actually as the object of yISam at all. This would neatly explain why it can come before the adverb DaH. In this interpretation, the sentence would be read "as for a surgeon, find (one) now!" That this is a new focus would be derived from the context of the sentence: presumably the notion of needing to find a surgeon had not previously come up. Indeed, the whole notion of "emphasis" is a kind of focus operation, introducing into the context of the sentence the new idea that a particular noun is especially important. Moreover, Okrand gives alternative translations of the examples from 6.3 that clearly show a role as focus, and not as subject, eg. "as for the commander, he is in his quarters." If the focus of a phrase can be a true Type 5 noun, then this has some useful implications, namely in freeing us from having to rely on the categories of subject and object to convey everything useful we might want to say about a noun and its relation to a verb. The most immediate use that comes to mind is to tell what a sentence is "about", especially with intransitive verbs: Duj'e' qaS vay' "Something's happening with the ship."; Qu'lIj'e' nom yIvang "Quickly carry out your mission!" Suffix -'e' could also be a way to indicate the "subject" of phrases that would be otherwise too confusing to follow: vav'e' nargh SoS SuchmeH 'eb "It is too late for Father to visit Mother." (and not *nargh SoS SuchmeH vav 'eb, with the confusing pair of final nouns), or to indicate the "subject" of constructions that don't actually have subjects: moQbara''e' jIH po' law' SoH po' puS "I am more skilled than you at martial arts." (as a substitute for the more unwieldy moQbara' wIqeltaHvIS / wIbuStaHvIS). A canon phrase that supports this possibility is qIbDaq SuvwI''e' SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS "As for warriors in the galaxy, you are the most wonderful of all" (from Star Trek V). In this sentence, the central comparison, SoH Dun law' Hoch Dun puS is supplimented by new information: "As for/considering the warriors in the galaxy." In fact, since qIbDaq can't actually be modifying SuvwI''e', since it has a Type 5 suffix, it might be better to think of the comparison as being expanded by two separate additional elements: "In the galaxy, considering warriors, you are the most wonderful of all." The use of the suffix -'e' in Type 5 noun relationships other than with subject or object in order to mark focus I believe is justified by canon examples, and would give Klingon a little more flexibility in its expressions. REFERENCE: Thomas Payne, Describing Morphosyntax, Cambridge U. Pr., 1997

© 2005 Terrence Donnelly