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Lesson 37: Focus Marker & Passive Voice

Focus Marker

In English we use a combination word order and stress to emphasize a certain word in a sentence--to move the "focus" of the sentence onto that word. For example, in a simple declarative sentence like "The book is red," if we need to emphasize that it's the book (and not some other thing) that's red, we can say "The BOOK is red," or "It's the BOOK that's red," or a number of other things. Similar processes would be employed to emphasize that RED (rather than some other color) is the color of the book, or that the book IS (rather than "was" or "will be" or "ought to be") red.

Láadan word order is fairly inflexible, and emphatic stress is not employed. So we must find some other mechanism to emphasize one part of a sentence over another. The Focus Marker, "-hóo," is that mechanism.

It is added to a word to mean "this particular specific one" or for emphatic stress--the context will indicate which.

When I questioned Dr. Elgin about the "this particular specific one" use of "-hóo," I got the following very informative response:

English has several kinds of emphatic stress. The one that's used in "It wasn't Tuesday morning, it was WEDNESday morning" is called "contrastive stress." Another is what I call "announcement stress," as in "That was the PRESIdent on the phone!" And then there's the emphatic stress a speaker gives to a word or a part of a word simply to indicate that that element is the part of the language sequence that matters most to him or her and is being foregrounded, with stress as the foregrounding mechanism.

Láadan uses "-hóo" for all three of those kinds of emphasis.

Passive Voice

Let's start with an example English sentence: "The book was written." The direct statement would be "X wrote the book." I use X here because the simplest passive construction avoids any mention of the Subject (the one who wrote the book) at all--in fact, to introduce the Subject, we'd need to add an Agentive case phrase: "by the farmer" for example. "The book" is the Object in the direct construction but is used as the Subject in the passive voice. This is one of those things we do in English to "foreground" either the Object (the book) or the Verb (the writing itself)--either "The BOOK was written..." or "The book was WRITTEN..." respectively.

Láadan has no passive voice. So, if we use "beye" (someone) as the missing Subject in a direct statement, we can translate "The book was written" as either "Bíi eril thod beye áabethehóo wa" (The BOOK was written) or "Bíi eril thodehóo beye áabe wa" (The book was WRITTEN). Of course, if an Agentive case phrase is present, we can use that as the Subject of our Láadan sentence, and the focus marker would remain on the book or the writing as shown.

Vocabulary


	bad		mineral
	badazh		metal ?[bad (mineral) + dazh (pliant)]?
	bosh		wood
	hibo		hill [híya (small) + bo (mountain)]
	-hóo		Suffix (any): Focus Marker
	mari		island
	rabo		plain [ra- (non-) + bo (mountain)]
	sheshi		sand
	sheshihoth		beach [sheshi (sand) + hoth (place)]
	yed		valley

The question-marks around the etymology of "badazh" indicate that no official etymology has been supplied; I'm guessing at the thought process of the person who coined this word.

Examples


	Bíi laya áabe wa.		The book is red.
	Bíi layahóo áabe wa.		The book is RED.
	Bíi layahóo áabe, léli ra wa.		The book is RED, not yellow.
	Bíi laya áabehóo wa.		The BOOK is red.
	Bíi laya áabehóo, ra thodi wa.		The BOOK is red, not the writing implement.
	Bíi erilehóo laya áabe; ril léli be wa.		The book WAS red; now it's yellow.

The above illustrates focusing for the purpose of foregrounding as well as contrastive focusing.


	Bíi eril eb Mázhareth nemeth ledi wa.		Margaret sold me a pearl.
	Bíi eril eb Mázharethehóo nemeth ledi wa.		MARGaret sold me a pearl!
	Bíi eril eb Mázhareth nemethehóo ledi wa.		Margaret sold me a PEARL!
	Bíi eril eb Mázhareth nemeth lehóodi wa.		Margaret sold ME a pearl!
	Bíi eril eb Mázhareth nemeth ledihóo wa.		Margaret sold a pearl TO me! Margaret sold a pearl TO ME!

This is meant to be announcement focusing. The final two examples also illustrate another note I received from Suzette Haden Elgin when I inquired whether the focus marker would always be placed at the end of the word, or if it might be placed immediately following the morpheme (meaningful word-part) that the speaker wants to emphasize:

Like placing emphatic stress in spoken English, the focus marker gets placed where it will genuinely indicate what is most important to the speaker of the utterance. Some placements are going to be far more likely than others, certainly, and it may sometimes be a struggle to place it properly, but it’s at the discretion of the user.


	Bíi eril lamith beye losheth wáa.		The money was counted. (Someone counted the money.)
	Bíi eril lamithehóo beye losheth wáa.		The money was COUNTed. (Someone COUNTed the money.)
	Bíi eril lamith beye loshethehóo wáa.		The MONEY was counted. (Someone counted the MONEY.)
	Bíi eril lamithehóo wehehá losheth wáa.		The money was COUNTed by the storekeeper. (The storekeeper COUNTed the money.)
	Bíi eril lamith wehehá loshethehóo wáa.		The MONEY was counted by the storekeeper. (The storekeeper counted the MONEY.)

Of course, the Subject ("beye" or "wehehá") could receive the focus marker, but that would not be best translated as a passive construction.

Exercises

Translate the following into English.


1	Báa thi Araneshahóo sheshihoth?
2	Bíi eril beth letho boshethuhóo, ra udethu wa.
3	Bíi eril di ábedá, "Bóo damahóo ra ne ábabí," wa.
4	Báa methel halá bebáath hiboha nedebe nil; badehóo nedaba?
5	Bíi ril eduthahá thóo ebaláthohóo yedeha, ra belidátho wa.
6	Bíi eril ulanin Shuzéth edanethehóo, ra elamitheth wáa.

The new word we see in #5, "belidá" is not so intuitively obvious as many "-á" formations, though it becomes clearer when we consider that "-á" means not only "one who does" but also "one who makes or creates." From "belid" (house) + "-á" (doer), it means "carpenter."

Move the focus to the supplied word; translate into English before and after.


7	Bíi aril shumáadehóo hosherídan Ána betha maridi wáa.	island
8	Bíi ra bash ub; uhudehóo hath menedebe wa.	balm
9	Bíi eril wem Méri nemehóo imeya we.	lost
10	Bíi Máyel zha letho wa.	name
11	Bíi delishe Bétheni olob rawáan izh sholanewáanehóo wáa.	weeping
12	Báa rilrili shihóo bini lede Elízhabeth beth?	me

Notice, in #8, the phrase "hath menedebe" (literally, "many times"). This is the idiom (a phrase in one language that may not have the same meaning when translated word-for-word into another language) for the English word "often." There is a related idiom for "seldom:" "hath nedebe" (literally, "few/several times").

In #11, did you notice the phrase "olob rawáan?" The structure "ra + Case ending," when used in place of a noun, means "nothing + Case" (in this instance it would mean "having no cause"), but when it follows a noun (as it does in this exercise), it reverses the meaning of the Case itself (in this instance "not because of" an injury). This same mechanism also can be used with other Cases; for example, we could say "lan raden" to mean "without (not accompanied by) friend(s)," or "with rada" meaning "not on behalf of a/the woman."

Translate the following into Láadan.


13	My family will go NORTH, not east, and meet you (many) at the plain.
14	COURTESY, not being right, causes harmony (a lesson).
15	There's a GARDEN in the meadow! (celebratory)
16	The pregnant woman SIGNED, rather than said, "Hello," to her sibling.
17	Matthew was ABLE to color the picture of a fish with a writing implement.
18	Will Marsha ARRIVE at the farm during the evening?

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Answers


1	Does ARKANSAS have beach(es)?
2	My house was of WOOD, not of stone.
3	The farmer said, "Don't TOUCH the baby bird."
4	What MINERAL did the workers get in the hills?
5	The physician is the BAKER's guest in the valley, not the carpenter's.
6	Suzette studied LINGUISTICS, not mathematics.

7	Anna's grand-niece is going to FLY to the island. Bíi aril shumáad hosherídan Ána betha maridihóo wáa. Anna's grand-niece is going to fly to the ISLAND.
8	Common sense is no balm; it is often is a NUISANCE. Bíi ra bash ubehóo; uhud hath menedebe wa. Common sense is no BALM; it is often a nuisance.
9	Mary lost a PEARL while traveling (I dreamt). Bíi eril wemehóo Méri nemeth imeya we. Mary LOST a pearl while traveling (I dreamt).
10	Michael is MY name. Bíi Máyel zhahóo letho wa. Michael is my NAME.
11	Bethany is weeping not from an injury but from ALONENESS. Bíi delishehóo Bétheni olob rawáan izh sholanewáan wáa. Bethany is WEEPing not because of an injury but because of aloneness.
12	Might a gift from me PLEASE Elizabeth? Báa rilrili shi bini ledehóo Elízhabeth beth? Might a gift from ME please Elizabeth?

13	Bíi aril sháad onida letha hunedihóo, hene radi, i bithim neneth raboha wa.
14	Bíidi nin shalehóo, ra dóon, shath wa.
15	Bíilan ham déelahóo duneha wa.
16	Bíi eril lishidehóo, ra di, wolawida wowith "Wil sha," hena bethadi wáa.
17	Bíi eril thadehóo dóliri Máthu dadem thilithuth thodinan wa.
18	Báa aril nosháadehóo Másha ábedeha háanáaleya obée?

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