De-emphatics, Dagur and Topicalisers

[CJ FINE <cbmvax!uunet!BRADFORD.AC.UK!C.J.Fine>]

We have recently adopted a "de-emphatic" particle (bi'u?) in response to
a claim that Dagur Mongolian had such a word. I believe that this was a
misunderstanding.

However, I believe that we could do with a topicalising particle.

Martin, "Dagur Mongolian Grammar, Texts, and Lexicon" (Indiana
University Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol 4, Bloomington IN, 1961) says
on page 23:

The emphasis particles are ~le 'only, even' (reinforced emphasis),
~(i)ni 'as for' (reduced emphasis), ~bole 'as for' (contrastive
emphasis), ~ci 'any, whatever', and ~beci 'even if it be' (restrictive
emphasis).

[The '~' is not part of the language, but Martin's notation for setting
off certain kinds of morphological element]

In the associated table of allomorphs of particles, we read:
~ni	1. 'as for': particle showing non-contrastive topic; cf. bole
	(contrastive)

It seems clear to me that, despite the misleading phrase 'reduced
emphasis', this particle is 'reduced' only in comparison with the other
possibilities, and not with respect to the unmarked form; and secondly,
what he calls 'emphasis' I would refer to as 'topicalisation' or
'salience' (like Japanese 'wa').

Examples confirm this (though to my mind they do not clearly show the
difference he asserts between ~ni and ~bole):
[The marks + # are different kinds of pauses, and [] separates cases:
DAT dative, ATT, attributive COM comitative]

11 (p.65):
Minii + keku # buni      +       gere[]te ~ni +  ule bai[]n
My       son   tomorrow          home DAT as-for not be ATT
lemi    bersa  ca le lamba'idei le zdani [~ni]   na  zvati
My son will not be home tomorrow


14 (p.70)
En(e)  jake   ~ni  #  sain # base + kainde
this material as-for  good   also   cheap
levi  bukpu   zo'u    xamgu  (je)     to'erkargu
This materal is good and cheap (= very cheap)

1 (p.76)
bii ~bole # Bokore-cien nere[]tei + aile[]de + bai-j(i) ~ee
I   as-for    B.        name COM  village DAT  be-ing (pause-emphasis)
mi  zu'uzo'u fela bokoretcien. poi  so'ozda  cu   zvati
I was living in a village called Bokore-cien.

This gives no support at all for a de-emphatic particle, and I think we
should withdraw it.  However, what it does suggest to me is that we need
a topic marker. I have previously asked how to do this (translating "wa"
from Japanese), and the answer was "use zo'u", which is what I did in
the second and third examples above. However, this will not do in the
first example unless we turn it round

le zdani zo'u lemi bersa ca le lamba'idei na zvati

which is approximately OK, but it seems to me to give too much
prominence to le zdani, as well as only working because the role of le
zdani is the x2 so it can be pragmatically supplied in the bridi.

What I would like is an UI which functions as topic marker (indeed, can
even be modified for intensity if you like) but without extracting the
sumti from its syntactic function. So, using "xa'e"

lemi bersa ca le lamba'idei le zdani xa'e na zvati

and

mi su'uxa'e la bokoretcien poi so'ozda cu zvati

			kolin