Re: kau

[JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

And:
>> >ni'o co'i le cerni cu preti fofo'a feleli'i fo'a capu sipna ge'ekau
 >> "In the morning they asked her how she had slept."
 >> I would use {peikau} rather than {ge'ekau}, but in any
>> case it is definitely an indirect question.
>
>I infer that {ge`e} is a BAI question word.

No, is an unspecified emotion. ge'e is to UI as zo'e is to KOhA.
That's why I would have used pei instead, which is the question UI.

>> As focus marker I would use {ba'e}:
>>
>>      mi djuno le du`u ba'e la djan dancatra la alis
>>      I know that it was John that shot Alice.
>>
>>      ba'e la djan dancatra la alis
>>      It was John that shot Alice.
>>
>> It is not very clear to me why {ba'e} couldn't just have been a UI,
>> and thus spare yet another selmaho, but that's another story.
>
>Then ba`e would have had to follow the word it marks, rather than
>precede it. Maybe that was a factor.

Yes, probably. But why was there a need for it to precede?

>Anyway, ba`e means "new info", which is not the same as focus.

ba'e means "emphasize next". (I understand what you meant by
{ba'e ko'a} now. I was a bit puzzled.)

>The English it-cleft construction focalizes. So I think I'll
>stick with kau as a focalizer.

Isn't emphasis something like focus? Maybe not, I don't know.

co'o mi'e xorxes