Thursday 26 August 2010

The Topic Marker


Kareyku employs what is called a Topic Marker. This marker varies greatly depending on the language, in the case of Kareyku it not only serves to mark the topic of a statement, but also can be translated as "in regards to" or "talking about...", so for instance you can use it in a sentence like

mas-ejen    qappa-ka-l        pilé
food-TOP   eat-2TR-EVD    fish
Regarding food, I'm known to eat fish

It can also mean "I prefer fish" or "I like fish the most". The topic marker being -ejen and replacing any final vowels, it can also be used with pronouns, in which case they have some different kind of forms, so ikan '1st sg.' would turn into ikejen and pen '2nd sg.' would be pejen. So, as can be seen it is used to specify.

kar-ejen       tana-ka-ch        Karey-qa
speech-TOP   speak-2TR-EVD   Kareyku-INSTR
As regards to languages, I speak Kareyku

This last one uses the suffix -qa which means 'by means of' and is used in such constructions. Note that the name Kareyku will be rendered Karey- when any suffixes are used. It can also be used in other senses, for example with the question adverb to specify the subject of the question

Cham-ejen   tana-da-s?
what-TOP      speak-3EV-EVD?
What are you talking about?

And this would be answered of course using the topic marker, so

pok-ejen
about a house/houses

Always remembering that it can refer to a single house previously mentioned or maybe to houses in general, depending on the context.

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