Topic, comment and focus in Gevey
The basic rule of phrase order in Gevey is that new information - known as the comment - goes before the principal verb, while old information - the topic of the clause or sentence - goes after the verb. There are just three exceptions to this rule:
- complex indirect object clauses will tend to go after the verb, even if they contain new information
- relative clauses may follow the clause containing the object they modify, rather than embedding themselves within the clause
- phrases can break the rule in order to be brought into focus
Topic and comment are closely tied to phrase and word order in Gevey. Details of the five main types of Gevey phrase, and word order within phrases, can be found on the word order webpage.
Focus points
The purpose of focus is to highlight the most important information in the clause. The most important information may not always be new information, or even the subject in the clause (as is most often the case in Ramajal). The focus of the clause will be the words the speaker or writer want the listener or reader to concentrate on - in the following examples the focus is the word in bold, words which are pronounced louder, with more emphasis, in Ramajal:
- Dxone yu tintixu kutj donate takyasovubz
- John wore a red shirt to college
- Dxone takyasovubz yu tintixu kutj donate!
- John wore a red shirt to college
- Dxone yu ra tintixu kutj donate takyasovubz
- John wore a red shirt to college
- yu tintixu kutj Dxone donate takyasovubz
- a red shirt was worn by John to college
- Dxone yu tintixu kutj donate ga takyasovubz!
- John wore a red shirt to college
Focus points in the Gevey clause
There are in fact three focus points in a Gevey clause, so that up to three words can be placed in focus. The focus points do not carry equal weight, though:
- the first word in a clause immediately following the introductory conjunction is in primary focus, and is the most heavily emphasised word in the clause
- the phrase immediately before the principal verb is in active focus
- if a word is in both primary and active focus, then it is said to be in clear focus and as such is being very heavily emphasised
- the final words in the clause may be placed into weak focus - demonstrated with a sharply rising intonation on those words - which is the least heavily emphasised word in the clause; weak focus is shown in the orthography by the focus mark (native script) or the exclamation mark (Cheidran scripts).
Focus markers
The rule about new information going in front of the principal verb and old information after, and the rules on focus can often come into conflict - for instance the new information may not be the most important information in the clause, but the only focus point after the verb is the weak focus point, which carries less weight than the other two focus points. Gevey overcomes this with a system of three focus markers, which can be used to promote or demote the relative importance of focus points, or to single out one word for particularly heavy emphasis.
The three Gevey focus markers
- Ga is the focus promoter mark, and can be used before a word or phrase in active or weak focus to make them take precedence over the word or phrase in primary focus. It is most often used before the weak focus point, because a simple way of promoting a word in active focus over a word in primary focus is to simply reorder the words.
- Qja is the focus demoter mark, and does the opposite of 'ga'. It is most often found before words or phrases in clear focus, where the most important information is old information.
- Ra is the focus intensifier mark and is used to pinpoint any particular word anywhere in the clause for heavy emphasis. It is most often used with modifiers, though it can be used before any word, including prepositions and conjunctions.
To emphasise a verb, place it either directly after any introduction conjunctions at the start of the clause, or at the end of the clause in weak focus. This will often mean that the "new information / old information" rule has to be broken.
The weak focus position can be switched on and off by using tone: a high tone means the weak focus is operational, while a low tone indicates the weak focus has been switched off. In the Cheidran scripts an exclamation mark is used at the end of the clause to indicate that the weak focus point is being used.
In some dialects, the focus markers may concatenate with the following word, for instance 'ge yu' will change to 'gu', and there are several common focus marker - preposition concatenations found before indirect objects, such as kta' (ga ta') and gist' (ga ïst').
Finally, tethered clauses can cause problems, because the subject of the clause is reduced to a suffix on the introductory conjunction. This means that the subject will always be in primary focus, even though it is necessarily old information and may not be the most important information in the clause. To overcome this, there are two sets of suffixes used with the introductory conjunction: one set indicates that the subject is indeed important information, while the other set demotes the subject out of focus.
| Subject status | Focus promotion suffix | Focus demotion suffix |
|---|---|---|
| Simple animate | -eg | -eqj |
| Internal animate | -ag | -aqj |
| External animate | -og | -oqj |
| Inanimate | -ug | -uqj |
Subject pronouns in weak focus.
One further complication can be added to the mix described above. While the system works when both subject and direct object are "new information" (and thus occur before the verb), it is a less successful strategy when new information (the comment) is mixed with old information (the topic, which generally follows the verb).
Weak focus is (as it's name implies) weaker than primary and active focus. Thus logically an object in primary focus carries more emphasis that a pronoun in weak focus. However, this is often not the case when the pronoun is the subject of the clause and the objects in primary, active or clear focus are direct objects. In these situations, Gevey employs a hierarchy of animacy to determine whether the subject pronoun in weak focus carries more or less emphasis than the direct objects:
- First and second person pronouns in weak focus are held to have stronger emphasis than any object in primary or active focus.
- Third person animate pronouns in weak focus will only have stronger emphasis than the object in primary or active focus if it is higher up the animacy scale - which goes:
- family member;
- important personage;
- friend;
- stranger;
- bird or animal (Type Two lifeform);
- creature (Type One lifeform)
- Inanimate pronouns never have a stronger emphasis than any object in primary or active focus.
Some examples of this phenomenon in action can be found on the Gevey voice webpage.