[tlhIngan Hol] Suffix position: semantically significant?

[De'vID]

On Thu, 7 Jun 2018 at 15:26, Daniel Dadap <daniel at dadap.net> wrote:

> Obviously, position is semantically significant for rovers, but does it
> have any semantic significance for fixed-position verb suffixes?
>
> I wanted to express “I obviously need to be able to speak Federation
> Standard”, which I initially composed as {DIvI' Hol vIjatlhlaHnISba'};
> however, after checking my verb suffix types, realized that this was
> ungrammatical. However, the grammatically correct {DIvI' Hol
> vIjatlhnISlaHba'} seems like it should mean something else to me: “I
> obviously can need to speak Federation Standard.”
>

TKD explains the scope of each type of suffix. Later suffixes do not
(necessarily) interact with earlier ones. (Things get weird with {-moH},
though.)

{jatlh} is the action. {-nIS} expresses that the subject needs to do it.
{-laH} expresses that the verb refers to the ability to do the action.
{-ba'} expresses that the speaker/writer of the verb thinks what it asserts
should be obvious to the listener/reader. {DIvI' Hol vIjatlhnISlaHba'} is
fine for your meaning.

-- 
De'vID
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