[tlhIngan Hol] {-meH} clause before the {'e'} of a sao

[Will Martin]

This shouldn’t be a grammatical problem at all. I do wonder whether it should be {romuluS yaS} or {romuluSngan yaS}, though. We’d be more likely to say {tlhIngan yaS} than to say {Qo’noS yaS}, after all.

Unlike some Type 9 verb suffixes, {-meH} needs to precede the noun or verb it modifies, so in this case, it can’t be misinterpreted as applying to anything before the semicolon. I’m omitting commentary on punctuation...

It’s never been suggested that a {-meH} clause could modify the pronoun {‘e’}, so it has to apply to the main verb, {vIqaSmoH}.

I know you said that you know it could be rephrased, and you aren’t interested in that, but I honestly think it would be cleaner, simpler, and more direct to just say:

{qaQaHmeH romuluSngan yaS vIcheHmoHta’.}

It just seems weirdly redundant to say that you caused it to happen that you caused X. That’s a bigger issue for me than your question about whether or not {-meH} clauses can precede {‘e’}. We’ve seen other beginning-of-sentence stuff show up before {‘e’}. {-meH} is not special in this regard.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

> On Mar 10, 2020, at 10:09 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Could someone use a construction like the following ?
> 
> romuluS yaS vIcheHmoHta'; qaQaHmeH 'e' vIqaSmoH 
> I caused the romulan officer to defect; in order to help you I caused that to happen 
> 
> And yes, I know that I can rephrase, but the problem (or my problem anyway..) is whether we can have a {-meH} clause before the {'e'} of a sao.
> 
> ~ mayqel qunen'oS
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