On second look, your suggestion is a jewel. It is grammatically ambiguous, but both interpretations have the same meaning. 

The {-meH} clause can apply to either the object or the main verb. Either you know the ship building method, or, for the purpose of building a ship, you know a method. 

Beautiful. 

Sent from my iPhone. 
charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan 

On Feb 18, 2019, at 9:48 PM, Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote:

Excellent suggestion. While I suspect either would work in conversation, I prefer your suggestion to mine. 

Sent from my iPhone. 
charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

On Feb 18, 2019, at 6:00 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 2/18/2019 5:49 PM, Will Martin wrote:
SuStel is absolutely right. One might choose to work around this the same way that American Sign Language does it.

They don’t have relative pronouns or relative clauses at all. Instead, they pair a rhetorical question with its answer. It’s nearly identical to your attempt, but there is no Sentence As Object. It’s just two sentence next to each other:

chay’ Duj chenmoHlu’? jISov.

or

chay’ Duj chenmoHlu’? mIw vISov.

This lacks the “Question As Object” illegal grammar. It’s perfectly legal, and accomplishes the same goal. It’s not like English, but it conveys the meaning.

Not my preferred solution. Rhetorical questions to avoid illegal grammar seem very out of character for the language. I'm not saying it can't be done or that Klingons don't do it, mind you.

A better solution: Duj chenmoHmeH mIw vISov I know the ship-making procedure.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
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