I'm sorry, SuStel, I've to ask again on this matter, and don't misunderstand me; I'm not trying to find a way to write nested quotations. In fact, even if I could use them in klingon I wouldn't, since the whole "he said that she said that they said.." gives me a feeling of old grannies gossiping in the village.
But it seems that I've stumbled here on something I ignored, so I'd like to clarify this further.
SuStel:
> The real question is whether you can say 'e' yIja' tell that.
> It seems that the answer is no. Whatever you want to report about is either a noun or a quotation.
jIH:
> I'm afraid I can't understand this; doesn't the {'e'} of a sao serve as a noun?
SuStel:
> 'e' is a pronoun. It stands in for a sentence, not a noun. When I said "either a noun or a quotation," I meant exactly that.
What I was about to ask next, was this:
Ok, but we *can* write {ghaH vIja'pu'} for "I've told him". Isn't {ghaH} a pronoun too? So why can't we say too {'e' yIja'}?
The only explanation which came to mind, was that pronouns such as {jIH}, {SoH}, {ghaH}, etc can function as nouns too, something which the {'e'} of a sao can't do. The {jIH}, {SoH}, {ghaH}, etc are pronouns and can be nouns too, but the {'e'} can only be a pronoun.
You are mistaking my description of observed canon for a rule. I'm not saying "the rule is that the object of ja' can be only a noun or a quotation." I'm saying we've only ever seen actual nouns or actual quotations as the thing ja' is referencing, with no sign of the standard sentence-as-object construction anywhere in sight.
The rule is stated in TKD: "Similarly, with verbs of saying (say, tell, ask, etc.), 'e' and net are not used. The two phrases simply follow one another, in either order."
So we have the basic rule, and we haven't seen any exceptions to the rule. We've seen nouns be the object of ja' and we've seen ja' work with quotations.
neH has a similar rule, but we've seen an exception to it in Star Trek VI, where Azetbur says 'e' neHbe' vavoy. So I'm not about to state that it's impossible that ja' can have an exception to it as well. But we haven't seen this exception so far, so I'm also not about to state that exceptions occur.
The bottom line: don't use 'e' with quotations.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name