On May 13, 2019, at 10:25, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

It has nothing to do with whether it's appeared in a superlative sentence. It's because pronoun sentences already have a correct form, with the topic at the end.

Another thing to consider is how the topic marker is optional in Morskan pronoun sentences, e.g., {nov 'o vIghro' tIQ}. While you can probably topic-mark and front the ancient cat to make something like {vIghro' tIQ'e' nov 'o}, you almost certainly cannot front the ancient cat without also topicalizing it, e.g., *{vIghro tIQ nov 'o}, which would be just as ungrammatical in Morskan as it is in {ta' Hol}.

He's not suggesting starting with the sentence nov 'oH vIghro' tIQ'e' and converting it to vIghro' tIQ'e' nov 'oH; he's talking about constructing the sentence according to the rules we know about building sentences. By his suggestion, a Morskan would say vIghro' tIQ'e' nov 'o.

In other words, the {-'e'} in a pronoun-as-copula “to be” sentence is not just a topic marker in Standard Klingon. It’s a necessary part of the pronoun-as-copula formula. So it’s probably not a good idea to treat it like it’s just a topic marker, and it’s very unlikely that {vIghro' tIQ'e' nov 'oH} and {nov 'oH vIghro' tIQ'e'} are equivalent expressions apart from a marked stylistic difference of word order.

Except we're explicitly told otherwise in TKD:

puqpu' chaH qama'pu''e' As for the prisoners, they are children.
pa'DajDaq ghaHtaH la''e' As for the commander, he is in his quarters.

The -'e' may be required, but it still indicates a topic.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name