Once again, your analysis is excellent. Question words are chuvmey and they stand in for the things I said they stand in for. I should have said that {nuq} stands in for a noun and can’t stand in for anything but a noun.

{yIH nuq} works because {nuq} sort of works like a pronoun, except when it doesn’t. Considering that the correct answer would be {Ha’DIbaH ‘oH yIH’e’} it’s pretty clear that {yIH nuq} is probably a shortened version of {nuq ‘oH yIH’e’}. The word {nuq} absorbs the meaning of {nuq ‘oH}, and with a single noun combined with the resulting chuv acting as a pronoun, the noun comes first. 

We don’t say *{nuq yIH} for the same reason we don’t say *{maH tlhIngan}. When one noun forms a sentence with a pronoun, the noun comes first.

charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan

rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

On Jul 13, 2020, at 10:53 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 7/13/2020 10:37 AM, Will Martin wrote:
the Klingon word {nuq} is a noun. It’s never anything but a noun.

The Klingon word nuq is a chuv. it's never anything but a chuv. However, it can stand in for a noun. We have a term for words that stand in for nouns: pronouns. And we know something else about Klingon pronouns: they can be used in copulas, where one word gets identified with another word. yIH nuq?


You can’t use it in any question that tries to ask a question that is not answered by the statement formed by repeating the question with {nuq} replaced by the noun it stands for.

In basic sentences, this is correct, and I believe your reasoning for why jarlIj qaq nuq doesn't work is also correct. However, it is not generally true, as the answer to yIH nuq cannot be yIH Ha'DIbaH 'up.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
_______________________________________________
tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org
http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org