{yIH nuq} works because {nuq} sort of works like a pronoun, except when it doesn’t.

It always works like a pronoun. Pronouns have two functions in Klingon: they stand in for nouns (nuq legh yaS), and they help identify nouns (yIH nuq).

I doubt nuq does all the things that pronouns can do. I doubt, for instance, that you'd ever put verb suffixes on nuq. I don't think yIH nuqbe' What isn't a tribble? is a well-formed sentence. We don't really know anything about that. But nuq always functions basically the way a pronoun functions in Klingon.

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.

"Pretty clear"? The ONLY evidence I can think of to support anything like that is the clipped version of nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e' turning into nuqDaq puchpa'. One single sentence using a different word isn't what I'd call "pretty clear." It's a possibility only. We have evidence against that claim, in that Okrand said the word nuq works "the same way pronouns do in questions with 'to be' in the English translations," and says that yIH nuq is exactly parallel to yIH 'oH. That explanation contradicts the Clipped Klingon suggestion.

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.

Except we have nuq mI'lIj, tera'ngan from CK. I've also internalized that we have both SoH 'Iv and 'Iv SoH, but I can't find a source for 'Iv SoH, so that may not be a canonical sentence.

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SuStel
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