On Thu, 7 Jun 2018 at 15:26, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:
Obviously, position is semantically significant for rovers, but does it have any semantic significance for fixed-position verb suffixes?

I wanted to express “I obviously need to be able to speak Federation Standard”, which I initially composed as {DIvI' Hol vIjatlhlaHnISba'}; however, after checking my verb suffix types, realized that this was ungrammatical. However, the grammatically correct {DIvI' Hol vIjatlhnISlaHba'} seems like it should mean something else to me: “I obviously can need to speak Federation Standard.”

TKD explains the scope of each type of suffix. Later suffixes do not (necessarily) interact with earlier ones. (Things get weird with {-moH}, though.)

{jatlh} is the action. {-nIS} expresses that the subject needs to do it. {-laH} expresses that the verb refers to the ability to do the action. {-ba'} expresses that the speaker/writer of the verb thinks what it asserts should be obvious to the listener/reader. {DIvI' Hol vIjatlhnISlaHba'} is fine for your meaning.

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De'vID