On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 12:26 PM, mayqel qunenoS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:
I agree 100% with the analysis provided by lieven.
So, if I understand correctly:
Yes, we can have the construction {b'e' 'oH a'e'}. Yes, we can have the construction {yadda yadda yadda b'e' 'oHbogh 'a'e'}.
If I understand wrong, then do correct me.
How did you get that understanding from the examples people have posted? No one else here has used a sentence with two {-'e'} suffixes; most of the discussion has been about word order and finding clearer ways to rephrase your sentences. The {-'e'} suffix is a topic marker. It has the same meaning in the {X 'oH Y'e'} construction as it does in any other sentence. It describes the topic of the sentence, what the focus of the sentence is on, and a sentence (or at least a well-written one) can't have two focuses.* In your examples, {nepwI''e' chaH verengan'e'} and {nutojta' nepwI''e' chaHbogh verengan'e'}, which is more important to emphasize as the topic of the sentence: that the people you're talking about are liars, or that they're Ferengi? Pick one, and build your sentence accordingly. I enjoy asking questions about the weird possibilities of Klingon grammar as much as the next person, assuming that the next person really enjoys it. (I've got some questions on the prefix trick...) But after a while you have to realize that you're probably not opening up productive new avenues of linguistic innovation, you're just trying to convince yourself that nonsense isn't nonsense. At best, you're just coming up with new kinds of {chIch pabHa'ghach} "intentional ungrammaticality", like using prefixless {tu'lu'} with plural objects, or using an adverbial with a nominalized verb. We don't really have a context for using intentional ungrammaticality very often on the mailing list. * I do wonder about sentences of the form {X verbbogh Y'e' ghaH Z'e'}, where the {-'e'} is used as a pronoun-copula subject marker AND as a relative-clause head-noun marker. My suspicion is that it's probably okay, because the first {-'e'} marks the topic of the relative clause while the second marks the topic of the main clause, but there's no examples I'm aware of.