A point I tried to make in my previous reply was that a use of the irregular {qarbe’’a’} is unusual, and would draw attention to it’s use over the more normal {qar’a’}. You see this tactic used frequently as a signalling device for specific intentionallities in academic writing, precisely because it calls attention to itself.

And that's fine.

I maintain that it is perfectly grammatical, and parseable, and — in the right context — desirable (depending on the intention of the speaker). If we follow your logic of “Okrand never used it that way” too far, we can easily arrive at an extreme of only using sentences that Okrand used… but, why bother having grammatical rules if we don’t allow ourselves room to communicate using those rules? Or should we not acknowledge and discuss the diversity available in expressing thoughts and the subtleties inherent in making those choices?

You have incorrectly applied my logic. I do not say "if Okrand didn't say it, we can't say it." I say "Okrand gave us a special, not-reproducible-by-other-rules feature of the language, so when using that feature as that feature, use it the way he gave us." There is no slippery slope here.

I have no problem with analyzing the word qarbe''a'. It means something, and we can discuss its meaning.

What I do have a problem with is treating qarbe''a' like an alternative of qar'a', which we have no evidence of. I know how mayqel posts: he tries to probe the limits of the language. He's used to asking negative tag questions in his native and learned languages, and he's trying to do the same in Klingon. And so far as we know, the tag question formula we're given does not include negatives.

Maybe it does and we just haven't been told yet. But the variable placement of qar'a' in a sentence shows that it is not simply the sentence qar'a' in a grammatically normal position.

If someone asked me if I already ate lunch. The expected answer would be some variation of “I ate.” We tend to use simple tenses for simple questions. However, if the reply comes back “I have eaten.” Despite meaning the same thing, by changing the tense/mood of the verb, I’ve signalled something semantically — the unusualness of the response calls attention to itself, even if it conveys the same information. This is why we recognise connotative and denotative meanings of things — the semantic implications of a particular phrasing can have implications beyond their literal meanings and their functional equivalency.

So, {qar’a’} and {qarbe’’a’} are functionally equivalent, and {qar’a’} is the expected form;

No. qar'a' is a special case that's given to us; qarbe' has not been given to us. You can say De' Sov qar'a' HoD The captain knows the information, right? and this is impossible to construct with qarbe''a'. The two words are not functionally equivalent.

Finally, Okrand using the negative in the explanation for the idiomatic use of {qar’a’} is irrelevant since “isn’t that so” is also an idiomatic expression. Just because English uses the negative doesn’t mean Klingon does.

That's why I brought it up: people were getting hung up on the negative tag question in English, so I showed how even Okrand equated isn't it right with qar'a' and not qarbe''a'. How English translates it is irrelevant. That was the point.

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SuStel
http://trimboli.name