SuStel:
> The rule is stated in TKD: "Similarly, with verbs of saying (say, tell, ask, etc.),
>  'e' and net are not used. The two phrases simply follow one another, in either order."

Ok, wait. Does that rule concern too cases, where the purpose of the speaker isn't to actually quote something?

I know where you're going with this, and you're on the wrong track.

When we say "quotation" what do we actually mean? The way I understand it, if there's: {yaDDa yaDDa yaDDa, jIjatlhpu'}, then the quotation is *only* the {yaDDa yaDDa yaDDa}. The quotation isn't the {jIjatlhpu'} (which I don't know what it actually is..).

This is correct. A quotation is the exact words someone says. The jIjatlhpu' is a "verb of saying."

So, in the  {< nucholpu' jaghpu' > jIjatlhpu' HoDvaD 'e' yIjatlh}, no rules are broken, because the object of the sao isn't the quotation, but only the {jIjatlhpu'}.

And here's the problem: all the evidence points to the fact that you cannot describe the content of a quotation indirectly in Klingon. You're trying to do this.

Okrand, for instance, has told us that the object of jatlh must be the speech event. For instance, you can jatlh a SoQ or a mu'. A description of the contents of a speech event is not the same as a word representing a speech event. That means you can't say things like bImoH 'e' vIjatlh I say that you are ugly because bImoH is a representation of the contents of what I say, not a word that refers to a type of speech event.

Look at it another way..

Q waved his hand and an officer was rendered unable to talk for a period of time; then Q's power wears off, and the officer starts speaking again. So, he says to another member of the crew:

jIjatlhqa'pu' HoDvaD 'e' yIja'
tell to the captain that I've spoken again

There's no quotation here. There are no words to be repeated for the captain. Similarly, in the {< nucholpu' jaghpu' > jIjatlhpu' HoDvaD 'e' yIjatlh}, the object is the {jIjatlhpu'} and the < nucholpu' jaghpu' > is something which happily just happens to sit by, away from the {'e'}.

So we're all happy, yes?

No. There is no evidence that you can use 'e' on ja' by changing the person of the quotation. You can't transform the quotation to make it a not-quotation, then use it the way you were told not to use it. If Klingon can do this, Okrand hasn't said so.

For your Q example, all you have to do is this: jIjatlhqa'pu' HoD yIja' Tell the captain I have spoken again. (Alternatively, HoD yIja' jIjatlhqa'pu'.)

See, for example, how Okrand handles quotations and non-quotations in paq'batlh (and remember that this explicitly given to us as an English text translated into Klingon, not an original Klingon text):

Kahless tells his brother and father
    to go their separate ways,
    And travel the lands.

loDnI'Daj vavDaj je ja' qeylIS
    nIteb peghoS
    HatlhDaq peghoS

Do you see how Okrand has particularly avoided using 'e' and a non-quotation here? He gave us Kahless's exact words, even though the English original did not.

Whenever using a verb of saying to describe what is said, always use a quotation, even if you're translating and your original does not have a quotation. Otherwise you need to find another way of saying it.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name