First goes the {'Iv}/{chay'}/{nuq} etc, if it's a question.
Then the time stamp.
No, first comes the time element.
'Iv and nuq — and by extension, nuqDaq —
go in the sentence where the answer would be. It's only chay',
ghorgh, and qatlh that go at the front. And what
counts as "front" depends on exactly how complex a sentence Okrand
was thinking of when he made the rule.
Then assume we have an adverbial and a type-5'ed noun.
Does the adverbial *have* to precede the type-5'ed noun ? Or does the type-5'ed noun *have* to precede the adverbial ?
I think, there is no *definite* answer on this matter, and that it comes down to personal preference.
Is this correct, or is there indeed a *definite* answer on the matter ?
TKD doesn't make it clear which words have precedence for the
beginning of the sentence. Section 5.4: adverbials "usually come
at the beginning of a sentence." Section 6.1: any noun in the
sentence other than subject or object comes "before the object
noun." Section 6.4: those three question words "occur at the
beginning of the sentence." Addendum section 6.7: time elements
come before adverbials. Time elements are only described as the
most common sort of element to precede an adverbial, so it's
possible that other elements can too, though I couldn't tell you
what they might be.
Canon doesn't appear to be too overly concerned with carefully
ordering these elements. I can't offhand think of any notable
exceptions to the general rules, but I'm sure there are some
interesting bits out there to find. The trouble is that some of
the best stuff is poetic in nature, making word order suspect.
In general, I go by this formula:
<time elements> <adverbials and syntactic noun phrases> <objects> <verb> <subjects>
Adverbials tend to float toward the front of the "adverbials and syntactic noun phrases" part of their space, though I don't think this is an absolute. If you always put adverbials before syntactic noun phrases I don't think you'd have any trouble. The three "beginning of the sentence" question words are essentially adverbial in nature, and should be counted as adverbials for the purpose of sentence order.
So no, there are no definite answers, but there are some hints
and trends.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name