SuStel:> pa' SoHtaHbe'chugh vaj meyrI' SoHif you are not there then you are a square
The placement of {-be'} confuses me. If we choose to place it after the {-taH} then doesn't the meaning become "If you aren't there continuously" ?
Perhaps this is indeed the intented meaning, the speaker trying to say "if you aren't continuously there, then..".
But wouldn't you accept, as a more literal way of saying "If you aren't there.." the {pa' SoHbe'taHchugh..} ?
The only reasoning I see for placing the {-be'} after the {-taH}, is if we consider (because of the {pa'}) the {SoHtaH} as an "unable to be separated pair of words", thus leaving as an only option the placement of the {-be'} after it.
Since we've gotten some examples of it, I believe -be' doesn't necessarily negate only the single, immediately preceding element, but it can refer to the entire preceding concept, especially for suffixes that aren't typically negated. So what I said was meant as [SoHtaH]be'chugh instead of SoH[taH]be'chugh.
A canonical example of this is from Power Klingon: Hoch DaSopbe'chugh batlh bIHeghbe' if you don't eat everything you will die without honor. Clearly, -be' here is referring to the entire phrase batlh bIHegh and not just the Hegh.
Another example from Conversational Klingon is vIta'pu'be'
I didn't do it. This doesn't mean I did it in a
non-perfective way; the entire verb before the -be' is
being negated as a unit.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name