Andre Müller:
> I think SuStel's point is: On screen, no one can
> hear your spaces.

hahaha ! ok, now I understand !

Yes. It could be a new word HIvHe' that cannot be decomposed, or it could be HIv, an unattested noun form of the verb, plus He, space or no space.

The movie also gives us chorghSaD qelI'qam HIvchuq 'e' vInoH Estimating attack range in 8,000 kellicams. This sentence is maddeningly unclear: is chorghSaD qelI'qam something akin to a time stamp? Is HIvchuq attack each other or attack range (with the same unattested noun form of HIv)? Is HIvchuq a new, irreducible noun? Why does this sentence no verb? (It's probably clipped, which means we're trying to figure out grammar from an incomplete sentence.)

HIv is a very frustrating word.

and now, lets talk about something which was discussed earlier in this thread..

SuStel:
> Unknown whether you can use nuq or 'Iv as
> part of a noun-noun construction.

I'm just asking in order to make sure I understand this correctly.

lets say I want to ask "which ship arrived ?". both {paw'ta' Duj nuq} and {paw'ta' nuq Duj} are wrong, right ?

paw, not paw' (unless the arrival was very rough!).

nuq goes into the place of the answer. If the answer isn't the same sentence with a substitution for nuq, then the question is not formed correctly.

If the answer to the question is, for instance, that the Enterprise arrived, then the answer is pawta' 'entepray'. But this isn't in the same form that you asked it, because it doesn't include the word Duj. So the entire method of asking the question is doubtful.

There are some answers that would fit, like, say, pawta' DIvI' Duj. But not every answer will fit, so you may not be able to ask questions this way.

In any case, we've never seen Okrand use nuq or 'Iv in a noun-noun construction like this, so whether or not this is allowed is unknown.

The most common thing to do is turn it into a command to identify: paw'ta'bogh Duj yIngu' identify the ship that has arrived! If you're not asking for a name, you might get more specific, like pawta'bogh Duj Sar yIngu' identify the type of ship that has arrived!

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name