On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 10:24 AM, Daniel Dadap <daniel@dadap.net> wrote:

Ahh, thanks for clarifying that. I hadn’t known that law' could be used as a noun, and was reading it as a stative-verb-as-adjective, and failing to understand how the topic marker could go on a verb.

I guess in that case it’s ungrammatical to say latlhpu' law''e'? Or maybe it’s okay, with latlhpu' law' being a noun-noun? (I want the extra syllable, but can probably do without it.)

{law'} isn't a noun. When you have a stative verb being used adjectivially with a noun, if the noun has a type-5 suffix, the type-5 suffix gets put on the verb instead. {-'e'} is a type 5 suffix, so it gets moved from the noun {latlh} to the "adjective" {law'}. E.g. {qab Qe'} "The restaurant is bad", {Qe' qabDaq} "at the bad restaurant".