On Aug 16, 2021, at 8:06 AM, mayqel qunen'oS <mihkoun@gmail.com> wrote:


< nucholpu' jaghpu' > jIjatlhpu' HoDvaD 'e' yIjatlh
tell the captain that I've said "the enemies have approached us".

Grammatically, is there something wrong with this?

Interesting. A command to give a quotation.

For one thing, I’d use {ja’} instead of {jatlh} for the command, since “say” is not quite the same thing as “tell”.

Yes, ja' is the correct verb here.

The safer way to say what you’ve said is less intuitive than your choice:

nucholpu’ jaghpu’. jIjatlh. HoD yIja’.

Quotations in Klingon are more simply pairs of sentences next to each other. One is the quotation. The other informs you of who says it, using the verb of speech. If you are going to nest quotations, just make it three sentences. I strongly suspect that the {‘e’} is a mistake.

Also, I’m saying this now. You can add the perfective when you tell the captain, but it’s not perfective while I’m saying it. Just an opinion here.

I think it's clear that the command is to say that I have said the enemies have approached us.

"The captain wants to know why you didn't tell him that the enemies have approached us."
"Tell the captain that I did say that the enemies have approached us."

nucholpu' jaghpu', jIjatlhpu'; HoD yIja'.

The real question is whether you can say 'e' yIja' tell that. It seems that the answer is no. Whatever you want to report about is either a noun or a quotation. I don't personally feel that it should be possible to next multiple layers of quotation, except when you're employing a he said she said kind of thing, which isn't going to be accepted in normal speech.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name