Thanks for the explanation and the other example. When I start out from the potential answer *DevwI' ghaH Qugh'e'*, this is a sentence that says something about Kruge. *As for Kruge (whom we have been talking about), he is the leader.* Kruge (TOP) would be the old information, and *DevwI' ghaH* would be the new information. But if I remember right, Uhura wasn't asking about a particular Klingon man, but asked the crowd to identify their leader, or for the leader to step forward. In that situation, a logical answer would be *Qugh ghaH DevwI''e'*. *As for our leader, it/he is Kruge*, acknowledging that the existence of a leader is a known or assumed fact in Uhura's question. Personally, in her place I would have asked *'Iv ghaH DevwI''e'*. So while I can accept that the question words just replace the expected noun in the answer, that just shifts the problem to there: They were talking about the assumed leader, not about Kruge / that particular Klingon who I think stepped out of the crowd and took off his helmet. In such a situation, I could imagine Kruge being focussed, but not topicalized. *Oh, KRUGE, just him, he is the leader.* I think it's similar with the PK sentence about the dish. Wasn't it a human visitor on Kronos, who got served some food, probably points at it and asks what that is? In that case, the old information would be the food (seen or known by both interlocutors), and the new information would be the name of the dish. As for this food, what's it? And the answer would be: *roqegh'Iwchab 'oH Sojvetlh'e'* (or whatever it was in PK). If the answer was *Sojvetlh 'oH roqegh'Iwchab'e'* (implied as an expected answer by the question in PK), then this sounds like the question asked would have intended: *So, Rokeg Blood Pie, you know... which one of these is it?* Such a dialogue makes only sense to me if the talk was about Rokeg Blood Pie even before the food was served... basically with the waiter picking up the topic from before and saying: *Remember the Rokeg Blood Pie we talked about before? Well, that's that dish over there!* (pointing to it). Maybe I am overanalyzing this, but the only way I can explain it is that sentences of the type *X 'oH Y'e'* are another category and there the *-'e'* does not necessarily mark topic or focus, but just the subject, which in questions then can be either the question word or the old information about which is asked. If that's true, then would *DevwI' ghaH 'Iv'e'* and *'Iv ghaH DevwI''e'* mean exactly the same, and imply the same? In this hypothetical case, since their leader is Kruge and Kruge is the only leader, presumably, there would not be a perceived difference. But when asking about cats, then it'd be quite different: *Ha'DIbaHmey bIH vIghro'mey'e'* = *As for cats, they are animals*. A logical and correct thing to say. But: *vIghro'mey bIH Ha'DIbaHmey'e' *= *As for animals, they are cats*. Without context, this wouldn't be right, as there are many kinds of animals. It could only be understood as asking about a particular group of animals (*"the animals"*, perhaps pointed at or talked about before). — André (aka *Vortarulo*) Am Fr., 20. Nov. 2020 um 16:29 Uhr schrieb SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name>:

On 11/20/2020 10:26 AM, André Müller wrote:

*Discord*-Daq *«-'e'»* mojaq wIrIchtaHvIS lo'meyDaj vIbuS. qen QIj SuStel 'ej meqqu'mo' ghaH, De'wI'wIjDaq mojaqvam QIjbogh ghItlh'e' vIpol. 'ach DaH SuStel latlhpu' joq vIghelnIS. mu'tlheghDaq *«'oH, ghaH, bIH, chaH»* lo'lu'chugh SeSorDaq *«-'e'»* chelnISlu' net Sov. ghantoH: *«Ha'DIbaH 'oH vIghro''e'.»* qay'be'. ghellu'chugh jaSHa' chelnISlu'. ghantoH: *«nuq 'oH vIghro''e'?»* qay'be' je. 'ach reH mu'tlheghmeyvetlhDaq *De' ngo'*Daq ngam mojaqvam, qar'a'? not De' ngo''e' 'oS ghelbogh mu' (*«'Iv, nuq»*), qar'a'? vaj tlhIngan Hol pabHa' bIvlaw' mu'tlheghvam: *«Ha'DIbaH 'oH nuq'e'?»* 'ach *«Hov leng: maQmIgh»* (STID) HaStamuchDaq Qoy'lu': *«DevwI' ghaH 'Iv'e'?»* ‘Who is the leader?’ — vaj latlh lo' ghaj'a' mojaqvam?

*Short version in English:* In *be*-sentences *-'e'* marks the subject, which SuStel explained as one of the TOPIC uses of the suffix. Topic means that it marks old information, so I concluded logically that question words like *nuq* and *'Iv* cannot be marked by *-'e'*. But there is a sentence in STID, *«DevwI' ghaH 'Iv'e'?»* ‘Who is the leader?’ Is the usage of *-'e'* in *be*-sentences a different (fourth) usage that is neither topic, focus, nor head-marking in a relative clause? Or is it perhaps focus just in this one example after all? Or can we dismiss it saying that Uhura's Klingon isn't quite perfect and native-like and she made a mistake here (I believe she said this sentence)?

There's also *Sojvetlh 'oH nuq'e'* in *Power Klingon.*

*'Iv* and *nuq* are pronouns that stand in for the answer. If the answer is *DevwI' ghaH Qugh'e'** Kruge is the leader,* then the question of the leader's identity is *DevwI' ghaH 'Iv'e'?* Don't worry about the required topic marker in the question version; it's just there because it's required in the answer.

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I’ve always been curious as to why the sentence wasn’t {nuqDaq puchpa’ ‘oHtaH?} The answer would be to point down the hall and say {nIHDaq puchpa’ ‘oHtaH} (sung to the tune of “Theeeere’s a Bathroom, On The Right”, a.k.a. “There’s a Bad Moon On The Rise”). It seems weird to answer {nIHDaq ‘oH puchpa’’e’.} It’s just different from all the other “to be” sentence structures. It would be like saying {maH tlhIngan’e’} instead of {tlhIngan maH.} {nuqDaq} is not the thing that is synonymous with bathroom. It’s the place the bathroom is being. We usually handle that with {X-Daq ‘oHtaH.} We usually use {-‘e’} when we have a pronoun between two nouns, neither of which is a locative. charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

On Nov 20, 2020, at 11:48 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

...Consider: you're in an unfamiliar place and you need to pee. You approach someone who looks like they belong there and ask them, nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e'? Clearly, puchpa' is not "old information" in the sense that it is part of the previous context. puchpa''e' itself establishes the old information, and the comment nuqDaq 'oH states the new content. The "old" information comes about by the speaker essentially saying "Let's talk about the bathroom" before asking "Where is it?" (Well, "before" in this case actually means "after" in Klingon grammar. It's more like Where is it? The bathroom, I mean.)

So I think maybe you're overanalyzing it. I feel pretty sure that Okrand wasn't thinking very hard about the order of pronoun-based sentences, especially in the early days. I suspect that DevwI' ghaH 'Iv'e' and 'Iv ghaH DevwI''e' are pretty much equivalent.

Regarding your example of cats, I don't see why limiting the interpretation of the latter sentence to "the animals" is a problem. I think you're mentally adding or removing English articles to Klingon words where they don't exist. Ha'DIbaHdoesn't mean just the animal or an animal or animals in general; it means all of those at once. Ha'DIbaH bIH vIghro''e' As for cats (in general), they are animals (a type); as for the cats (that we're talking about), they are animals (a type); as for cats (in general), they are the animals (that we're talking about); as for the cats (that we're talking about); they are the animals (that we're talking about). vIghro' bIH Ha'DIbaH'e' As for the animals (the ones we're talking about), they are cats (in general); as for the animals (the ones we're talking about), they are the cats (the ones we're talking about). You've got fewer interpretations the latter way (not including science fiction stories about all animals being cats in disguise or some such), but those interpretations are still valid, and nothing you can do outside of providing context can distinguish which interpretation you intend.

I mean, in English, if I say I want water, do I mean water in general, or a water (as in a cup or bottle of water) or some water(an unspecified quantity of water)? All of them at once, really; the distinction isn't important. Sometimes context will give you a reason to choose one of those specifically. It's the same with your Klingon vIghro' and Ha'DIbaH, only in Klingon you don't have the choice of being more specific, you can only supply context.

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I think you’ve just done a much better job of explaining “to be” in Klingon than TKD does. Meanwhile, I’m trying to remember where Okrand made sentences that were consistently in the form: {X-Daq <noun> <pronoun>-taH} It seemed important to put {-taH} on the pronoun. So, why isn’t it {nIHDaq ‘oHtaH puchpa’’e’.}? charghwI’ vaghnerya’ngan rInpa’ bomnIS be’’a’ pI’.

On Nov 20, 2020, at 5:01 PM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:

On 11/20/2020 4:55 PM, Will Martin wrote:

...

I’ve always been curious as to why the sentence wasn’t {nuqDaq puchpa’ ‘oHtaH?}

The answer would be to point down the hall and say {nIHDaq puchpa’ ‘oHtaH} (sung to the tune of “Theeeere’s a Bathroom, On The Right”, a.k.a. “There’s a Bad Moon On The Rise”).

It seems weird to answer {nIHDaq ‘oH puchpa’’e’.} It’s just different from all the other “to be” sentence structures. It would be like saying {maH tlhIngan’e’} instead of {tlhIngan maH.}

{nuqDaq} is not the thing that is synonymous with bathroom. It’s the place the bathroom is being. We usually handle that with {X-Daq ‘oHtaH.} We usually use {-‘e’} when we have a pronoun between two nouns, neither of which is a locative. When you use a copula sentence in Klingon, you're not saying the two things are synonymous. You're saying there is a link between them. The verbal suffixes on the pronoun and the syntactic suffixes on the noun tell you what that link is.

nIHDaq 'oH puchpa''e' The bathroom is on the right. The link between nIH and puchpa' is that when talking about the bathroom, its location is on the right.

HoD ghaHvIp torgh'e' Torg is afraid to be the captain. The link between HoD and torgh is that when talking about Torg, he is afraid of being the captain.

jagh chaHbe' Human'e' The humans are not enemies. The link between jagh and Human is that when talking about humans, they have a negative identification with enemies.

Don't think of copula sentences as working like basic sentences, with subject and objects and verbs. They follow their own completely distinct grammar.

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