I love you

[roger]

It looks like Prrton & I were on the right track. Frommer emailed us today, and said that the "indirect" way (his scare quotes) is correct. (Prrton was the one badgering him for this, but he has the flu or s.t. today, so I'll post.)

I've been playing around with word orders to come up with the most euphonious version. For me, it's:

Nga yawne lu oer.

Five syllables (sentence stress on YAWN, of course), not too long . . . sounds good, I think. The laudatory infix (as someone has dubbed it) -ie- is possible but not necessary, and I've been omitting it here. "Love" itself is positive enough that it's probably redundant, and all other things being equal, shorter is better.

On a related note, he clarified noun + si. Nothing new, but nice to have it spelled out:

"Si constructions" have a special syntax. They're considered intransitive ... That is, "X si" is thought of as "engage in the X-activity," an intransitive concept. What would normally be considered the object is then in the dative, along the lines of, "engage in the X-activity to/for Y."

And as a PS, for those of you who are converting your names to Na'vi phonology,

I may have forgotten to mention this in the LL post, but the "pseudo-vowels" rr and ll only exist in open syllables.

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

And as a PS, for those of you who are converting your names to Na'vi phonology,

I may have forgotten to mention this in the LL post, but the "pseudo-vowels" rr and ll only exist in open syllables.

Hmm - I was under the impression that, in Na'vi, the vowel typically ended the syllable.  Would pronunciation be the only thing that separated closed and open syllables? Plltxe or vrrtep, for example.  While there is no question that the syllables are pll.txe and vrr.tep, how, other than pronunciation, would we determine close/open syllables?

[omängum fra'uti]

Good stuff!  That's exactly how I've been taking "si" lately, even down to using the dative.  Just a bit ago I did something like "nari si poru" to express looking for someone.

But...

Nga yawne lu oer.
Interesting...  Roughly "I beloved have you"

And as a PS, for those of you who are converting your names to Na'vi phonology,

I may have forgotten to mention this in the LL post, but the "pseudo-vowels" rr and ll only exist in open syllables.

Hmm - I was under the impression that, in Na'vi, the vowel typically ended the syllable.  Would pronunciation be the only thing that separated closed and open syllables? Plltxe or vrrtep, for example.  While there is no question that the syllables are pll.txe and vrr.tep, how, other than pronunciation, would we determine close/open syllables?

William actually explained this one to me (So Frommer probably did mention it at some point) - open means the syllable ends in the vowel (Or psuedovowel here).  In other words, you can have a word like "lok" but you couldn't have "lrrk".

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

Good stuff!  That's exactly how I've been taking "si" lately, even down to using the dative.  Just a bit ago I did something like "nari si poru" to express looking for someone.

But...

Nga yawne lu oer.
Interesting...  Roughly "I beloved have you"

And as a PS, for those of you who are converting your names to Na'vi phonology,

I may have forgotten to mention this in the LL post, but the "pseudo-vowels" rr and ll only exist in open syllables.

Hmm - I was under the impression that, in Na'vi, the vowel typically ended the syllable.  Would pronunciation be the only thing that separated closed and open syllables? Plltxe or vrrtep, for example.  While there is no question that the syllables are pll.txe and vrr.tep, how, other than pronunciation, would we determine close/open syllables?

William actually explained this one to me (So Frommer probably did mention it at some point) - open means the syllable ends in the vowel (Or psuedovowel here).  In other words, you can have a word like "lok" but you couldn't have "lrrk".

Damn you, way to steal what I was about to post XD.

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Ahh I get it... so only the final vowel can be closed then, as anything else will be apparently open. (That's what I get from it, at least)

[omängum fra'uti]

Kehe ke...

The closed/open is only with regard to a syllable

plltxe - if you took it as plltx-e (Would be valid if it was potxe) that's a closed syllable so not allowed.  Therefore it's pll-txe, two open syllables.

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

How are you so much faster than me. 

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Kehe ke...

The closed/open is only with regard to a syllable

plltxe - if you took it as plltx-e (Would be valid if it was potxe) that's a closed syllable so not allowed.  Therefore it's pll-txe, two open syllables.

Right, that's what I meant by only the last syllable can be closed (and cannot contain ll or rr unless that ends the word, such as "krr"), since it won't be legal for a syllable to be closed with the ll or rr, all syllables containing such vowels will be open. (perhaps I didn't convey that well enough in my first message, it appeared that I meant in general, sorry.)

[omängum fra'uti]

My grammar senses are tingling!

Seriously, I don't know.  I'm using a secure remote connection over two slow internet links to my home computer where I'm running a web browser to view/post here.

And to top it off the usual Windows shortcuts for ä and ì don't work so I have to type elsewhere and paste it here.

I should be slow as molasses.

Kehe ke...

The closed/open is only with regard to a syllable

plltxe - if you took it as plltx-e (Would be valid if it was potxe) that's a closed syllable so not allowed.  Therefore it's pll-txe, two open syllables.

Right, that's what I meant by only the last syllable can be closed (and cannot contain ll or rr unless that ends the word, such as "krr"), since it won't be legal for a syllable to be closed with the ll or rr, all syllables containing such vowels will be open. (perhaps I didn't convey that well enough in my first message, it appeared that I meant in general, sorry.)

Kehe ke!

I don't know why you keep talking about the "last syllable".  Words like wìntxu has a closed then open construct.

All it says, nothing more, is that a syllable (Anywhere in the word) which uses the psuedovowel ll or rr MUST be an open syllable.  It can still be followed by a consonant, BUT only if that consonant is part of the next syllable.  (Ex. kllkulat)

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

Damnit, I guess my grammar senses will eventually be faster than yours and then I shall become the master. But for now...I wait... 

[Ftiafpi]

Nga yawne lu oer.
Interesting...  Roughly "I beloved have you"

Really? I would translate this as:

Nga yawne lu oer.
You beloved be me-DAT
You be beloved by me
or "I love you"

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Sigh - You still misunderstood what I said

I'm not really saying anything different from what you're saying.

Maybe I can word it better this time...............

I'm simply saying that the only times we'll have to worry about whether or not /rr/ or /ll/ can fit (in an English word spelled with Na'vi phonetics) is in the last syllable, because if we put it in before the last syllable, it will simply force the syllable to be open, since it is illegal for it to be closed with such a pseudovowel present.

Can't think of an example, but do you get what I'm saying now?

[Ftiafpi]

I'm simply saying that the only times we'll have to worry about whether or not /rr/ or /ll/ can fit (in an English word spelled with Na'vi phonetics) is in the last syllable, because if we put it in before the last syllable, it will simply force the syllable to be open, since it is illegal for it to be closed with such a pseudovowel present.

Can't think of an example, but do you get what I'm saying now?

I believe I get what you're saying:

Daron with a Na'vi rr = Txarron (or something similar)
Syllables = Tx.arr.on

but Roger with a Na'vi rr at the end would not work.

What you said before though was quite confusing.

[wm.annis]

I may have forgotten to mention this in the LL post, but the "pseudo-vowels" rr and ll only exist in open syllables.

Ahhh.  He did, but wording was ambiguous enough to leave me uncertain.  Excellent.

[omängum fra'uti]

Being open still limits what the consonant clusters can be though.  (See above Na'vi examples)  So you do have to make sure you're using just legal leading consonants and not relying on a trailing consonant.

And rangrr would work just fine for "roger"
But robert...
Rapurrt = kehe!

Nga yawne lu oer.
Interesting...  Roughly "I beloved have you"

Really? I would translate this as:

Nga yawne lu oer.
You beloved be me-DAT
You be beloved by me
or "I love you"

To me not by me.  In my case I was using the dative+copula construct to translate it to have, but truthfully only the simplest form of that translate cleanly to English, using the "have" form or not.

[Ftiafpi]

Being open still limits what the consonant clusters can be though.  (See above Na'vi examples)  So you do have to make sure you're using just legal leading consonants and not relying on a trailing consonant.

And rangrr would work just fine for "roger"
But robert...
Rapurrt = kehe!

Oh, whoops you're right Roger would work. My bad.

Nga yawne lu oer.
Interesting...  Roughly "I beloved have you"

Really? I would translate this as:

Nga yawne lu oer.
You beloved be me-DAT
You be beloved by me
or "I love you"

To me not by me.  In my case I was using the dative+copula construct to translate it to have, but truthfully only the simplest form of that translate cleanly to English, using the "have" form or not.

Hmmm, yeah I believe you're right, I forgot that the dative with 'lu' is 'to have' (more or less). I stand corrected. Wouldn't it be better as:

"I have beloved you" though that sounds a little perfective and/or past tense to me. I guess there is no real good English literal translation.

[ianonavy]

Well, if you think of dative as "to/for someone", then it should be more along the lines of:

Nga yawne lu oer.
You beloved be I-DAT

"You are beloved to me"
you (pronoun) = nga
are (intransitive) = lu - "be" conjugated to "are" to match "you"
beloved (adjective) = yawne
to me (dative) = oer - "I" conjugated to "me" to become an indirect object pronoun

Play with the word order, and you get Nga yawne lu oer

It's almost the same thing as Spanish's A mí me gusta usted. - Literally, you are pleasing to me.

On a tangent, why is the dative form of oe, oer and not oeru?

[omängum fra'uti]

On a tangent, why is the dative form of oe, oer and not oeru?

Oeru txoa livu, rutxe tsun ngal ngayä ralfpi tivìng tìkenongit oer?
1-DAT forgiveness be-SBJ please can you-ERG 2-GEN meaning-for-the-sake-of give-SBJ example 1-DAT

Srak?

[ianonavy]

On a tangent, why is the dative form of oe, oer and not oeru?

Oeru txoa livu, rutxe tsun ngal ngayä ralfpi tivìng tìkenongit oer?
1-DAT forgiveness be-SBJ please can you-ERG 2-GEN meaning-for-the-sake-of give-SBJ example 1-DAT

Srak?

You are very clever in your explanations.

Wait, so to clarify, it's only the word order that causes the 1st person singular dative pronoun to drop the "u"?

[omängum fra'uti]

It seems to be related to the sound the next word starts with.  Oeru txoa livu I know is -ru, and at the end it's -r because there's no sound to go into.  Other than that, don't know the full details.