using adp. with sì

[Tirea Aean]

So an interesting question just popped up. This may have been asked before; I'd be shocked if it hasn't, but that thread may be from 2009. Anyways...

I want to say Singing comes equally to me and my sister (My sister and I have singing in common)

The way to say this if it were just to them would be:

Tìrusol za'u ne fo nì'eng. [1]

But what if you wanted to be more specific than they or we?

Such as

they = Sorewn sì Txewì

or

we = oe sì tsmuke oeyä?

My question is... does ne apply to just one noun ONLY, or can it distribute across all the nouns in a list separated by sì? This question also applies to all adp. words like ne, mì, etc.

Which of the following is/are correct or the best?

1) Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmuke oeyä nì'eng
2) Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì ne tsmuke oeyä nì'eng
3) Tìrusol za'u oene sì tsmuke oeyä nì'eng
4) Tìrusol za'u oene sì tsmukene oeyä nì'eng
5) Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmukene oeyä nì'eng
6) Tìrusol za'u oene sì ne tsmuke oeyä nì'eng

[Plumps]

Ta 'eylan karyusì ayngeyä... [Message to the Community, Jan 2010]
Oeru ke tsun livam ke'u lor to Eywa'evengä na'rìng a lew säpoli fa prrwll, kxawm mungwrr fìkifkey a lew säpìyevi fa fpom sì lì'fya leNa'vi. [here]

Given these, I tend to go with 1)

On the other hand, we have this from the latest blog entry:

     Eo ayfo a fya'o lamu ayskxeta teya sì renulke.

This doesn't mean "the way before them was full of stones and full of irregularity", right?

So, maybe there is a distinction there whether you use the adp. as a suffix here or not.

[Tìtstewan]

Mllte hu Plumps.

1) Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmuke oeyä nì'eng
or
1) Tìrusol za'u ne oe tsmukesì oeyä nì'eng

[Blue Elf]

I vote for 1/ too. Sì works as connector to create lists of things, so adposition in front of list applies to whole list. If sì is connected as postposition..... that's question.

Translation of example above is apparently:
A. Path before them was full of stones and irregular
    Eo ayfo a fya'o lamu (ayskxeta teya) sì (renulke).
So sì here creates list of two adjectives, where first one is described by noun+adposition.
It's not like (as Plumps stated):
B.  Path before them was full of stones and full of irregularity.
    Eo ayfo a fya'o lamu ayskxeta teya sì renulke.

I would guess this rule: using sì one can connect apples with apples and pears with pears. That's why A is correct as sì creates list of adjectives (same things). In B it connects adjective with noun (+adposition), what breaks this rule (different things). Moreover - translation of B doesn't work, as renulke is adjective and what sense gives connecting two adjectives together?
  ayskxeta teya sì renulke => * teya ta ayskxe sì teya renulke
Really, it would work only if renulke is noun (and in this case we would write: *teya ta ayskxe sì renulke)

However in various languages also option 2/ can work, like in Czech (and other slavic languages probably too) and IMHO in English too:
Singing comes equally to me and my sister -> very lit: Zpěv přichází stejně ke mě a mé sestře
Singing comes equally to me and to my sister -> very lit: Zpěv přichází stejně ke mě a k mé sestře.
If there's adposition in front of list, it applies to the whole list. That's all.

[Tirea Aean]

Is option 3 right out?

How about this:

Tìrusol za'u {oe sì tsmuke}ne nì'eng

if this is okay:

Tìrusol za'u ne {oe sì tsmuke} nì'eng

[Tìtstewan]

Is option 3 right out? How about this: Tìrusol za'u {oe sì tsmuke}ne nì'eng

Hmm...no.
I would place ne in the front of oe sì tsmuke, because you will otherwise not know if oe is also included, oe fpìl.
Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmuke nì'eng
Tìrusol za'u ne oe tsmukesì nì'eng

if this is okay: Tìrusol za'u ne {oe sì tsmuke} nì'eng

This.


Edit: fixed my English mistake...

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I would go with 1 as well. It certainly seemed the clearest from my 'hopelessly English' viewpoint. although several of the other examples were rather interesting syntactically.

I suspect that 2 and 4-6 might be allowable in cases where one needs to be very specific, but it would not be the normal way. These all have in common using ne- twice, with the variation only being if the ne- is detached or enclitic. Of these, 2 seems to be the most reasonable, followed by 4, and then 5 and 6.

Is there any possibility of variation here simply due to 'free word order'? Example 3 seems to be a good case. It looks grammatically correct but otherwise kind of strange.

[Tirea Aean]

Is option 3 right out? How about this: Tìrusol za'u {oe sì tsmuke}ne nì'eng

Hmm...no.
I would place ne in the front of oe sì tsmuke, because you will otherwise not know if oe is also included, oe fpìl.

Because you have sì taping them together? Can they not be thought of then as a single package?

if this is okay: Tìrusol za'u ne {oe sì tsmuke} nì'eng

This.

Edit: fixed my English mistake...

Clearly, everyone is unanimous on this version. Now, I am asking about the "weird" word orders of this. I want to know what people think of the more exotic word orders and if they are correct grammatically or not.

[Tìtstewan]

Is option 3 right out? How about this: Tìrusol za'u {oe sì tsmuke}ne nì'eng Hmm...no. I would place ne in the front of oe sì tsmuke, because you will otherwise not know if oe is also included, oe fpìl. Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmuke nì'eng Tìrusol za'u ne oe tsmukesì nì'eng Because you have sì taping them together? Can they not be thought of then as a single package?

Because both sentences makes no difference. ne is in the front of these words.
And this:

I vote for 1/ too. Sì works as connector to create lists of things, so adposition in front of list applies to whole list. If sì is connected as postposition..... that's question.

Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmuke nì'eng = Tìrusol za'u ne oe tsmukesì nì'eng

Singing comes to me and my sister equally.

This:
Tìrusol za'u oe sì tsmukene nì'eng
Would cause confusion...

What you would say about that:
Tìrusol za'u oene tsmukesì nì'eng

if this is okay: Tìrusol za'u ne {oe sì tsmuke} nì'eng This. Edit: fixed my English mistake... Clearly, everyone is unanimous on this version. In this thread, I am asking about the "weird" word orders of this. I want to know what people think of the more exotic word orders and if they are correct grammatically or not.

Well...
Oel fpìl tsat:

1) Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmuke oeyä nì'eng
2) Tìrusol za'u ne tsmuke oeyä oesì nì'eng
3) Tìrusol za'u oene sì tsmuke oeyä nì'eng
4) Tìrusol za'u oe sì tsmukene oeyä nì'eng
5) Tìrusol za'u oene tsmukesì oeyä nì'eng
6) Tìrusol za'u tsmukene oeyä oesì nì'eng
7) Tìrusol za'u ne tsmuke oeyä oesì nì'eng

are still OK, but the most I somehow don't like.

[Alyara Arati]

I have no logic to support this, but my first impression is:

option 1 (like everyone else) and option 4. 

Why it seems okay to have only one ne in front in 1, and two ne endings in 4, I wish I could tell you.
(I suspect it has something to do with my nebulous grip on math. )

[Tirea Aean]

I have no logic to support this, but my first impression is:

option 1 (like everyone else) and option 4. 

Why it seems okay to have only one ne in front in 1, and two ne endings in 4, I wish I could tell you.
(I suspect it has something to do with my nebulous grip on math. )

Probably. It reminds me of the distributive property of multiplication.

a) ne(oe sì tsmuke) = ne oe sì ne tsmuke

But this is also valid in maths:

b) (oe sì tsmuke)ne = oene sì tsmukene

But I suppose this is only because of the ( ) grouping. If we didn't do that, then we'd have:

c) ne oe sì tsmuke = (ne oe) sì tsmuke
d) oe sì tsmukene = oe sì (tsmukene)

and it's interesting because there are two ways to parse c (just like there are two ways to parse d. It depends on how you group them mentally)

c) ne oe sì tsmuke = (ne oe) sì tsmuke OR ne (oe sì tsmuke) ?

In English, we like to treat prepositions and stuff like that as distributive to items in the following list as to save ourselves repeating the verb and the preposition again. I wonder about this in Na'vi. The only hint of this I've seen is ma. Ma tsmukan sì tsmuke. which is parsed as: Ma (tsmukan sì tsmuke). So maybe adp. follow that pattern. (but what about if the adp. is stuck on the end?)

[Tìtstewan]

Soo... don't mix mathematics with linguistics.

The problem which I have with the "multiple ne" is following:
Example:
Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmuke sì tsmukan nì'eng.

If we use that "multiple ne", we got this:
Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì ne tsmuke sì ne tsmukan nì'eng.

So, I would support to minimize the number of ne. The next point is, that you can add the sì to the words as suffix like ne too.
Below we have an example with attached sì, now where you would add the hypothetical other two ne?
Tìrusol za'u ne oe ne tsmukesì ne tsmukansì nì'eng.

In other way around: Where you would add the sì? Sì is necessary here, because its connects three words.
Tìrusol za'u oene sì tsmukene sì tsmukanne nì'eng.

Probably, we can add sì or ne like this examples
Tìrusol za'u oene tsmukesìne tsmukansìne nì'eng.
Tìrusol za'u oene tsmukenesì tsmukannesì nì'eng.
But this I never ever have seen here.

So, how many adpositions a word can hold in those mentioned examples?
Sì is necessary here, but ne is needed only once and at the best place is in the front of the listed words, I think.

Just some complicated random thoughts...

[Tirea Aean]

Tìrusol za'u oene tsmukenesì tsmukannesì nì'eng.

This, I think would be okay. Since we know that sì attaches after cases.

sì isn't really an adp. word (even though it kinda acts like one)

You've never seen it because:

1) NO ONE seems to like using -sì as a suffix. No idea why.
2) using an adp. with a list of nouns seems to be a rare thing. And when it does happen, people always go with my original #1 option.

[Tìtstewan]

1) NO ONE seems to like using -sì as a suffix. No idea why.

I use it sometimes.
I'm curious if we have anywhere an official example for the use of an adposition with sì?
..like <noun>nesì

[Tirea Aean]

1) NO ONE seems to like using -sì as a suffix. No idea why.

I use it sometimes.
I'm curious if we have anywhere an official example for the use of an adposition with sì?
..like <noun>nesì

I can't think of any Canon examples, but that may be because of the two reasons I've just said. I think it should be possible.

[Tìtstewan]

I can't think of any Canon examples, but that may be because of the two reasons I've just said. I think it should be possible.

Just a note: I wouldn't touch this before we have an official example. I just want to prevent the "shock of nume".

[Plumps]

1) NO ONE seems to like using -sì as a suffix. No idea why.
2) using an adp. with a list of nouns seems to be a rare thing. And when it does happen, people always go with my original #1 option.

To 1) ... I do In speaking I forget about it as well but in writing I like attaching sì
To 2) ... I am almost positive that it is also possible to use multiple adp. ... why not? Maybe it's just a matter of style at a certain point. Same as we can say in English:

I gave it to you, and him, and them.
or
I gave it to you, to him, and to them.

[Tìtstewan]

Well, I thought about, and such constructions with many ne are ok. But really, in speech and writing, I would not repeat ne if not necessary like sì.

[Blue Elf]

1) Tìrusol za'u ne oe sì tsmuke oeyä nì'eng
2) Tìrusol za'u ne oesì tsmuke oeyä nì'eng

I'm wondering if 2/ is correct. In speech probably there's no difference, but if connector is between words it connects it should be separated from them, IMHO. Why:
  oe sì tsmuke -> sì connect two words around sì
  oe tsmukesì -> sì connects word it is connected to and previous word.

So with oesì tsmuke it can look like sì attached some word in front of oe to this oe.

[Tìtstewan]

Tìrusol za'u ne tsmuke oesì oeyä nì'eng
...change the position fo the both words...