extending the use of pum

[Kì'eyawn]

Kaltxì nìmun, ma eylan.

So, now that we saw Karyu Pawl extend the use of pum in his listening comprehension exercise ("Sawtute akawng" vs. "pum asìltsan"), i had a thought that i'd like to run by you.

Suppose, after the Sawtute have left, Jake Sully encounters some Na'vi who don't entirely trust him.  Suppose one makes a comment to the effect that he's still a Tawtute in a fake Na'vi skin.  Jake replies, "I have no other body, there is only this one."  Would that be,

Ke lu oeru kea tokx alahe, lu *fìpum nì'aw?

Of course, the easy way around this is to reword the sentence, and say Lu oeru fìtokx nì'aw, ke lu kea lahe.

What do you think, ma smuktu?

P.S.  Can i just say Irayo nìtxan to the person who put the little accent buttons up there?  I know how to make all the accents on my Mac, but i'm on a PC right now and haven't the first clue how to make Windows do my bidding.  So, thank you so much for those little buttons =)

[omängum fra'uti]

That's a very good question...  I don't see why not.  A true pronoun it wouldn't make much sense, but "pum" isn't really a pronoun in the normal sense.  But for now we'll have to settle for it being one of many unanswered questions.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

It seems reasonable to me.

Of course, that begs the question as to whether it could be used for all possessions and if so, why ever call it a pronoun not just a noun?

Could I for example refer to the things the sky-people left behind as ayfum akawng, I could certainly refer to them as pum tatuteyä so why not give them other attributes and if they can take attributes then they can take relative clauses in which case they should be able to be the argument of a verb.

Therefore the logical extension is simply to treat it as a noun and enable sentences such as "oel pumit skama'a".

[Taronyu]

I'm not sure that being the object of attribution is the same as being the argument of a verb. I'd say that's a huge step.

Same for being the object of this sort of affixes, I'd think. But that's not as big a step.

[omängum fra'uti]

It seems reasonable to me.

Of course, that begs the question as to whether it could be used for all possessions and if so, why ever call it a pronoun not just a noun?

Could I for example refer to the things the sky-people left behind as ayfum akawng, I could certainly refer to them as pum tatuteyä so why not give them other attributes and if they can take attributes then they can take relative clauses in which case they should be able to be the argument of a verb.

Therefore the logical extension is simply to treat it as a noun and enable sentences such as "oel pumit skama'a".

"pum" does not mean possession though.  It merely refers back to a previously mentioned noun.  None of your examples make any sense out of context...  "ayfum akawng" - bad what?  I have no context to know what you are talking about.  "pum tawtuteyä" - the skyperson's ones of what?  Again, no context to know what you are talking about.  "Oel pumit skama'a" - this one I think might be meaningless even IN context.  Or if not so much meaningless, a very strange thing to say.  From what we've seen, pum is used with some sort of qualifier to specify some other instances of something.  For example if we were talking about friends, then "ayfum akawng" would be bad friends (As opposed to the friends we had been talking about before) and "pum tawtuteyä" would be a sky person's friend (As opposed to someone else's friend we were talking about before).

[kewnya txamew'itan]

If it can be the object of attribution then it can be the object of a relative clause due to the fact that a is the same as -a- surely?

And whenever you add a relative clause to a noun, the noun occupies one of the verb's arguments (be it adverbial, adpositional or an ordinary case argument) even though it may be elided (as is usually the case in na'vi) even in examples where it is superficially absent e.g. "tseng a oel yerikit tspolang" there is an implied ro saw or fì/tsatseng(e). If you can find example where this is not the case of course, my argument is completely invalid, but I have yet to find one.

Same for being the object of this sort of affixes

I'm not entirely sure what you meant here, did you mean case endings?

It seems reasonable to me.

Of course, that begs the question as to whether it could be used for all possessions and if so, why ever call it a pronoun not just a noun?

Could I for example refer to the things the sky-people left behind as ayfum akawng, I could certainly refer to them as pum tatuteyä so why not give them other attributes and if they can take attributes then they can take relative clauses in which case they should be able to be the argument of a verb.

Therefore the logical extension is simply to treat it as a noun and enable sentences such as "oel pumit skama'a".

"pum" does not mean possession though.  It merely refers back to a previously mentioned noun.  None of your examples make any sense out of context...  "ayfum akawng" - bad what?  I have no context to know what you are talking about.  "pum tawtuteyä" - the skyperson's ones of what?  Again, no context to know what you are talking about.  "Oel pumit skama'a" - this one I think might be meaningless even IN context.  Or if not so much meaningless, a very strange thing to say.  From what we've seen, pum is used with some sort of qualifier to specify some other instances of something.  For example if we were talking about friends, then "ayfum akawng" would be bad friends (As opposed to the friends we had been talking about before) and "pum tawtuteyä" would be a sky person's friend (As opposed to someone else's friend we were talking about before).

Pum does not simply refer to the previous object. It is a lot more specific than 'u which would indeed do so. Pum could only refer back to the previous object that somebody owned.

Granted none of my examples makes sense out of context, but that does not mean that they are ungrammatical, there isn't a single sentence I can think of that uses the word 'u outside of its use in set function words such as fì'u and tsa'u that makes sense out of context either but they are certainly grammatical.

My final sentence was certainly pretty useless and would probably only be used if you had a mind blank and couldn't remember the normal word which is a rather specific case to be sure but that doesn't mean that all sentences using it must be as meaningless.

[omängum fra'uti]

I am afraid you are mistaken on pum.  We have this from Frommer (Listening exercise)...

lam set fwa Sawtute akawng holum, pum asìltsan 'ì'awn

There it has nothing to do with possession, it is merely referring back to a previous noun.  Pum is far more specific than 'u.  And I also think you have it backwards - 'u would probably be used if you couldn't think of the specific word, not pum.  You can also use 'u when there is not some already named object but just some generalization, for example...

Fol skola'a ayut awngeyä
They destroyed our things.

On the other hand, pum makes absolutely no sense out of context of some past object.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Ah, I hadn't noticed that, in that case then I am mistaken and my argument no longer holds.

That's a very interesting use though, I hadn't noticed it because I'd been using an old version of the dictionary, irayo.

[Atantsawkeyä]

Kaltxì, ma aylertu.

That was a pretty thorough discussion of pum. I think I have a few small questions though, or rather need to confirm a couple of things.

1. Pum is used in compound/complex sentences and relates to the subject from the previous clause. The subject being referenced must be 3rd person, singular/plural.

2. The question about the declination of pum for number is still open, I guess?

Correct?

I think the rule of thumb here is that we use pum in sentences like Subject + attribute + predicate; while subject + attribute + predicate. So to me the usage of pum seems to be more about expressing opposition.

I can conjure up the following example: Sute a tsun tslivam akanu lu, pumur a ke tsun kivame fko syaw ayskxawng.

So, to sum it up:

pum = the one who/which is + attr; that one who/which is + attr; etc.

Is my assumption about the use of pum to express opposition correct?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

1. Not quite, it refers to the previous noun, not the previous subject (assuming my understanding is now correct). If you wished to carry on the previous subject as the subject, then it can be omitted due to na'vi's pro-drop-ness.

2. I believe so although I'd expect that the "pum" referred to the previous object as a whole so, if I'd talked about menari and then said mefum I think that would mean "two [pairs of eyes]" although that's just a (not so) educated guess.

Not sure about the rest of it though, my understanding seems to be brining it dangerously close to tsaw.

[wm.annis]

I am afraid you are mistaken on pum.  We have this from Frommer (Listening exercise)...

lam set fwa Sawtute akawng holum, pum asìltsan 'ì'awn

I would also note that pum is apparently not altered for number (I'm hoping Frommer doesn't think only one Human stayed on).

[Atantsawkeyä]

2. I believe so although I'd expect that the "pum" referred to the previous object as a whole so, if I'd talked about menari and then said mefum I think that would mean "two [pairs of eyes]" although that's just a (not so) educated guess.

Irayo, ma kewnya txamew'itan! I've pondered a bit more on pum and here's one more question:

Oey tìrey salew hu Eywa ulte pumìri oeru teya si.

Is it the case you were talking about?

(This actually came from the French "Ma vie se passe avec Eywa et j'en suis content", in this case "en" referring to the whole previous clause).

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Not quite, I think it's been made clear that pum refers to nouns, in your example "a fì'u" would be correct (the topical is unnecessary). What I meant was that the "pum" carries over all modifiers that the noun it refers to had, for example if I'd been talking about "menari arim" then any use of "pum" afterwards would refer to the entire noun phrase and would so include the "arim" and "me+".

[Atantsawkeyä]

Irayo.

I hope it's settled then. I was actually thinking of some big idea behind pum. Glad it's sorted over with, at least for the time being.