Inalienable possession

[eanayo]

Hi, everyone!

There are a few issues concerning the topical for inalienable possession that I'd like to discuss. Don't get me wrong, I can make some sense of the bits of information we've got, but there are a few (in my opinion) interesting points that make good material for rainy autumn days

First, Karyu Pawl says "[...] the –ri form [...] is slightly more idiomatic than the possessive pronoun [...]". From his example, I'm not quite sure if I understand what is meant by "slightly more idiomatic" in this context - is it because his example sentence is somewhat of a flattery and thereby not to be taken too literally, or where does the idiomatic bit come in?

Secondly, from his blog post we know that at least body parts are inalienable in Na'vi. However, the canon is full of genitives and body parts (ngeyä kxetse, holpxay ayzekwäyä feyä or oeyä eana txìm atsawl). Now, I would be more than happy to say that the rule is rather new, and therefore the canon examples could be considered outdated, but we have oeri ontu teya lu (or something to that extent) from the movie. I suspect that it might have something to do with the aforementioned "slightly more idiomatic" uses, but... any guesses?

Thirdly (and even more guesswork), what do you think is the potential extent of inalienable possessions? tigermind suggested that "my people" could be one (and I quite like the idea), but what else? Considering the cultural context, I wouldn't be surprised if (blood)relatives, spouses or kelutral were - but we have canonical ngeyä tireaioang and awngeyä swotut, so it's probably much narrower than that. What do human languages offer in that respect?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

1. By "slightly more idiomatic" Frommer just means that, whilst -yä (and variants) aren't incorrect, a native speaker would, in general use the topical instead even though this isn't covered by its literal meaning (hence it is idiomatic)

2. The ngeyä kxetse one makes sense in context as "ngeyä kxetse lu oeru" (can't remember the exact word order), in this context (of the game of grabbing each other's tail) the tail is no longer an inalienable possession (as evidenced by the fact that I now have it). I don't have an explanation of the others though.

3. I believe that inalienable possession varies a huge amount in different human languages so I think guessing its extent in na'vi is going to be pretty fruitless until we get word from Frommer. That said, we have seen examples of "oeyä/oeri" being dropped with family members (and possibly in the translation of "my people") so we've very few canonical examples to work from there.

[Plumps]

3. The interesting thing is that in Frommer's ›Txewì‹ story, he used the genetive for family members (Txewìyä sempulìri, the topical should be on Txewì otherwise, shouldn't it?) but the topical for Toktor Kìreysì's Avatar (poeri uniltìrantokxit tarmok a krr ...). Unless the meaning is towards a "concerning her being in her avatar body..." the pure 'empty' body of an avatar would be the first thing that could be taken away from you...

[Muzer]

I think the point is not that it can be taken away from you, but that it will still remain "yours" even after it is taken away. It will still be her Avatar, as she is the only one who can link to it - even if it is destroyed. Same goes for blood relatives/body parts/etc.

[eanayo]

1. By "slightly more idiomatic" Frommer just means that, whilst -yä (and variants) aren't incorrect, a native speaker would, in general use the topical instead even though this isn't covered by its literal meaning (hence it is idiomatic)

Cheers! Looks like I ought to work on my English first, rather than learn Na'vi

2. The ngeyä kxetse one makes sense in context as "ngeyä kxetse lu oeru" (can't remember the exact word order), in this context (of the game of grabbing each other's tail) the tail is no longer an inalienable possession (as evidenced by the fact that I now have it).

Uh, clever! Using grammar to reinforce the point of having taken the tail, sneaky blue people. Me likes

I don't have an explanation of the others though.

I guess with enough effort you could almost always make a case pro/con genitive, but that's really fishing in the dark. The only thing that throws me off a little is that we've got a few (apparent) very early uses (forgot the Hunt Song in my OP), but then not the slightest hint of that topic-construction for months. So I'm wondering how safely we can use that without any further explanations from above^TM.

3. I believe that inalienable possession varies a huge amount in different human languages so I think guessing its extent in na'vi is going to be pretty fruitless until we get word from Frommer.

Yup. It's just that some people on this forum (you know who you are! I'm looking at you!) are an awful lot into languages and could certainly tell us a little about odd / interesting uses in human languages, for general interest. Pwetty pwease

The interesting thing is that in Frommer's ›Txewì‹ story, he used the genetive for family members (Txewìyä sempulìri, the topical should be on Txewì otherwise, shouldn't it?)

There was some discussion about the combination of "actual" topics and inalienable possession in this thread (again). This could actually be a case where the topic is sempul, so Txewì "must" take the genitive (lest there be two topic[s| markers] in a sentence) - if this is how it works.

[wm.annis]

2. The ngeyä kxetse one makes sense in context as "ngeyä kxetse lu oeru" (can't remember the exact word order), in this context (of the game of grabbing each other's tail) the tail is no longer an inalienable possession (as evidenced by the fact that I now have it). I don't have an explanation of the others though.

In this particular instance, I think that might be an over-reading.  I'm not sure a topical makes a good predicate, which is what's required here.

Nonetheless, you raise an interesting point.  In some languages that mark inalienable and alienable possession differently, the word "flesh, meat" takes alienable syntax when talking about food (the flesh of a deer you're about to cook) and inalienable syntax when talking about your own body or the body of a living critter.

[Lance R. Casey]

Nonetheless, you raise an interesting point.  In some languages that mark inalienable and alienable possession differently, the word "flesh, meat" takes alienable syntax when talking about food (the flesh of a deer you're about to cook) and inalienable syntax when talking about your own body or the body of a living critter.

There's a somewhat similar thing in Klingon, which has three different plural suffixes: -pu' for persons (or specifically "beings capable of language"), -Du' for body parts, and -mey for everything else. If one applies -mey to a body part, however, the result is that the word signifies that the things it refers to are no longer part of a creature. Quoth Okrand:

They've lost their association with the creatures that originally had them.  (This is kind of like the distinction in English between "beef," which is eaten, and "cattle,"  which isn't.)

[kewnya txamew'itan]

2. The ngeyä kxetse one makes sense in context as "ngeyä kxetse lu oeru" (can't remember the exact word order), in this context (of the game of grabbing each other's tail) the tail is no longer an inalienable possession (as evidenced by the fact that I now have it). I don't have an explanation of the others though.

In this particular instance, I think that might be an over-reading.  I'm not sure a topical makes a good predicate, which is what's required here.

Nonetheless, you raise an interesting point.  In some languages that mark inalienable and alienable possession differently, the word "flesh, meat" takes alienable syntax when talking about food (the flesh of a deer you're about to cook) and inalienable syntax when talking about your own body or the body of a living critter.

I dare say I am. At this stage I'm like a Medieval astronomer adding a new set of epicycles to my model of the solar system whilst wuite probably ignoring the fact that the real problem is that I've put the Earth at the centre. Anyway, wouldn't the "oeru" be part of the predicate as kxetse is the subject or is predicate primarily a semantic rather than syntactic term?

[eanayo]

hrh, I'm with you on the Medieval astronomer train, ma kewnya!

And to keep building the impeccable geocentric model, there's another thing from the movie (well, our wiki actually, should be good enough):
(1) Ngari hu Eywa salew tirea (Jake to hexapede)
(2) Pori tireati, munge mì nga (Mo'at to Eywa)
but:
(3) Hu nawma sa'nok tivul ngeyä tirea (Neytitri to viperwolf)

So tirea is used with the topic two times, and once with the genitive. (1) and (3) are extremely similar in context (talking to a killed animal about its spirit), yet different forms of the possessive are used without any obvious reason. Yes, yes, I know, the genitive is just as correct, but I still find this rather interesting. Thoughts?

[Payä Tìrol]

Wouldn't the last one sorta fit Kewynya's theory, in that the spirit is no longer inalienable, seeing as how it's dead, and supposed to be with Eywa?

[Muzer]

No, because then the first one would be wrong...

[Payä Tìrol]

Oddly, the first topical is pretty far removed from the thing it's supposed to be modifying. I wonder if that has anything to do with it...

[kewnya txamew'itan]

The first one might just be an ordinary topical and one of the things it's implying (as well as many other verb arguments and extra information) is a genitive.

[eanayo]

Oddly, the first topical is pretty far removed from the thing it's supposed to be modifying. I wonder if that has anything to do with it...

Yes, it looks more like the normal topic-comment structure. Interestingly, in
Oeri ta peyä fahew akewong ontu teya längu.
Ngari hu Eywa salew tirea.
there's "just"  a phrase introduced by an adposition between the possessor and the possessed.

The "off" sentence with the genitive has that phrase in a different position:
Hu nawma sa'nok tivul ngeyä tirea
but that doesn't seem to be the reason:
Pori tireati, munge mì nga.

Still can't make anything of that, and probably I'm interpreting much too much (especially considering the tiny sample)

The first one might just be an ordinary topical and one of the things it's implying (as well as many other verb arguments and extra information) is a genitive.

Quite possible, and frankly, for a relatively short sentence like (1) from my other post I can't make out much difference in meaning between a topic-comment and a "funky possession". There's a lot of magic in the topic

[Muzer]

Oddly, the first topical is pretty far removed from the thing it's supposed to be modifying. I wonder if that has anything to do with it...

Yes, it looks more like the normal topic-comment structure. Interestingly, in
Oeri ta peyä fahew akewong ontu teya längu.
Ngari hu Eywa salew tirea.
there's "just"  a phrase introduced by an adposition between the possessor and the possessed.

Noun phrase - you aren't far off the official jargon

The "off" sentence with the genitive has that phrase in a different position:
Hu nawma sa'nok tivul ngeyä tirea
but that doesn't seem to be the reason:
Pori tireati, munge mì nga.

Still can't make anything of that, and probably I'm interpreting much too much (especially considering the tiny sample)

The first one might just be an ordinary topical and one of the things it's implying (as well as many other verb arguments and extra information) is a genitive.

Quite possible, and frankly, for a relatively short sentence like (1) from my other post I can't make out much difference in meaning between a topic-comment and a "funky possession". There's a lot of magic in the topic