ke...kea

[Kì'eyawn]

Kaltxì, ma smuk.  I had a thought.  I've been looking at these two sentences for a while, trying decide which is correct:

Oel txepit ke tse'a.

vs.

Oel kea txepit ke tse'a.

My instinct is that... they're both correct, but they mean different things.  The top one is what i would come up with if you asked me to translate the sentence, "I don't see the fire," whereas the second is what i would come up with for "I don't see a/any fire."

Slä fì'u law ke lu oeru—"li'fyatu" ke lu oe.  Peu fpìl aynga, ma smuk?  Oeru peng aysäfpìlit ayngeyä, rutxe.

[omängum fra'uti]

If you want to say "I don't see the fire" You would probably need to do fìtxep or tsatxep...  In which case you might be right that you wouldn't use kea.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

If you weren't using fì- or tsa- though I think kea would be required.

[wm.annis]

Oel txepit ke tse'a.

vs.

Oel kea txepit ke tse'a.

My instinct is that... they're both correct, but they mean different things.  The top one is what i would come up with if you asked me to translate the sentence, "I don't see the fire," whereas the second is what i would come up with for "I don't see a/any fire."

Your instinct, I think, is correct, though I might go with a slightly different translation in the English.  English can also use "no" as an adjective.  The second example has as the closest English equivalent "I see no fire."  This is a stronger assertion, almost saying there is no fire at all, where oel ke tse'a txepit is a somewhat more restrained statement, "I don't see the/a fire."

Since Frommer regularly translates bare Na'vi nouns into English the the definite article "the," I don't think there's any reason to require a demonstrative prefix here.  Nor can I think of any reason why kea would be required.

[Kì'eyawn]

Irayo, ma pxesmuk.  Fpìl oel futa fìtìpawmìri fko zayene tsat yivem Karyu Pawleo, slä ke pxiset.  I've gotten the impression that he's very busy, so unless you think it's a pressing need, i'd say it can wait until later, kefyak?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Oel txepit ke tse'a.

vs.

Oel kea txepit ke tse'a.

My instinct is that... they're both correct, but they mean different things.  The top one is what i would come up with if you asked me to translate the sentence, "I don't see the fire," whereas the second is what i would come up with for "I don't see a/any fire."

Your instinct, I think, is correct, though I might go with a slightly different translation in the English.  English can also use "no" as an adjective.  The second example has as the closest English equivalent "I see no fire."  This is a stronger assertion, almost saying there is no fire at all, where oel ke tse'a txepit is a somewhat more restrained statement, "I don't see the/a fire."

Since Frommer regularly translates bare Na'vi nouns into English the the definite article "the," I don't think there's any reason to require a demonstrative prefix here.  Nor can I think of any reason why kea would be required.

I was probably interpreting the double negatives are required a bit too literally then, like free word order not meaning free word order. Irayo.