A newly discovered rule of Na'vi word order?

[wm.annis]

In particular, sentences such as tseri oel futa ..., fpìl oel futa ... sl., in which according to the hypothesis the verb probably shouldn't come first, are very common.

My idea about a tendency to front definites makes no comment about where the verb actually ends up. If there's no particularly topical constituent, the verb is liable to go first as anywhere else. Also, all these futa examples are weird because it's never just futa, but a clause is attached to it. That makes a "heavy" phrase, and it is very normal for those to get shunted to the margins (a complicating matter, to be sure).

there may be a difference between what Pawl intends for the Na'vi language, and what he expresses himself in the Na'vi he writes.

I have considered that, but with so many examples in the film, it's worth considering if his single comment about OSV was intended to be a rule, or an off-the-cuff thought about what his practice actually was. I don't know if other people are asking him about word order, but I haven't really pressed him on this in at least a decade.

Also as Pawl generally does not accept LEP submissions without considerably changing them to his taste, I would assume most example sentences are his own.

I expect he'll comment on that when I send him my crazy idea (though I haven't shared the really crazy part here ). I do find single sentence examples are harder to use as an argument about this. A single sentence in isolation isn't in a normal discourse environment. Connected text is much more helpful for investigating these matters. But now I will take a closer look at some of the two-sentence examples he's produced for some words.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments!