For?

[nìTsìng Lekinama Yayo]

How would you go about saying for in a phrase such as "the pa'li is too small for him"? I'm not sure fpi works in this case.

[wm.annis]

A good guess is the dative.

We have other phrases where the meaning of the adjective is limited to a particular individual using the dative, as in oeru prrte' lu (it) is pleasant to me.  I've seen oeru mowan lu as well, I'm quite sure, but can't find the source just now.

[Hawnuyu atxen]

The dative is a good choice... sometimes, but sometimes -and nearly everytime i try to come up with a sentence- it just can't be good...

For example how would you say "I thank you for paying attention to me"?
Ayngaru oe irayo seiyi FOR eltu si oeru.


For me this is a problem, what simply has to be solved...

Ma wm.annis!
Since -if i'm right- you were one of those, who made the Vocabulary Expansion work, could you add somewhere "for" too?
Irayo (and if there's a solution, i'd be most thankful if you told me )

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Ma hawnuyu, I'd probably say:

ayngaru oe irayo seiyi fì'ufpi a eltu si oeru

Although, you could follow Neytiri's example when she said "fìskxawngìri oe tsap'alute si" and use a dative of fì'u instead of fpi although that might be needless complicatingit.

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Oooookay, but here comes the problem (what showed up in another thread): since "eltu si" is "eltu si", how?
At the other thread i think something like "only the noun of it" was the solution, so should it be:
"Ayngeyä elturi irayo seiyi oe."?


And one more question: what exactly "fì'ufpi" means?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

it's fì-'u-fpi hence it provides a solution as the sentence I've given means "I thank you for this thing that pays attention to me", or with a slight leap of logic "I thank you for paying attention to me".

That said, I probably need to add a aynga and <er> into the second clause so:

ayngaru oe irayo seiyi fì'ufpi a aynga eltu seri oeru

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Ngaru oe irayo seiyi

I'll have to remember "fì'ufpi" than It seems to me that this solves the problem.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Better still, remember fì'u and fpi. Both very important words (and fpi is often overlooked).

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Yeah... only thing stands between me and fluency in na'vi is the lack of vocabulary knowledge (but i try to get rid of it, so...)
(and the other is creativity to come up with connected words like this )

[tsrräfkxätu]

A good guess is the dative.

We have other phrases where the meaning of the adjective is limited to a particular individual using the dative, as in oeru prrte' lu (it) is pleasant to me.  I've seen oeru mowan lu as well, I'm quite sure, but can't find the source just now.

Sorry to derail, but I've been under the impression that oeru prrte' lu was made obsolete when prrte' became an adjective, and you could no longer plug it into the dative-genitive. Do we have a recent attestation of this?

I see how you could get it to work with an (elided) tsa in the sentence (you would say the exact same thing in Hungarian, where the placeholder subject and the copula are always "elided": jó nekem, amit csinálsz), I'm just not sure that's what's happening here, and that this isn't a misinterpretation of some old data.

[wm.annis]

A good guess is the dative.

We have other phrases where the meaning of the adjective is limited to a particular individual using the dative, as in oeru prrte' lu (it) is pleasant to me.  I've seen oeru mowan lu as well, I'm quite sure, but can't find the source just now.

Sorry to derail, but I've been under the impression that oeru prrte' lu was made obsolete when prrte' became an adjective, and you could no longer plug it into the dative-genitive. Do we have a recent attestation of this?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, I'm afraid.  I'm not aware of this being "made obsolete."  I think we can assume prrte' has always been an adjective, but we misinterpreted its word class because of the translation.

[wm.annis]

For example how would you say "I thank you for paying attention to me"?
Ayngaru oe irayo seiyi FOR eltu si oeru.

Ok, this is different.  The problem is that English uses "for" to do lots of different jobs.  Frommer's habit with this particular idiom ("I thank you for...") is to turn the phrase into a topic with a fì'uri (or fì'uri a (furia) if the phrase follows):

  Ayngaru oe irayo seiyi furia aynga eltu si oeru.

I haven't seen any Frommerian examples with fpi attached to a nominalized phrase, so I'd be hesitant to use that one.  People might be the only proper argument for fpi.

[tsrräfkxätu]

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, I'm afraid.  I'm not aware of this being "made obsolete."  I think we can assume prrte' has always been an adjective, but we misinterpreted its word class because of the translation.

Nevermind. Apparently, the misinterpretation happened first – when prrte' was classified as a noun –, and the correct analysis would always have been what you put forward below. Glad I found out! Cheers!


@Hawnuyu: You have your answer now, ma tsmuktu.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

For example how would you say "I thank you for paying attention to me"?
Ayngaru oe irayo seiyi FOR eltu si oeru.

Ok, this is different.  The problem is that English uses "for" to do lots of different jobs.  Frommer's habit with this particular idiom ("I thank you for...") is to turn the phrase into a topic with a fì'uri (or fì'uri a (furia) if the phrase follows):

  Ayngaru oe irayo seiyi furia aynga eltu si oeru.

I haven't seen any Frommerian examples with fpi attached to a nominalized phrase, so I'd be hesitant to use that one.  People might be the only proper argument for fpi.

I spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not to use -ri.

In the end I decided against it as fpi seems appropriate to me (although might not be, as has been said, there are no Frommerian examples) and saves opening the can of worms that is the topical case.

[Nusekx]

Hi everyone,

thanks very much for this thread it almost clears something I was thinking about.

So if I understood it well, please, is this correct?:

Nga-ru irayo s<eiy>i oe fpi si 'efu oe-ru
You-DAT to thank I for make feel I-DAT
"Thank you for make me feel"

Thanks!

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Since 'efu is a verb, i'd rather say:


Ngaru seiyi irayo oe furia ngal oeti 'eykefu.
Nga-ru s<eiy>i irayo oe fì-'u-ri-a nga-l oe-ti '<eyk>efu.
you-DAT thank i that you-ERG i-ACC make-feel


I used furia instead of fpi, but it can be good... i don't really know.
(as i -and Taronyu's dictionary- know, it means "for the sake/benefit of", what doesn't seems to be right for me here)

[kewnya txamew'itan]

No.

Hawnuyu gives a correct sentence (ninja'd me).

Alternatively, you may be able to replace the -ri with a -fpi although this isn't testified in the corpus.

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Alternatively, you may be able to replace the -ri with a -fpi although this isn't testified in the corpus.

As eg.: fufpia (fì'u-fpi-a)? This would than mean something like "for the sake/benefit of this thing, what/which"
I'm really confused by fpi

[kewnya txamew'itan]

as "fì'ufpi a". That would mean "for the sake of this thing that".

[Nusekx]

Since 'efu is a verb, i'd rather say:


Ngaru seiyi irayo oe furia ngal oeti 'eykefu.
Nga-ru s<eiy>i irayo oe fì-'u-ri-a nga-l oe-ti '<eyk>efu.
you-DAT thank i that you-ERG i-ACC make-feel


I used furia instead of fpi, but it can be good... i don't really know.
(as i -and Taronyu's dictionary- know, it means "for the sake/benefit of", what doesn't seems to be right for me here)

No.

Hawnuyu gives a correct sentence (ninja'd me).

Alternatively, you may be able to replace the -ri with a -fpi although this isn't testified in the corpus.

Hi,

thanks very much for the correction. The transformation from fì-'u-ri-a to furia is because lenition?

Thanks again.