Just wanted to check myself here on this sentence.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Then, how does one decide if such a verb can be transitive or intransitive?

One doesn't. Frommer does.

Understood. But until such a time as K. Pawl declares a verb to be transitive or intransitive, how does one decide whether it can be used transitively or intransitively (or either)?

One takes a semantic stab in the dark or assumes that it's intransitive (as antipassive constructions in transitive verbs look like intransitives).

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Understood. But until such a time as K. Pawl declares a verb to be transitive or intransitive, how does one decide whether it can be used transitively or intransitively (or either)?

One takes a semantic stab in the dark or assumes that it's intransitive (as antipassive constructions in transitive verbs look like intransitives).

Good, I am not far off, then (as he stabs in the dark) 

What do you mean by an 'antipassive construction'? Is there an opposite ('passive construction', perhaps?) to this construction?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Na'vi does not have passive constructions, it does however have antipassive constructions which are where the patient of a transitive verb is omitted. In this case what was the agent of the verb instead becomes the subject and takes the intransitive case:

e.g.

oel      yerikit      taron
1-AGN yerik-PAT hunt
I         yerik        hunt
I hunt yerik

->

oe      taron
1-INT hunt
I        hunt
I hunt

(I'm using AGN for the agentive case, PAT for the patientive and INT for the intransitive case).

[Tirea Aean]

[snip]
(I'm using AGN for the agentive case, PAT for the patientive and INT for the intransitive case).

isnt the intrans case called the objective? srry i just wanted to make sure what i know(have heard) is still consistent/correct.

[Carborundum]

[snip]
(I'm using AGN for the agentive case, PAT for the patientive and INT for the intransitive case).

isnt the intrans case called the objective? srry i just wanted to make sure what i know(have heard) is still consistent/correct.

And here I thought it was called the subjective!

[Muzer]

Frommer's terms are agentive, patientive and subjective, but other people (me included) use ergative, accusative and nominative (respectively) - these correspond to the subject in a sentence with a subject and an object, the object in a sentence with an object, and the subject in a sentence with only a subject (respectively).

I don't think there was a consensus, but I am used to using the second terms I listed there, and someone who seemed to know their stuff about linguistics said they are more linguistically appropriate for Na'vi (though none of them fit 100%).

[Tirea Aean]

[snip]
(I'm using AGN for the agentive case, PAT for the patientive and INT for the intransitive case).

isnt the intrans case called the objective? srry i just wanted to make sure what i know(have heard) is still consistent/correct.

And here I thought it was called the subjective!

Come to think of it, it may have been the subjective...sorry, thank you. so i take it that subjective is still the name of the case that has no markings because of intransitivity? i just wanna get this straight for the sake of teaching consistent terminology should the need to use the correct term arise.

[Eyamsiyu]

Ok, so as an update, I have now added this (hopefully) corrected sentence into my now-1000 word essay.  I also managed to add in a small little bit of Na'vi language explanation too, as a provided example of what a language consists of.

[wm.annis]

I don't think there was a consensus, but I am used to using the second terms I listed there, and someone who seemed to know their stuff about linguistics said they are more linguistically appropriate for Na'vi (though none of them fit 100%).

Well, the problem with this is that there is a question about whether it is actually appropriate to use ergative terminology with these tripartite languages.  A truly ergative language works on quite different principles.

[NaviFreedomFighter]

wow thats a lot better then what i can do

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

This seems to be a very complex way of saying, 'If you use a transitive verb without an object, the subject does not get a case marker'.

Can anyone give a good explanation of the difference between Agentive/patientive/subjective and Ergative/accusative/nominative? (Sorry if I have stolen this thread.)

[Muzer]

Nominative (subjective) is when you are using an intransitive verb, or a transitive verb intransitively (which I still don't think is quite fully understood, though there have been some very convincing theories):

Oe hahaw

Oe is in the nominative here.

Ergative (agentive) is the subject of a sentence with a transitive verb;
Accusative (patientive) is the object of a sentence with a transitive verb:

Oel ngati kameie

Oel is in the ergative here, and ngati in the accusative.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

This seems to be a very complex way of saying, 'If you use a transitive verb without an object, the subject does not get a case marker'.

Can anyone give a good explanation of the difference between Agentive/patientive/subjective and Ergative/accusative/nominative? (Sorry if I have stolen this thread.)

Sorry, I forgot the name of the subjective and called it intransitive which was one of the names being bandied about when we still used ergative/accusative terminology.

Anyway, if you use a transitive verb without a patient (it can still have a dative object) then there is no agent, instead there is a subject so the noun doing the verb takes the subjective case (with no ending) not the agentive case (with -l or -ìl).

Nominative (subjective) is when you are using an intransitive verb, or a transitive verb intransitively (which I still don't think is quite fully understood, though there have been some very convincing theories):

Oe hahaw

Oe is in the nominative here.

Ergative (agentive) is the subject of a sentence with a transitive verb;
Accusative (patientive) is the object of a sentence with a transitive verb:

Oel ngati kameie

Oel is in the ergative here, and ngati in the accusative.

I'm only aware of one theory of antipassives at the moment, I think that news from the conference aykaryuä about reflexives and causatives destroyed most of the others.

The main reason that we no longer use the term "ergative" is that the term "ergative" usually implies the existence of an absolutive case which would combine the subjective and accusative cases. That said, it is sometimes used for tripartite languages like na'vi because the term accusative would then imply splitting the absolutive into accusative/patientive and subjective cases.

[Muzer]

Yes, but subjective/patientive/agentive is usually used for this sort of language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active–stative_language (which from what I gather, Na'vi isn't) - so neither really fit. But because nominative/accusative/ergative is what we've always used, I'd prefer to stick with that.

[Tirea Aean]

wow thats a lot better then what i can do

Stick with it. You WILL get there.

[omängum fra'uti]

Yes, but subjective/patientive/agentive is usually used for this sort of language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active–stative_language (which from what I gather, Na'vi isn't) - so neither really fit. But because nominative/accusative/ergative is what we've always used, I'd prefer to stick with that.

But Paul has never, and shows no inclination of ever using it, and since it's his language, it makes more sense to do it his way.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Yes, but subjective/patientive/agentive is usually used for this sort of language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active–stative_language (which from what I gather, Na'vi isn't) - so neither really fit. But because nominative/accusative/ergative is what we've always used, I'd prefer to stick with that.

But Paul has never, and shows no inclination of ever using it, and since it's his language, it makes more sense to do it his way.

I thought Pawl had changed his mind about it at some point.

[omängum fra'uti]

No, he has always used agentive and patientive, from the first language log posts to today.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Yes, but subjective/patientive/agentive is usually used for this sort of language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active–stative_language (which from what I gather, Na'vi isn't) - so neither really fit. But because nominative/accusative/ergative is what we've always used, I'd prefer to stick with that.

But Paul has never, and shows no inclination of ever using it, and since it's his language, it makes more sense to do it his way.

Also, as this has now been adopted as the convention on these boards, using other terms is counter-productive and is likely to lead to confusion (like the use of the scientific notation for na'vi).

[Muzer]

Not everyone agreed to that. Just because someone posts a thread about something doesn't make it true.