Not sure about correct adjective usage...

[Angtsìk Makto]

I have a quick question...

I want to say:

"I agree with my truly clever son"

So i came up with:

Oel mllte hu oeyä nìngay sìlronsema 'itanit
Oe-l mllte hu oe-yä nìngay sìlronsem-a 'itan-it
I-ERG agree with I-GEN truly clever-ATTR son-ACC
I agree with my truly clever son

First, I wasn't sure about the transitivity of 'agree', but as there's a clear subject (I) and object (my son), I went with transitive and added the -l and -it. On the other hand, 'I agree' makes sense with just a subject, so in some cases it could be intransitive also, correct?

Second, I wasn't sure how to handle nìngay (truly). I'm trying to say "I agree with my truly clever son", but as there's free word order, could this also be read "I truly agree with my clever son"? Does 'with' separate the sentences into two clauses and keep nìngay associated with sìlronsem? I wasn't sure if "my truly clever son" counts as a clause as there's not really a predicate (only a subject).

The last grammer schooling of any kind whatsoever that I've had was in high school (I was a science major in college)... so I'm sorry if the above about clauses and predicates and whatnot is a tad off...

Irayo.

[NeotrekkerZ]

Truly seems to be functioning as the word very in this case which modifies clever as an adjective, so why not replace "truly" with txan?  That way there would be no confusion with txan being associated with mllte.

I tend to think that agree is intransitive, since you can't say "I agree it."  But we really don't know how to deal with a prepositional phrase the way it is being used in your sentence.

[omängum fra'uti]

We had a discussion on mllte a fre days ago, and the consensus was that we didn't know how to properly express who you are agreeing with.

It might very well be hu...  That's used when you are with someone.  In most uses that means physically with, and that may be an important distinction that rules it out.

The cop out might be to throw who you are agreeing with in the topic, BUT that's a bit dodgy because the topic should never be required to express something grammatically.  Anything you can say in Na'vi you can say without ever using the topic case.

That said, I'm not sure about nìtxan either to be honest.  I'm pretty sure txan wouldn't be it, because that would be modifying the noun still, and while you're son might be great, that's not what you're trying to say there.  I know Frommer uses aynga nìwotx to mean "You all" so you might be able to use nìtxan like you are trying there for a similar reason.  However, right now we don't even know why Frommer's "You all" works, so it's a bit hard to apply it to anything other than saying "You all".

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Agree shouldn't take hu as, as far as we know, hu only applies to physical acompaniment.

What I would stay instead would be:

oe sì oeyä txan sìlronsem-a 'itan mlltxe

I don't think nìtxan would work as we don't know the rules for why Frommer used nìwotx, to be honest, I'm not too sure about using txan like this, I think there may be a word for very yet that we don't know.

[Angtsìk Makto]

oe sì oeyä txan sìlronsem-a 'itan mlltxe

But wouldn't this actually say: I and my great, clever son agree? As omängum fra'uti said, I'm not trying to say that my son is great (although he is...), I'm trying to modify clever. Nìtxan would be 'greatly', correct? So replacing txan with nìtxan would make that say: I and my greatly clever son agree, wouldn't it? Is it proper English grammer to modify an andjective with 'greatly' though? It almost sounds as if it makes sense, but I'm not sure.

And thanks for everyones help!

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I think txan is probably better but I don't really have any evidence for that.

It wouldn't mean great and clever son though because txan doesn't have an attributive -a on it.

I'm not sure. If you made it nìtxan then that could mean me and my clever son agree strongly which makes sense, just not what you intended.

[Angtsìk Makto]

It wouldn't mean great and clever son though because txan doesn't have an attributive -a on it.

I'm not sure. If you made it nìtxan then that could mean me and my clever son agree strongly which makes sense, just not what you intended.

Good point... so essentially, I'm back to square 'aw...