Comparison Help

Started by Stranger Come Knocking, March 13, 2015, 09:03:05 AM

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Stranger Come Knocking

So I was working on a thing last night and came across an interesting comparison that I didn't know what to do with.

Original: "Not fair!  You know more languages than I do!"
My Na'vi: Kea miuä!  Aylì'fyari nga to oe omum!
Line of Thought: No fair!  As for (the number of) languages, you know more.

Other thoughts: Aylì'fyari, lu nì'ul tìomummì ngeyä.
Lu nì'ul aylì'fya tìomummì ngeyä.
Holpxayri, nì'ul aylì'fya ngaru lu.

What do you guys think?
I will not die for less
I dug my grave in this
Will I go before I fall
Or live to slight the odds?

These are my books.  You should check it out.  Speculative sci-fi murder mystery historical fiction.

Tìtstewan

#1
Ke l(äng)u muiä! Aylì'fyari ngal to oel omum nì'ul!
(It) is not fair! Regaring languages, you know more than me.

http://forum.learnnavi.org/language-updates/prefer-x-to-y-24474/

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Stranger Come Knocking

I will not die for less
I dug my grave in this
Will I go before I fall
Or live to slight the odds?

These are my books.  You should check it out.  Speculative sci-fi murder mystery historical fiction.

Plumps

I also think the nì'ul has to be there (it refers to "know" here) otherwise you wouldn't have a gradeable thing that you can compare.

With the thing in question named, though, I don't think that we can leave out the cases.

Aylì'fyati ngal to oel omum nì'ul
or
Aylì'fyari ngal to oel omum nì'ul

As always, there is more than one way to translate stuff ;)

Tìtstewan

O! Fixed.

Edit: Or this
Aylì'fyateri nga to oe omum nì'ul (kefyak?)
:)

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Kemaweyan

Hmm.. I'm not sure that nì'ul would work here :-\ In that example

  Oel payti nulnew to swoat.

nì'ul shows a «power» of nulnew, not count of things that one prefers. So in the sentence

  Aylì'fyati ngal to oel omum nì'ul

it would mean «power» of omum, i.e. probably «better than me» :-\ So I think it would be better to use nìpxay:

  Aylì'fyati ngal to oel omum nìpxay
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

Plumps

:D Oh, that's a good one! :D

That could work as well.
I thought of the example that Pawl gave me ("you eat more than me") but it's true, in here, languages are countable.

Tìtstewan

What about this:

Aylì'fyari lu ngar to oer tìomum nì'ul!

???

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Kemaweyan

Quote from: Tìtstewan on March 13, 2015, 12:08:27 PM
What about this:

Aylì'fyari lu ngar to oer tìomum nì'ul!

???

IMO, it would mean «You have more knowledge about languages than me» :-\
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

Blue Elf

Quote from: Kemaweyan on March 13, 2015, 11:46:35 AM
Hmm.. I'm not sure that nì'ul would work here :-\ In that example

  Oel payti nulnew to swoat.

nì'ul shows a «power» of nulnew, not count of things that one prefers. So in the sentence

  Aylì'fyati ngal to oel omum nì'ul

it would mean «power» of omum, i.e. probably «better than me» :-\ So I think it would be better to use nìpxay:

  Aylì'fyati ngal to oel omum nìpxay
I still think nì'ul is prohibited with to (don't see nì'ul in nulnew). However I'm not sure about nìpxay. I'd try:

Ngal to oel omum lì'fyati apxay.
You compared to me know many languages.
You know more languages than me.
Oe lu skxawng skxakep. Slä oe nerume mi.
"Oe tasyätxaw ulte koren za'u oehu" (Limonádový Joe)


Tìtstewan

Quote from: Blue Elf on March 13, 2015, 03:30:54 PM
I still think nì'ul is prohibited with to (don't see nì'ul in nulnew).
I think you refer to this:
Quote from: http://naviteri.org/2014/03/value-and-worth/Note that in the following example, the comparison does not require nì'ul,
just as we say Po oeto lu tsawl 'He's taller than I am' rather than *Po oeto lu tsawl nì'ul.
right?
Hmm, not require =/= prohibited, but I'm not sure what Pawl mean exactly with "not require"... :(

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Plumps

Quote from: Blue Elf on March 13, 2015, 03:30:54 PM
I still think nì'ul is prohibited with to (don't see nì'ul in nulnew).
Have a look again at the "prefer X to Y" thread. There, Pawl gave the example

Oe ngato yom nì'ul.
"I eat more than you (do)."

So, it's not prohibited but depends on the construct. With comparisons of adjective and lu it's not required. With other verbs it's again a case of gradebility. ley has a scale (it's either worth something or not), tsranten as well; yom has no scale, as has omum, so with those you can use nì'ul IMO.


Quote from: Blue Elf on March 13, 2015, 03:30:54 PMHowever I'm not sure about nìpxay. I'd try:

Ngal to oel omum lì'fyati apxay.
You compared to me know many languages.
You know more languages than me.
That's also very good. :)

Blue Elf

Quote from: Tìtstewan on March 13, 2015, 03:42:50 PM
Quote from: Blue Elf on March 13, 2015, 03:30:54 PM
I still think nì'ul is prohibited with to (don't see nì'ul in nulnew).
I think you refer to this:
Quote from: http://naviteri.org/2014/03/value-and-worth/Note that in the following example, the comparison does not require nì'ul,
just as we say Po oeto lu tsawl 'He's taller than I am' rather than *Po oeto lu tsawl nì'ul.
right?
Hmm, not require =/= prohibited, but I'm not sure what Pawl mean exactly with "not require"... :(
No, my understanding is different:
to by definition is "than". But then: Oe to nga lu tsawl -> I'm tall than you. Something is missing, isn't it?
So I understand to as more than, so why to add nì'ul?
Oe lu skxawng skxakep. Slä oe nerume mi.
"Oe tasyätxaw ulte koren za'u oehu" (Limonádový Joe)


Tìtstewan


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Blue Elf

Quote from: Plumps on March 13, 2015, 03:50:00 PM
Quote from: Blue Elf on March 13, 2015, 03:30:54 PM
I still think nì'ul is prohibited with to (don't see nì'ul in nulnew).
Have a look again at the "prefer X to Y" thread. There, Pawl gave the example

Oe ngato yom nì'ul.
"I eat more than you (do)."

So, it's not prohibited but depends on the construct. With comparisons of adjective and lu it's not required. With other verbs it's again a case of gradebility. ley has a scale (it's either worth something or not), tsranten as well; yom has no scale, as has omum, so with those you can use nì'ul IMO.

I tend to agree. With yom alone, adjective does not help, it would be rewritten as Oel to ngal yom wutsot apxay.
Really it seems that verb has to have some "quantification power" to not require nì'ul. Better said, it must be stative verb or must contain "hidden" to be.
tsranten - be of importance
ley - be of value
lìm - be at a distance, etc.
Oe lu skxawng skxakep. Slä oe nerume mi.
"Oe tasyätxaw ulte koren za'u oehu" (Limonádový Joe)


Plumps

Exactly.
I also remember a similar discussion concerning the regular comparisons. See this language update where he pondered this question with tsranten frato.

Tanri

I like your "scalability" idea, ma Plumps.

However, I'd like to notice that we are comparing nouns, nothing else. We compare them using some property/feature as an quantifier.
The key lies in the fact that some verbs already have such quantifier included - those verbs whose effect is scalable. I don't know if all of the stative or "to be..." verbs fall in this category, but some of them yes, for sure.
Non-scalable verbs cannot be used for comparison, unless we add some quantifier to them. In that case, we do not compare using the verb itself, but only by the external quantifier. We can use the same verb with different quantifiers for comparison of different properties. For example:

Oeyä ikran tswayon nìwin to pum ngeyä. - "My ikran flies faster than yours."
In this case, the quantifier is the adverb nìwin, we compare the speed.

Oeyä ikran tswayon nìkxayl to pum ngeyä. - "My ikran flies higher than yours."
In this case, the quantifier is the adverb nìkxayl, we compare the altitude.


So, I think that discussion about usability of the verbs for comparison is not the right one, because we don't compare by the verbs alone.
We use some attributes/properties/characteristics for comparison, and those quantifiers are usually adverbs or adjectives.
Only few verbs contain enough "scalability" within itself, that we can compare using them alone, without adverbs or adjectives.


Back to the original topic:
Quote from: Stranger Come Knocking
Original: "Not fair!  You know more languages than I do!"
My Na'vi: Kea miuä!  Aylì'fyari nga to oe omum!
Line of Thought: No fair!  As for (the number of) languages, you know more.
The original and the third line seems to me completely different:

Ngal to oel omum pxaya lì'fyati - You know more languages than I do!
We are comparing the amount/number of the languages, using the adjective pxay.

Aylì'fyari, nga oeta omum nì'ul - As for the languages, you know more than me.
Here we do not compare the number of languages, but the fact how we know, specified by the adverb nì'ul.
Tätxawyu akì'ong.

Tirea Aean

Quote from: Just now, on TeamSpeak

<20:40:50> "Neytiri": Ngaru smon pxaya lì'fya to oer.


Tìtstewan

That example would have a different meaning. It would implies that I 'know' X languages, but not that I have also the knowledge about the languages. Hmmm.... :-\

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Kame Ayyo’koti

For knowing (that is: speaking/understanding) languages omum seems ambiguous to me, although that's how we say it in English. Since the Na'vi don't write they would only speak or understand a language (if there were other languages on Pandora), so perhaps it would be better to say:
Ngal to oel aylì'fyati plltxe nì'ul.
Or:
Ngal to oel aylì'fyati tslam nì'ul.

As Kema pointed out, nì'ul seems ambiguous as to whether the "moreness" applies to the number of languages or the amount of speaking/understanding. This is an issue I've had with adverbs before, but that's a discussion for another thread.
"Your work is to discover your world, and then with all your heart give yourself to it."