Dense Na'vi Grammar Summary (PDF)

wm.annis · March 24, 2010, 04:25:14 PM

I have produced a very dense document summarizing Na'vi morphology and some syntax. If you have access to a duplex printer, it will all fit on a single sheet of paper.

Na'vi Cheat Sheet (or in A4 for our Euro-smuktu).
Translations:

Deutsch (thanks to Plumps83)

Frommer was kind enough to look at a draft of this, as well as answer a few followup questions ([1], [2]), so I'm pretty confident about everything on that sheet.

Carborundum · March 24, 2010, 05:13:50 PM

Very, very nice! A quick reference for grammar will be very useful.
Seiyi Irayo!

Yeya Swizaw · March 24, 2010, 05:18:59 PM

Nice. Maybe a bit advanced for me, but if it's all good then it will definitely help

'eylan na'viyä · March 24, 2010, 05:41:25 PM

Irayo ma wm.annis

namume oe a tsengemì a krr frakrr sìlparmey oe tsnì fì'u pxel tsaw oeru livu lahea lì'fyateri
while i was in school, I always hoped to have something like this for other languages

Taronyu · March 24, 2010, 06:49:28 PM

I like it.

Thank you.

Plltxeyu · March 24, 2010, 07:12:37 PM

This is awesome. If you know at least a little about Na'vi but don't know it by heart, this is an excellant study tool. I kind of like it in this compact format that is simple and to the point.
Irayo

Plumps · March 24, 2010, 07:30:19 PM

I like it - thanks for the effort!

Any plans to put that on the main page ... as an up-dated version of the Compendium, maybe?
Any requests for translating it into the other forum languages yet?

wm.annis · March 24, 2010, 07:42:01 PM

Quote from: Plumps83 on March 24, 2010, 07:30:19 PMAny plans to put that on the main page ... as an up-dated version of the Compendium, maybe?

I had no such plans, but it might be a good — if less colorful — replacement for that.

QuoteAny requests for translating it into the other forum languages yet?

Not yet. Anyone doing so would have to cope with my funky LaTeX style (it probably requires XeTeX), but I'd be happy to send the source to anyone who wants to translate it.

Kì'eyawn · March 24, 2010, 07:51:44 PM

Tewti, ngeyä tìkangkemìri ngaru irayo seiyi oe, ma William! Lìyevu ngaru karma+ =)

wm.annis · March 28, 2010, 07:37:51 AM

Thanks to Plumps83, there is now a version auf Deutsch.

Mirri · April 04, 2010, 08:39:44 AM

This is fantastic! Very well done

I assume you'd like comments and corrections, so here goes:
*Some lines in the tables might be nice. The vowel table seems to be floating in the middle of nothing?
*Cases section seems to be missing a description of the Topical
*The superlative marker frato should be "than all" not "than everything"
*Would love to have a description of futa, fwa, a, tsnì, etc. Those are hard to understand/remember.

wm.annis · April 04, 2010, 09:56:48 AM

Quote from: Mirri on April 04, 2010, 08:39:44 AM
*Some lines in the tables might be nice. The vowel table seems to be floating in the middle of nothing?

I'm not sure giving the articulatory phonetic terms would be helpful to most people for the vowels. Also, I gave myself a very firm limit — no more than two pages for this document. I wanted for people to be able to print it on a duplex printer on a single sheet. So, there was lots of scrimping and scraping in odd places to make things fit.

Quote*Cases section seems to be missing a description of the Topical

Too complex — it would blow my page limit.

Quote*The superlative marker frato should be "than all" not "than everything"

Ah... yes. Fixed. I'll upload a new version in the next day or so.

Quote*Would love to have a description of futa, fwa, a, tsnì, etc. Those are hard to understand/remember.

Again, much too complex to fit onto such a short summary.

I'm currently working on a reference grammar of Na'vi, which will cover these syntactic matters in more detail (but still, I hope, succinctly). A separate syntax summary might make sense, but if I do it, it'll have to wait for the completion of other projects.

Mirri · April 04, 2010, 04:41:52 PM

I think there's some space to salvage in the "verbs" section, it's a bit wordy. Could be done simpler with one example of the infix positions rather than three descriptions in each section. Like: h<pre-first><first>awn<second>u

Maybe you could include the two most basic (and, I think, necessary to know) idiomatic ways of greeting?
Oel kameie ngati

and

Fyape fko syaw ngar?
Oeru syaw fko <name>.

This seems like cheat sheety stuff

wm.annis · April 04, 2010, 06:34:56 PM

Quote from: Mirri on April 04, 2010, 04:41:52 PMMaybe you could include the two most basic (and, I think, necessary to know) idiomatic ways of greeting?
Oel kameie ngati

and

Fyape fko syaw ngar?
Oeru syaw fko <name>.

This seems like cheat sheety stuff

But not really in a grammar summary.

I assume anyone using the sheet already has oel ngati kameie down. I didn't link this in the beginner's section, after all.

Tsamsiyu92 · April 09, 2010, 01:00:59 PM

Really much better than the longer beginner's guides when you quickly want to find those damned forgettable infixes

Taronyu · April 09, 2010, 03:31:11 PM

Quote from: Tsamsiyu92 on April 09, 2010, 01:00:59 PM
Really much better than the longer beginner's guides when you quickly want to find those damned forgettable infixes

Those are also in the back of my dictionary.

But annis's sheet is more awesome.

Toruk Makto · April 11, 2010, 11:56:45 PM

Wm, do you want the current version of this on the downloads of the main site? I think it should be there.

Or perhaps as an appendix in the dictionary?

wm.annis · April 12, 2010, 07:52:08 AM

Quote from: Txepsiyu on April 11, 2010, 11:56:45 PM
Wm, do you want the current version of this on the downloads of the main site? I think it should be there.

No objection from me!