'going' to sleep - too idomatic?

[Prrton]

It still feels wrong to me to include kä in there.  It feels very strongly like an idiomatic expression born out of the English future tense form of "going to".  While I don't speak any other languages, in my little bit of research just now, I found no other language which included the verb "go" in the expression for "I'm going to sleep".  In Japanese, for example, I cam across "私が寝る午前" (watashi wa neru desu - I-TOP sleep is).

Based on what I've found, I feel pretty strongly that "going to ___verb___" should not be translated with kä in most cases.  Consider another use, "I'm going to leave"...  You wouldn't say "Oe kä hum", or even "Oe kä fte hivum".  You would probably say "Oe hum" or "Oe hìyum".

Japanese has a dedicated verb for "go to sleep"/"fall asleep" (寝る (neru)) which appears in what you have here (although the actual phrase you pasted in says "the morning(s) (AM period(s)) I fall asleep" (watashi ga neru gozen) and "watashi wa neru desu" is utterly ungrammatical). In everyday conversation "neru" implies the preparations for sleep (brushing one's teeth; putting on pajamas; going to place where one sleeps; setting one's mobile phone as alarm; etc.) as a practicality. The "process of sleeping" is 眠る (nemuru). In the morning one asks another よく眠れましたか？ "Yoku nemuremashitaka" (well were-able-to-sleep?). This is from "nemuru" and not "neru". Japanese also has 寝てきます (nete-kimasu) where the "nete" part is about falling asleep (a form of neru (similar to the gerund)) and the "-kimasu" is literally "come" but means "go" (or 'leave') in this context. Pragmatically "I'm off to bed" or "I'm retiring for the evening." This is said only when one is leaving another or a group (who/that is NOT yet 'heading off to bed'). If one were already in the bed with one's partner and and he/she won't shut up one might say, "もう寝る" (mō neru) = hìsyahaw.

So, this is the Japanese 'shut down' process for families in the evening with my best Na'vi translations.

  Mother to child in living room:
  Nete-kina; Kivä nga hahaw.
  Child is expected to leave room; go brush teeth; turn off light; fall asleep

  Father to Mother while standing, yawning and stretching in living room:
   ¦-o Nete-kuru.; Kìsyä hahaw.
  He leaves to go brush teeth; (maybe then read briefly) turn off light; fall asleep

  Mother in response as father leaves room:
  Oyasumi nasai; (lit: tsivuruyokx) = Hivahaw nìmwey.

I feel that the kä element is only relevant when someone is "off to bed" and one or more others are remaining awake for a while and 'staying behind'. Granted, it seems unlikely—based on what we know—that the Na'vi are ever reading in their hammocks or stopping off to brush their teeth on the way. So, "going to bed" might be somewhat irrelevant as a process for them. BUT, if a change of location TO a place dedicated to sleep is involved, I don't think it very unlikely that kä would come into play.

A bunch of folks around a campfire and they're sleeping right there. No kä.

Leave level 3 of Hometree to climb up high(er) into the branches to sleep? Kä seems completely plausible.