Have, Perfect Passive, Aspect

[Mirri]

Perhaps we could say: Fì'u-ri oe p<am><uy>ey nìyol.

Depending on whether you're using active or passive voice (which I still haven't quite figured out what is), this could be translated as:
(active voice) This-thing-TOP I have waited long.
It's still irritatingly ambiguous in English, but that's supposedly the perfect aspect.

That's the formal form. The pcpl is -us-. But that's the -ed/-en form that you can use as an adjective: 'a dead person, a written history, a loaded truck, a hunted animal, a mistaken idea,' etc.

Gah! Sorry -.-

Fì'u-ri oe p<am><us>ey nìyol. Obviously.

The wikipedia page I pointed to claims that the past participle is ALSO a noun modifier ("Let sleeping dogs lie."), but with active voice it forms the perfect.
I'm still not sure if I'm getting things mixed up here trying to use the English method of making a perfect by reconstructing it in Na'vi..?

Can the Na'vi participle only be used for noun modifying?



Edit: I also dug this up about English grammar: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/activepassive.html
From what I can tell from the table at the bottom, "I have been waiting for so long for this", is Past Perfect Continuous Present Perfect Continous in Active voice, srak?

[Lance R. Casey]

Fì'u-ri oe p<am><us>ey nìyol. Obviously.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol, actually. See the verb section in Frommer's Language Log post.

[Mirri]

Fì'u-ri oe p<am><us>ey nìyol. Obviously.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol, actually. See the verb section in Frommer's Language Log post.

Yep, you're right.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol


And there's a correction to the above I said. Turns out in English it's actually "Present Perfect Continuous" in active voice, if the charts are to be believed. If it were past perfect continuous it would have ended sometime before now.

[Lance R. Casey]

Fì'u-ri oe p<am><us>ey nìyol. Obviously.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol, actually. See the verb section in Frommer's Language Log post.

Yep, you're right.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol

Hm. Rereading the relevant paragraph, I've come to think we're both wrong.

"First-position infixes indicate tense, aspect, or mood; there are also participial and reflexive infixes in this position, the latter being in 'pre-first' position so it can co-occur with other first-position infixes."

For some reason I've managed to interpret the bolded word as "they" until now, taking this to mean that "the latter" refers to "participial and reflexive infixes", but now it does seem to imply that it is only the reflexive infix that can co-occur with tense, aspect or mood -- not the participial one.

[Mirri]

Fì'u-ri oe p<am><us>ey nìyol. Obviously.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol, actually. See the verb section in Frommer's Language Log post.

Yep, you're right.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol

Hm. Rereading the relevant paragraph, I've come to think we're both wrong.

"First-position infixes indicate tense, aspect, or mood; there are also participial and reflexive infixes in this position, the latter being in 'pre-first' position so it can co-occur with other first-position infixes."

For some reason I've managed to interpret the bolded word as "they" until now, taking this to mean that "the latter" refers to "participial and reflexive infixes", but now it does seem to imply that it is only the reflexive infix that can co-occur with tense, aspect or mood -- not the participial one.

Then the Na'vi Pocket Guide is also wrong, if you look at page 7 in the document:

The first infix position (after the consonant of the penultimate syllable) is taken by infixes for tense, aspect, or mood, as well as by participle and reflexive forms, which precede tense and aspect when they co-occur.

I'll add it to my list of corrections for it in the Beginner forum. Does anyone know what the reflexive infix is yet?

[Erimeyz]

Fì'u-ri oe p<am><us>ey nìyol. Obviously.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol, actually. See the verb section in Frommer's Language Log post.

Yep, you're right.

Fì'u-ri oe p<us><am>ey nìyol

Hm. Rereading the relevant paragraph, I've come to think we're both wrong.

"First-position infixes indicate tense, aspect, or mood; there are also participial and reflexive infixes in this position, the latter being in 'pre-first' position so it can co-occur with other first-position infixes."

For some reason I've managed to interpret the bolded word as "they" until now, taking this to mean that "the latter" refers to "participial and reflexive infixes", but now it does seem to imply that it is only the reflexive infix that can co-occur with tense, aspect or mood -- not the participial one.

Wow, good spot!  Wikipedia has the same interpretation: the "pre-first" position contains infixes for participial, reflexive, and causative (I'm not sure what the source for causative is).  But going by the Language Log post, I'd have to say you're right: Frommer appears to be referring just to the reflexive.  Of course, Frommer may have been thinking "they" while typing "it".  Maybe someone has an email from Karyu Pawl that makes it clear... or maybe someone could ask him.

  - Eri

[roger]

Hm. Rereading the relevant paragraph, I've come to think we're both wrong.

"First-position infixes indicate tense, aspect, or mood; there are also participial and reflexive infixes in this position, the latter being in 'pre-first' position so it can co-occur with other first-position infixes."

For some reason I've managed to interpret the bolded word as "they" until now, taking this to mean that "the latter" refers to "participial and reflexive infixes", but now it does seem to imply that it is only the reflexive infix that can co-occur with tense, aspect or mood -- not the participial one.

Wow, good spot!  Wikipedia has the same interpretation: the "pre-first" position contains infixes for participial, reflexive, and causative (I'm not sure what the source for causative is).  But going by the Language Log post, I'd have to say you're right: Frommer appears to be referring just to the reflexive.  Of course, Frommer may have been thinking "they" while typing "it".  Maybe someone has an email from Karyu Pawl that makes it clear... or maybe someone could ask him.

Hm, I merely read that to mean that the participial or reflexive infix, whichever it is, occurs before the TAM infix when they co-occur. I think if he only meant one of them, he would have said that specifically.

[roger]

The wikipedia page I pointed to claims that the past participle is ALSO a noun modifier ("Let sleeping dogs lie."), but with active voice it forms the perfect.
I'm still not sure if I'm getting things mixed up here trying to use the English method of making a perfect by reconstructing it in Na'vi..?

Can the Na'vi participle only be used for noun modifying?

Edit: I also dug this up about English grammar: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/activepassive.html
From what I can tell from the table at the bottom, "I have been waiting for so long for this", is Past Perfect Continuous Present Perfect Continous in Active voice, srak?

I think you're reading too much into the English. We don't know how Na'vi participles are used, but since we already have aspect markers, I wouldn't expect them to be past or present, perfective or imperfective, only active and passive. Or maybe not even that: perhaps there's just one, and we need a passive infix for a passive participle. We can't assume anything more than we have examples for, which are ke-rusey for 'alive', tslusam for 'knowing', and zusawkrr for 'future' ('coming time'?).

[Mirri]

The wikipedia page I pointed to claims that the past participle is ALSO a noun modifier ("Let sleeping dogs lie."), but with active voice it forms the perfect.
I'm still not sure if I'm getting things mixed up here trying to use the English method of making a perfect by reconstructing it in Na'vi..?

Can the Na'vi participle only be used for noun modifying?

Edit: I also dug this up about English grammar: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/activepassive.html
From what I can tell from the table at the bottom, "I have been waiting for so long for this", is Past Perfect Continuous Present Perfect Continous in Active voice, srak?

I think you're reading too much into the English. We don't know how Na'vi participles are used, but since we already have aspect markers, I wouldn't expect them to be past or present, perfective or imperfective, only active and passive. Or maybe not even that: perhaps there's just one, and we need a passive infix for a passive participle. We can't assume anything more than we have examples for, which are ke-rusey for 'alive', tslusam for 'knowing', and zusawkrr for 'future' ('coming time'?).

Yeah, I think you're right


Did you see the link I gave to the http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html place?

I liked those graphics they had, a lot. I still use the Na'vi Pocket Guide a lot because it has that nice timeline for the tenses and then the aspects after.
Since you seem well-versed in this, I was wondering if you'd help me make a series of graphics like that, one for each category we know in Na'vi and including the new stuff we've just learned about the fused tense/aspect infixes?

The graphics I'm talking about is for instance the ones on this page: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/pastperfectcontinuous.html
I'd like all the possible Na'vi combinations mapped out like that so it's easy to see what to use when

I can try to make a graphic like that for each and maybe you could proof them?