More clarification on double/triple negatives?

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

My question was, should "apxa", "nawm", or "tsawl" be used with "skxawng" to refer to a "super idiot"?

[Blue Elf]

I wote for apxa. Nawm is great in sense of "nobble", tsawl is for living things, so apxa seems to be best choice, although it means "large".

[wm.annis]

My question was, should "apxa", "nawm", or "tsawl" be used with "skxawng" to refer to a "super idiot"?

Frommer once used apxa skxawng as an example of a grammatical principal (part of the Good Morning America work, as I recall), so I'd be inclined to go with that.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

But wouldn't Nawma Skxawng mean Great Moron?

[Tirea Aean]

But wouldn't Nawma Skxawng mean Great Moron?

O great noble skxawng of the high council of ayskxawng.

is what I would get from that... or something.


ANYWAY, late to say what has been said:

Na'vi negation typically comes in pairs and shouldn't be more complicated than pairs or maybe 3 negatives in a sentence:

Kawkrr ke tsole'a oel kea tute a solalew zazama zìsìt
I've never seen a 4096 year old person.

if it's more complicated than that, it should be simplified. and when it is this complicated, think of the negation as ADDITION of negatives ( -1 + -1 = -2), NOT like MULTIPLICATION of negatives ( -1 * -1 = +1).

[Blue Elf]

if it's more complicated than that, it should be simplified. and when it is this complicated, think of the negation as ADDITION of negatives ( -1 + -1 = -2), NOT like MULTIPLICATION of negatives ( -1 * -1 = +1).

That's really good explanation

[Seze Mune]

if it's more complicated than that, it should be simplified. and when it is this complicated, think of the negation as ADDITION of negatives ( -1 + -1 = -2), NOT like MULTIPLICATION of negatives ( -1 * -1 = +1).

That's really good explanation

Sorta like if you see one negative, it's always negative.  Regardless (  )

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

But wouldn't Nawma Skxawng mean Great Moron?

O great noble skxawng of the high council of ayskxawng.

is what I would get from that... or something.


ANYWAY, late to say what has been said:

Na'vi negation typically comes in pairs and shouldn't be more complicated than pairs or maybe 3 negatives in a sentence:

Kawkrr ke tsole'a oel kea tute a solalew zazama zìsìt
I've never seen a 4096 year old person.

if it's more complicated than that, it should be simplified. and when it is this complicated, think of the negation as ADDITION of negatives ( -1 + -1 = -2), NOT like MULTIPLICATION of negatives ( -1 * -1 = +1).

Irayo then. I thought Na'vi negation was multiplication and then multiply by -1, so kawkrr...ke would be -(-1*-1) and kawkrr...ke...kea would be -(-1*-1*-1).

Anyway, big irayo!

BTW that Nawma skxawng thing was funny too. I once actually joked about a "skxawng" clan where society is basically the inverse of meritocracy - the dumber and more inept you are, the higher position in government you get. In the Skxawng Clan, atheletes compete for slowness, and all grades are 100 DIVIDED by the percentage. Additionally, people with low IQs get tax cuts and have more weight in elections. Oh well...and the President is called Nawma Skxawng!

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

However though, I think that this would mean "I am a moron":

Oe ke lu tute a ke lu skxawng.
I am not a person who is not a moron.

[Seze Mune]

However though, I think that this would mean "I am a moron":

Oe ke lu tute a ke lu skxawng.
I am not a person who is not a moron.

Perhaps the difference being that here we have two clauses to separate the negatives?

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Kawkrr kepo ke lu kea tute akanu a ke pivlltxe nìNa'vi ke luke pxaya keyey lehoren lìfyayä. - Karyu Pxatxakxa
Never is nobody not no smart person who doesn't speak in Na'vi not without many grammar errors. - Professor Pataka

Q: Which of the following would probably most closely match the professor's view on grammar errors?

(A) Smart people don't make Na'vi grammar errors.
(B) Every smart person makes grammar errors when speaking in Na'vi.
(C) Nobody makes Na'vi grammar errors
(D) Proper speaker of Na'vi all make grammar errors.
(E) Other

Frankly speaking, I don't know the answer either, though I made up the sentence 

[Seze Mune]

"Awww....you ain't got no skills!" ~ quote from Avatar.

[Tirea Aean]

However though, I think that this would mean "I am a moron":

Oe ke lu tute a ke lu skxawng.
I am not a person who is not a moron.

Perhaps the difference being that here we have two clauses to separate the negatives?

Exactly. [as far as I know]

Kawkrr kepo kawtu ke lu kea tute akanu a ke pivlltxe nìNa'vi ke luke pxaya keyey lehoren lìfyayä. - Karyu Pxatxakxa
Never is nobody not no smart person who doesn't speak in Na'vi not without many grammar errors. - Professor Pataka

Q: Which of the following would probably most closely match the professor's view on grammar errors?

(A) Smart people don't make Na'vi grammar errors.
(B) Every smart person makes grammar errors when speaking in Na'vi.
(C) Nobody makes Na'vi grammar errors
(D) Proper speaker of Na'vi all make grammar errors.
(E) Other

Frankly speaking, I don't know the answer either, though I made up the sentence 

This is what I was talking about. This can be greatly simplified by removing several superfluous instances of "ke". But of course that ruins the fun.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

but you need to keep track of which of the ke's go after the "a" and which go before

[Tirea Aean]

but you need to keep track of which of the ke's go after the "a" and which go before

it can still be simplified at least a little. most of the time, "kea" is superfluous. And in this bizarre case, I'm not sure many people would get it without you bigtime breaking it down... Anyways, Here's what I get out of it:

Kawkrr [kawtu] ke lu kea tute akanu a ke pivlltxe nìNa'vi ke luke pxaya keyey lehoren lìfyayä.

==>>

Kawkrr ke lu tute akanu a ke plltxe nìNa'vi luke pxaya kxeyey lekoren lì'fyayä.

There is never a smart person who doesn't speak Na'vi without many rule errors of the language.

i.e. For all smart people, There exists no smart person who speaks Na'vi without many rule errors of the language.

basically what you're saying is: All smart people speak Na'vi with many rule errors of the language

...if I understand correctly... [I probably made a logic error or a translation error somewhere, karma to the one who points it out and corrects it]

[Tanri]

Although the overabundance of negatives never ruins the grammar, the meaning can easily be confused.

"po ke plltxe ke luke keyey" looks ugly even for those who natively speak with multiple negations.
"po ke plltxe luke keyey" is much better , if the meaning "he don't speak without errors" is wanted.
- don't forget that "luke" itself is a negation. There is no need, no reason (and obviously no sense as well) to negate a negation itself.

"kawtu ke lu kea tute akanu" is correct for me, because the negations are logically independent from each other: "kawtu ke lu kea tute".
This is exactly how the multiple negations works in czech language, and the meaning can be translated to English as "Nobody is a clever person". I am not a linguist, so I am not sure how to convert such multiple negations to English, because English doesn't have them and translation 1:1 is obviously incorrect.
The problem with those translations is, what single part of the sentence I must keep in negative form, for correctly translate the meaning from multiple-negative to single-negative language (and vice versa).

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

My question again: is double negatives universal?

SO does "ke luke" mean "everybody"? Since unlike "kawkrr...ke...kea" and the others, there is no rule that you need to use ke before luke. In fact, you DON'T usually use "ke luke" so according to a near linguistic universal obscure double negatives usually resolve to a positive (c.f. colloquial English I ain't ain't a person)

[Tanri]

I am not getting the point of your question, ma 'eylan. What is the "universality" of double negatives?

"ke luke" means "not_without", and makes no sense for me, because you "negate a negative particle".
If you really want to use this formulation, you must place a verb between ke and luke, then the ke will be applied to the verb, not to the luke:

ke plltxe luke keyey - correct (literally "don't speak without errors")
plltxe ke luke keyey - incorrect (literally "speak not without errors")

From my point of view, multiple negatives are "universal", they can be safely used, with only one but important exception:
You can't combine together multiple negative particles and apply them to one constituent (verb, noun etc.). The negative particles must be distributed across entire sentence, each negative must have its own constituent to be applied to.

Edit: My native language uses multiple negatives, but obviously I don't know how exactly Karyu Pawl incorporate them to Na'vi. So beware - my thoughts and explanations can be very subjective.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

so "oe ke ke ke ke ke ke lu tute" doesn't really make sense. Great! Na'vi to ìnglisì lu txantsan!

[Kamean]

so "oe ke ke ke ke ke ke lu tute" doesn't really make sense. Great! Na'vi to ìnglisì lu txantsan!

Hrh