Art related Vocab

[Erimeyz]

Regarding -tu vs. -yu.... I like the implication of taronyu one who does hunting "hunter", spe'etu one whom capture is done to "captive".

Where does that leave reltseotu?  Reltseo-tu one whom visual art is done to "artist".  The implication being that in Na'vi, one does not "make" art... art is something that happens to you, i.e. you are inspired and moved by a creative spirit, the resulting artwork being almost an incidental by-product.

Just my two cents.  Almost certainly wrong.  But fun to contemplate.

  - Eri

[Skxawng]

Regarding -tu vs. -yu.... I like the implication of taronyu one who does hunting "hunter", spe'etu one whom capture is done to "captive".

Where does that leave reltseotu?  Reltseo-tu one whom visual art is done to "artist".  The implication being that in Na'vi, one does not "make" art... art is something that happens to you, i.e. you are inspired and moved by a creative spirit, the resulting artwork being almost an incidental by-product.

Just my two cents.  Almost certainly wrong.  But fun to contemplate.

  - Eri

Interesting, but "one whom visual art is done to" sounds either like literally painting people, or the subject of a portrait, imo

[roger]

Humans are possessed by their muse. Possible.

[Skxawng]

Resolution!

About -tu vs. -yu: You're right--"yu" is an ending for a verb, converting it into the doer or agent, similar to English -er. "Tu," on the other hand, is short for "tute," person (as in Tawtute), and is generally used with parts of speech other than verbs.

So: for "reltseo" (as you know, rel 'image, picture' + tseo 'art'), we get "reltseotu," 'artist (lit. picture-art-person)'.

Likewise, from pamtseo 'music' we get pamtseotu, 'musician'.

:D:D:D

Pamtseotu = Musician

[Plumps]

Uhm, just for personal clarification...

That means: -yu is always used with verbs
-tu with 'everything else'

I always thought: taronyu "hunter"
tarontu "the hunted one"

[Coyote]

Well, hell, we've been using "tesosiyu" in the RP, does that get left anything?

It is structured like tsamsiyu, after all, which was what I based it off of, "one who makes ___" (war, art, weaving, etc).

[wm.annis]

Resolution!

Added to the Canon.

That puts spe'etu in a strange place, though.  Oh, well.  Who wants a perfectly regular language?

[Kiliyä]

It could be that it is exactly like -er and -ist in English, and that we're seeing an "irregularity" in Na'vi.  I don't know why you guys are obsessed with clarifying and codifying every little example and making them fit your own thoughts about the language.  Why can't Na'vi have two agental suffixes?  Why can't it be a little odd in applying those suffixes to verbs vs. nouns or whatever?

[Erimeyz]

It could be that it is exactly like -er and -ist in English, and that we're seeing an "irregularity" in Na'vi.  I don't know why you guys are obsessed with clarifying and codifying every little example and making them fit your own thoughts about the language.  Why can't Na'vi have two agental suffixes?  Why can't it be a little odd in applying those suffixes to verbs vs. nouns or whatever?

I don't think anyone wants to make things fit their own thoughts, or to make Na'vi perfectly regular.

Some of us are obsessed with clarifying and codifying every little example so that we can learn to speak Na'vi correctly - the way Frommer says to - irregularities and all.

Some of us enjoy speculating about things we don't yet know, in anticipation of eventually knowing them.

  - Eri

[Kiliyä]

I understand.  I want to use Na'vi correctly too, but it just seems laboured after a while to debate these tiny little points when really, we have so little to go on.  For all we know, Na'vi may have synonyms!  Wouldn't that throw a spanner in the works in the beginner board?  "What's the difference between x and y?" "Nothing." "Oh.  Okay."  There'd be 100s of those threads!  When I was starting out with Na'vi, I used to get frustrated when people would answer an honest inquiry with "we don't know."  But I get it now, and I think it's the best response most of the time!  Maybe we should put it in our sigs: "We don't know the majority of what you're going to ask.  Please read these and then ask anyway."

[Eight]

That means: -yu is always used with verbs
-tu with 'everything else'

I always thought: taronyu "hunter"
tarontu "the hunted one"

But taron is only a verb right? Where did tarontu come from?

I've seen nothing to indicate to that -tu is really the object of the word affixes to i.e. the object of the hunting = the hunted.

Not directed at you Plumps, but people will try to analyse the tiny fragments of information we have and attribute regular rules to them because the Na'vi corpus is too small to do much else. There is not thousands of years of history and usage behind this language with millions of speakers alive and deceased.... there is two months of public usage and 1 speaker who himself hasn't made it all up yet. If we don't debate the little points looking for answers then at this stage, we might as well all give up completely.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Resolution!

Added to the Canon.

That puts spe'etu in a strange place, though.  Oh, well.  Who wants a perfectly regular language?

I don't see why it need be. Frommer says that it is mainly used on parts of speech other than verbs. If it was used on a verb it would mean the same as taron and lead to redundancy which doesn't seem to be liked very much in na'vi (effectual infixes getting dropped and the like) so it could very easily have evolved a seperate form for verbs.

The way I'm thinking of it is that -tu means someone who makes ____ for nouns or adjectives but means someone who is _____ for verbs.

[Plumps]

That means: -yu is always used with verbs
-tu with 'everything else'

I always thought: taronyu "hunter"
tarontu "the hunted one"

But taron is only a verb right? Where did tarontu come from?

I've seen nothing to indicate to that -tu is really the object of the word affixes to i.e. the object of the hunting = the hunted.

Not directed at you Plumps, but people will try to analyse the tiny fragments of information we have and attribute regular rules to them because the Na'vi corpus is too small to do much else. There is not thousands of years of history and usage behind this language with millions of speakers alive and deceased.... there is two months of public usage and 1 speaker who himself hasn't made it all up yet. If we don't debate the little points looking for answers then at this stage, we might as well all give up completely.

No hard feelings, ma Eight

I 'derived' it from spe'etu - captive where spe'e is given as a verb. Logical assumption... I thought. But I very much stand corrected if you think that we cannot make such conjectures.

Irayo

[Eight]

I 'derived' it from spe'etu - captive where spe'e is given as a verb. Logical assumption... I thought. But I very much stand corrected if you think that we cannot make such conjectures.

I think Dr. Frommer has now said that -yu is for attaching to verbs to create a noun for the agent, and -tu is for attaching to "everything" else.

Which does leave "spe'etu" in a strange place right now - I can't help wondering if there's something about spe'e itself that we're missing. E.g. are we sure it's a verb? Was just checking whether tarontu was published anywhere.

I liked the theory about -tu though. It would have been a cool suffix to have right now.

[Keylstxatsmen]

I 'derived' it from spe'etu - captive where spe'e is given as a verb. Logical assumption... I thought. But I very much stand corrected if you think that we cannot make such conjectures.

I think Dr. Frommer has now said that -yu is for attaching to verbs to create a noun for the agent, and -tu is for attaching to "everything" else.

Which does leave "spe'etu" in a strange place right now - I can't help wondering if there's something about spe'e itself that we're missing. E.g. are we sure it's a verb? Was just checking whether tarontu was published anywhere.

I liked the theory about -tu though. It would have been a cool suffix to have right now.

Spe'eyu would be "Captor", srak?  Spe'etu makes sense to me, it is not the "doer or agent" and -tu is "generally used with parts of speech other than verbs" -- there's not a hard rule against it, so whats the problem with "capture-person" being "captive"?

-Keyl

[Erimeyz]

So... tseotu art-person "artist".

I wonder if you could, conversationally, get a little convoluted and refer to an artist as tseo siyu art-make/do-agent "artist", in order to stress that (perhaps at the moment) he is actually making art, i.e. casting him in an agentive role rather than merely as an associated person.

Tseo siyu hahaw.  art-make/do-agent sleeps.  "The art-maker sleeps."

Subtext: "Bob, who is an artist, hasn't done all that much lately, but today he was busy all day actually making art for a change, and it wore him out, so he's sleeping, finally, thank Eywa."

... or maybe I'm being too pragmatic.

  - Eri

[Keylstxatsmen]

So... tseotu art-person "artist".

I wonder if you could, conversationally, get a little convoluted and refer to an artist as tseo siyu art-make/do-agent "artist", in order to stress that (perhaps at the moment) he is actually making art, i.e. casting him in an agentive role rather than merely as an associated person.

Tseo siyu hahaw.  art-make/do-agent sleeps.  "The art-maker sleeps."

Subtext: "Bob, who is an artist, hasn't done all that much lately, but today he was busy all day actually making art for a change, and it wore him out, so he's sleeping, finally, thank Eywa."

... or maybe I'm being too pragmatic.

  - Eri

They are *probably* both grammatically correct, but it all depends on what the common usage is, which I'm assuming Dr. Frommer gave us.  Like in Japanese you could say 芸術する人(geijyutsu-suru-hito) art-do(ing)-person and people would understand you, but the more "correct" word would be 芸術家(geijyutsuka) art-ist.  I'm sure to the native speaker there might be some difference in connotation, but we would need a lot more "native" speakers of Na'vi to start speculating about it, me thinks.

-Keyl

[wm.annis]

Like in Japanese you could say 芸術する人(geijyutsu-suru-hito) art-do(ing)-person and people would understand you, but the more "correct" word would be 芸術家(geijyutsuka) art-ist. 

This is a very important general point, actually.  Fluency, as measured by governments, for example, often makes an effort to take into account the ability to make yourself clearly understood even if you might not know all the most exact words for the situation.  This is the great power of language.  Using Na'vi is probably always going to require this skill.

[Prrton]

I really don't see the problem with -yu and -tu when attached to verbs paralleling -er and -ee in English and then -tu doing something slightly different elsewhere.

 spe'eyu (captor)

 spe'etu (captive)

 reltseotu (visual artist)

It doesn't cause a conundrum for me, whether the pattern is regular with all nouns or not. It would be nice if it were, but... We cope with much stranger exceptions in English all the time. The -ist that Keyl was mentioning in Japanese (e.6) is also the written word (Chinese derivational morpheme) for "family" and "house" and is homophonous in modern Japanese with the words for "fire, day, section..." all pronounced "ka" and generally (but not always) occurring at the same "word final" position as -tu and -yu in Na'vi. We just need to be careful about deriving and neologizing with word final -tu with nouns (and verbs for that matter) until we understand it better. We don't want to end up with words sounding like "bakist, librarier, baby-sittian" etc. I do LOVE the word ネイリスト ("nail-ist") in Japanese though. Talk about neologisms out of control! Txantslan! 

[Eight]

there's not a hard rule against it, so whats the problem with "capture-person" being "captive"?

I don't have any problem with it at all - in fact I like it this way - but I'd prefer to see something official about -tu refering to the affected person if used with a verb.

Or whether it's irregular / mistake etc. etc.