Case endings of loan words ending with a neutral ì (follow-up on Kerìsmìsì + ä)

[Vawmataw]

Kaltxì ma frapo,

I got back to Karyu Pawl about the case endings of Kerìsmìsì and the other loan words ending with a neutral ì.

The method to add the genitive to Kerìsmìsì is already established, but I thought appropriate to extend the concept to the other words and case endings. That being said, there is a problem with the patientive. While the Horen allows -it and -ti for consonants, -ti cannot apply everywhere. For example, you can have Kelnit, but certainly not *Kelnti. In this context, I sent an email and here's what he replied:

That's a good point:

The rules given in the Horen apply to native Na'vi roots. In the case of Kelnì, the "theoretical root" (there's probably a better term for that) is *Keln, which of course could not be a native Na'vi root because of the syllable-final consonant cluster. In cases like these, you add the usual endings to the "theoretical root" when the result would be an allowable Na'vi word; when it wouldn't, you have to make adjustments.

In this case, you need two simple adjustments. One is that the Subjective form becomes Kelnì. The other is that for the Patientive, the -ti form must be excluded. The entire paradigm is then:

Kelnì
Kelnìl (note that this is Keln + ìl, not Kelnì + l)
Kelnit (not Kelnti and not Kelnìt)
Kelnur
Kelnä
Kelnìri (again, Keln + ìri, not Kelnì + ri)

We need a little additional subsection in the Horen to cover these relatively rare cases.

Also, remember there are native roots that end in ì. Hapxì is a good example. These follow the usual rules for roots ending in a vowel. So the paradigm for hapxì is:

hapxì
hapxìl
hapxìt OR hapxìti
hapxìr OR hapxìru
hapxìyä
hapxìri

Hope that's all clear! 😊

[Toliman]

Interesting, thanks for sharing all this stuff!

[Tìtstewan]

Txantsan!

And an other small rule try to remember.