Idiomatic Expressions

Started by Taronyu, April 01, 2010, 06:04:24 PM

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tsrräfkxätu

Quote from: kemeoauniaea on May 05, 2010, 01:12:46 PM
That's a good point actually. I'd just assumed it was intransitive.  :D

I guess it would follow the default rules and be ambitransitive and in this context, transitive.

Irayo for pointing that out to me.

It's academic (not that that's a bad thing) anyway as it's still an unnecessary (and probably odd-sounding) clause that could, and should be replaced by <ats>.

The way I see it, there's a fundamental difference between a transitive lam, and a causative one. Consider:

Skxawng lamamINTR. — A moron appeared.
Pol skxawngit lamamTRN. — He appeared [to be] a moron. (This obviously is just an approximation as English has no TRN "appear.")
Pol skxawngit leykamamTRN. — He made a moron appear. ("Made appear" is in the semantic realm of "show/produce.")
Pol skxawngit ?läpeykamamTRN. — He made himself appear a moron. (This is, I believe, what you wanted to express.)

At least, that's my intuition. Of course, it might still be that lam is INTR-only. Or would we have learned that when Pawl gave us all the verbs?
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tsrräfkxätu

Quote from: omängum fra'uti on May 05, 2010, 01:51:05 PM
Aylì'ut (ngeyä) kivan

This is not bad, especially the short version above. My only objection would be that to me it feels a bit too similar to the English "choose your words carefully", which I'm aware is not an idiom, but still.
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omängum fra'uti

I sort of see the main usage as being different though.  "Choose your words carefully" to me carries the implication that you are expecting a response from them, and warning against giving the wrong response.  For the Na'vi expression, I had something a little more general in mind.  Perhaps something more akin to "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" but on a broader theme.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
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wm.annis

Quote from: tsrräfkxätu on May 05, 2010, 04:38:38 PMSkxawng lamamINTR. — A moron appeared.
Pol skxawngit lamamTRN. — He appeared [to be] a moron. (This obviously is just an approximation as English has no TRN "appear.")

In every language I've dealt with your second sentence would also mean "he manifested a moron."  There is no transitive sense of just "appear" — it doesn't hold together semantically.  "He appeared to be a moron" is going to show up as intransitive, or require the verbal complement "to be" (also intransitive).

Prrton

Quote from: tsrräfkxätu on May 05, 2010, 04:38:38 PM
Quote from: kemeoauniaea on May 05, 2010, 01:12:46 PM
That's a good point actually. I'd just assumed it was intransitive.  :D

I guess it would follow the default rules and be ambitransitive and in this context, transitive.

Irayo for pointing that out to me.

It's academic (not that that's a bad thing) anyway as it's still an unnecessary (and probably odd-sounding) clause that could, and should be replaced by <ats>.

Pol skxawngit ?läpeykamamTRN. — He made himself appear a moron. (This is, I believe, what you wanted to express.)

QuoteI vaguely recall ‹ eyk › & ‹ äp › being mutually exclusive; I'm not even sure which one would come first


I don't think that «eyk» & «äp» can occur together and I remember a specific comment that verbs in «äp» only take intransitive subjects.

Prrton

I really like the "ouched tail" thing for "grumpy, out of sorts", but couldn't it just be:

  kxetse akxawnem ?

It seems to me that the «kll» part of «kllkxem» is just the "object" part of that compound affected by the other root that we we don't have separately (yet?), but which seems to imply something about body weight supported by the feet and legs.

  P: Pelun fìtrr po fìtxan keftxo leru?
  'Ey: Kxetse akxawnem nì'aw

Tsakato kop lor latsu.

tsrräfkxätu

#66
Quote from: Prrton on May 05, 2010, 05:51:24 PM
I really like the "ouched tail" thing for "grumpy, out of sorts", but couldn't it just be:

 kxetse akxawnem ?

I'd still prefer kxetse akxäpawnem, for its sheer absurdity, but yours would be my first runner-up. :D

QuoteIt seems to me that the «kll» part of «kllkxem» is just the "object" part of that compound affected by the other root that we we don't have separately (yet?), but which seems to imply something about body weight supported by the feet and legs.

This makes a lot of sense! :D

Quote from: wm.annis on May 05, 2010, 05:00:12 PM
Quote from: tsrräfkxätu on May 05, 2010, 04:38:38 PMSkxawng lamamINTR. — A moron appeared.
Pol skxawngit lamamTRN. — He appeared [to be] a moron. (This obviously is just an approximation as English has no TRN "appear.")

In every language I've dealt with your second sentence would also mean "he manifested a moron."  There is no transitive sense of just "appear" — it doesn't hold together semantically.  "He appeared to be a moron" is going to show up as intransitive, or require the verbal complement "to be" (also intransitive).

Even if that is so – and I doubt you not –, it would seem to me that leykam doesn't quite mean what kemeoauniaea intended.

How about this then?

[Oe-ru po] skxawng-ur lam.
[To-meDAT she] moron-DAT appears.
[NekemDAT ő] tökfej-nekDAT tűnik.
[She] looks like a moron [to me].


It looks totally weird to me too, but this how you'd say it in Hungarian. I've just realized this, and quite frankly, have no idea why it works.
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wm.annis

Quote from: tsrräfkxätu on May 05, 2010, 06:41:03 PMHow about this then?

[Oe-ru po] skxawng-ur lam.

Since we already have seen teng na..., the phrasing lam na ... seems somewhat more likely that a double dative.  However, how about we add this to list of things to ask Frommer? 

Kì'eyawn

Quote from: wm.annis on May 05, 2010, 08:29:31 PM
Quote from: tsrräfkxätu on May 05, 2010, 06:41:03 PMHow about this then?

[Oe-ru po] skxawng-ur lam.

Since we already have seen teng na..., the phrasing lam na ... seems somewhat more likely that a double dative.  However, how about we add this to list of things to ask Frommer? 

Couldn't it just be Po lam nìskxawng?
eo Eywa oe 'ia

Fra'uri tìyawnur oe täpivìng nìwotx...

Prrton

Quote from: wm.annis on May 05, 2010, 08:29:31 PM
Quote from: tsrräfkxätu on May 05, 2010, 06:41:03 PMHow about this then?

[Oe-ru po] skxawng-ur lam.

Since we already have seen teng na..., the phrasing lam na ... seems somewhat more likely that a double dative.  However, how about we add this to list of things to ask Frommer? 

I was going to say this about na earlier today and then chickened out because I couldn't figure out how to get in the -eyk- (causative) part succinctly (but actually I don't think the -eyk-ing is the core issue (is it?).

I vote for a campaign to get «skxawng säpi» (cf: «win säpi») canonized as opposed to jumping through other hoops backwards that might not be as efficient or 'natively' Na'vi. (Granted. Subjective.)

«Pona leskxawng!» ((if it's) like him, (it's) moronic!) works quite well for me too.  ;)

skxawng also has a lot of potential (tEmO)

kewnya txamew'itan

Quote from: tsrräfkxätu on May 05, 2010, 04:38:38 PM

The way I see it, there's a fundamental difference between a transitive lam, and a causative one. Consider:

Skxawng lamamINTR. — A moron appeared.
Pol skxawngit lamamTRN. — He appeared [to be] a moron. (This obviously is just an approximation as English has no TRN "appear.")
Pol skxawngit leykamamTRN. — He made a moron appear. ("Made appear" is in the semantic realm of "show/produce.")
Pol skxawngit ?läpeykamamTRN. — He made himself appear a moron. (This is, I believe, what you wanted to express.)

At least, that's my intuition. Of course, it might still be that lam is INTR-only. Or would we have learned that when Pawl gave us all the verbs?

Given the translation as appear or seem I'd say that 1 and 3 are invalid as lam probably only refers to the seeming aspect of appear rather than arriving or showing up (which would be pähem)

The second is a copula example so cases aren't needed.

The fourth should work I think but, again, because it's copula the case of skxawng should be dropped and, because it's reflexive so should the one on po. Now that I think about it, it probably shouldn't work, <eyk> raises the valency of the verb by one (by creating a direct object) and <äp> lowers the valency by one (by unifying the direct object and subject), this makes me inclined to say that they'd cancel and it would reduce to po skxawng lam.

Quote from: tsrräfkxätu on May 05, 2010, 06:41:03 PM
Quote from: wm.annis on May 05, 2010, 05:00:12 PM
In every language I've dealt with your second sentence would also mean "he manifested a moron."  There is no transitive sense of just "appear" — it doesn't hold together semantically.  "He appeared to be a moron" is going to show up as intransitive, or require the verbal complement "to be" (also intransitive).

Even if that is so – and I doubt you not –, it would seem to me that leykam doesn't quite mean what kemeoauniaea intended.

How about this then?

[Oe-ru po] skxawng-ur lam.
[To-meDAT she] moron-DAT appears.
[NekemDAT ő] tökfej-nekDAT tűnik.
[She] looks like a moron [to me].


It looks totally weird to me too, but this how you'd say it in Hungarian. I've just realized this, and quite frankly, have no idea why it works.

When did I use <eyk> in it?

Anyway, double datives would make this very strange and idiomatic as without an idiomatic structure, it would be uninterpretably ambiguous.
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tsrräfkxätu

#71
Ma kemeoauniaea, Prrton, wm.annissì!

All of you offer very clever solutions, but seeing how there are at least five sound-looking ways to think about this verb, I'd say clarification from Pawl is needed. :D

Quote from: kemeoauniaea on May 06, 2010, 01:04:31 AM
Given the translation as appear or seem I'd say that 1 and 3 are invalid as lam probably only refers to the seeming aspect of appear rather than arriving or showing up (which would be pähem)
I don't agree. The non-seeming "appear" and "arrive" are semantically distinct.

QuoteThe second is a copula example so cases aren't needed.
It wasn't meant to be a copula example (my bracketing in the English transcription is misleading though.) That was my version for the transitive lam, where it takes as its DO the thing that the subject appears as. However, wm.annis seems to think it's invalid on semantic grounds, and I have to admit, none of the languages I know has a transitive "seem/appear."

QuoteThe fourth should work I think but, again, because it's copula the case of skxawng should be dropped and, because it's reflexive so should the one on po. Now that I think about it, it probably shouldn't work, <eyk> raises the valency of the verb by one (by creating a direct object) and <äp> lowers the valency by one (by unifying the direct object and subject), this makes me inclined to say that they'd cancel and it would reduce to po skxawng lam.
That's definitely a no-no, I'm certain now, exactly because of the valency issue. I don't think po skxawng lam could work as the (pro-)NPs would have to be case-marked for the sentence to parse. However, if skxawng was turned into an adj then perhaps po leskxawng lam would be valid, in the analogy of "he appears stupid."

QuoteAnyway, double datives would make this very strange and idiomatic as without an idiomatic structure, it would be uninterpretably ambiguous.
You're absolutely right about that. It must be idiomatic, otherwise the relations of who appears as what to whom become obfuscated.
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kewnya txamew'itan

1. I agree with you, I was just searching for a nearest synonym and failed a bit.

2. Well it is. It should be no different from "po skxawng lu", both lu and lam are copulae and they both have both arguments as nouns.

3. po skxawng lam would be no different from po skxawng lu or oe tsamsiyu lu, whilst it might often be nicer to adjective-ise it, it seems unreasonable to say that it would be required. It would mean "he seems to be a moron" or, slightly more archaically "he seems a moron"
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Lance R. Casey

Quote from: Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn on May 04, 2010, 09:13:41 PM
The only way for us to get a real Na'vi idiot is for Cameron or Karyu Paul to give it to us.

Ngaytxoa, slä faylì'ul oeti heykolangham nìtxan!  ;D

// Lance R. Casey

Ftiafpi

TGIF = irayo eywaru a fìtrr lu trrpuve = IEFLT :)

omängum fra'uti

So I sent some of these to Frommer, and he seems to have liked them.  I hadn't gotten much of a response except that he thought some were interesting, but some seemed to certainly stick in his mind.  He mentioned William's "Ear and tail" one at the Phoenix Comicon skype talk today when asked about literal translations vs idioms.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

Txur’Itan

#76
If only there was a Sarcasm infix.

Speaker one:
The Path to the Heart of the SkyPeople is through love.
Fya'o a ne te'lan    sawtuteyä kxamlä  tìyawn  leru.
Path  twards heart of skypeople through love is.

Speaker two retort:
The Path to the Heart of the SkyPeople is through Eytukan's Bow.
Fya'o a ne te'lan    sawtuteyä    kxamlä  tsko Eytukanyä lasyu.
Path  twards heart of skypeople through Bow of Eytukan is.
私は太った男だ。


kewnya txamew'itan

I believe that it should be "fya'o a ne te'lan sawtuteyä", adpositions never describe nouns, just verbs, here the verb is an elided lu.
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Txur’Itan

Quote from: kemeoauniaea on June 19, 2010, 01:48:55 PM
I believe that it should be "fya'o a ne te'lan sawtuteyä", adpositions never describe nouns, just verbs, here the verb is an elided lu.

Gotcha
私は太った男だ。


'eylan na'viyä

Quote from: Txur'Itan on June 19, 2010, 12:54:18 PM
If only there was a Sarcasm infix.

Speaker one:
The Path to the Heart of the SkyPeople is through love.
Fya'o a ne te'lan    sawtuteyä kxamlä  tìyawn  leru.
Path  twards heart of skypeople through love is.

Speaker two retort:
The Path to the Heart of the SkyPeople is through Eytukan's Bow.
Fya'o a ne te'lan    sawtuteyä    kxamlä  tsko Eytukanyä lasyu.
Path  twards heart of skypeople through Bow of Eytukan is.

wouldn't "ìlä" fit better in this situation?