minor updates / anticipated confirmations

Started by roger, March 11, 2010, 06:06:05 PM

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roger

Several things we suspected are now confirmed.

As Taronyu noted, 'u is a noun "thing". It may be concrete or abstract: an object, a fact, an idea, etc. Assuming glottal stop is a consonant like any other, we'd expect a short plural u. I've asked Paul if that's really the case, but even if it's a likely source of confusion for English speakers, it wouldn't be a problem for speakers of languages which have a glottal stop, like Arabic or Hawaiian--or Na'vi?  

Pe can combine with nouns as either a prefix (leniting) or as a suffix. That is, like tsa-, it's not restricted to the combinations we've been given. So for example there's 'upe / pe'u "what (word, utterance)". (One of the few Paul thought important enough to spell out - or maybe it occurs in the script? Note the irregular stress: It seems that the stress needs to be adjacent to the pe affix; I'll try to come back to this point.) I assume that you'd use that for "what" in "what did you say?", just as Neytiri uses kempe si nga for "what are you doing?" in the film. In other words, there is no single word "what?" in Na'vi.

Fratseng is "everywhere", and tsafya is "that way, like that", as expected. We can probably fill in the remaining blank cells in the table at Wikibooks in our own notes, but IMO best to leave the book itself alone unless they're confirmed.

We have frato in our old NYT example, and it's now confirmed as "than all", the superlative (most, -est) equivalent of to.

And we finally have a partial paradigm for "that, it". It's a bit irregular: intrans/absolutive tsaw [sic], erg tsal, acc tsat, plus irregular sat only after (non-leniting) ftu, as the SG says. We still don't have the genitive or dative, and I don't know if adpositions attach to tsaw or to the short form tsa-. I've asked Paul if he can clarify.

The ordinal suffix -ve in 'awve "first" is as expected found on other numbers. However, it's irregular: in some cases it suffixes to the long form, in some cases the short form:

Long form: pxeyve "third", volve "eighth"
Short form: muve "second", tsìve "fourth", puve "sixth", kive "seventh"
Only form: 'awve "first", mrrve "fifth"

Higher numbers are predictable from these: short vomuve "tenth" (octal 12th) and vove "twelfth" (octal 14th), but long vopeyve "eleventh" (octal 13th).
(In the interests of completeness, the rest of the provided forms are volawve, vomrrve, vofuve, vohive, mevolve, mevolawve.)

ADDENDUM
No, *u "things" would be too likely to cause confusion, even among the Na'vi. In practice, only the long plural ayu is used.

'Awlie is "once". Note that, unusually for a suffix, the stress is on the li. I deduce from that that ??lie is actually a count noun or adverb "time(s)", contrasting with non-count krr "time (duration)", and would predict that ??mulie is "twice", but neither are attested.

omängum fra'uti

Quote from: roger on March 11, 2010, 06:06:05 PM
And we finally have a partial paradigm for "that, it". It's a bit irregular: intrans/absolutive tsaw [sic], erg tsal, acc tsat, plus irregular sat only after (non-leniting) ftu, as the SG says. We still don't have the genitive or dative, and I don't know if adpositions attach to tsaw or to the short form tsa-. I've asked Paul if he can clarify.
Err, ftu is ADP+ so it is leniting...  (It's still irregular seeing as how it would otherwise be the accusitive form of that.)
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

roger

Quote from: omängum fra'uti on March 11, 2010, 06:13:07 PM
Err, ftu is ADP+ so it is leniting...  (It's still irregular seeing as how it would otherwise be the accusitive form of that.)

No, it's not, not according to Frommer: "ADP-". We probably figured it was because of sat in the SG.

roger

Yes, F confirms that this was not an oversight or typo. Just irregular.

omängum fra'uti

Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

Lance R. Casey

Quote from: roger on March 11, 2010, 06:06:05 PM
And we finally have a partial paradigm for "that, it". It's a bit irregular: intrans/absolutive tsaw [sic], erg tsal, acc tsat, plus irregular sat only after (non-leniting) ftu, as the SG says. We still don't have the genitive or dative, and I don't know if adpositions attach to tsaw or to the short form tsa-. I've asked Paul if he can clarify.
Judging from the earlier snippet, tsa- is the way to go with enclitics:

Quote from: Karyu PawlFor inanimate "it" you shouldn't use po but rather tsa: a tsane po karmä.
Also, that wording kind of suggests that he has since changed his mind about the basic form, does it not...?

// Lance R. Casey

roger

No, sorry, tsaw is a contraction of tsa'u.

Quote from: Frommer
"Tsaw" is a development ... of tsa'u. The two are synonymous, and both are in use. So you have pairs like tsa'uri/tsawri, tsa'ut/tsawt, etc.

So, is tsane a derivation of tsa, or a further contraction of tsawne? If the former, what's the diff tween tsa and tsaw? I don't know.

NeotrekkerZ

QuoteWe have frato in our old NYT example, and it's now confirmed as "than all", the superlative (most, -est) equivalent of to.

So regarding use, the following seems immediate:

Fìutral frato tsawl lu This tree is the tallest

But what if you had the following:  the largest, most beautiful tree

1.  Do you need only 1 frato?  frato tsawla eana utral alor (frato tsawla utral alor seems to me to be the tallest beautiful tree)
2.  What if you use (one of) the adjective(s) on the right side of the noun?  frato tsawla utral alor (a)frato or frato tsawla utral frato alor


Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

roger

I would imagine that you need both superlative adj. on the same side as frato, maybe linked with sì.