Na'vi details from Avatarmeet 2013

[Ftiafpi]

Some questions I managed to get quick answers from Karyu Pawl today:

Nested causatives: (irayo ma Tirea Aean for reminding me we needed this)

Karyu Pawl didn't have a ready answer to this question. He was opposed to anything combining <eyk> with fa- but liked the idea of using <eyk> with fwa/futa. He proposed that this would be ideal for the LEP/community to tackle by giving him a few suggestions that he can look over.

Nì + ordinal numbers is productive up to a "to be determined" point. i.e. Twenty-seventh isn't used often in English.

Fì + ay will generally turn into fay+ especially in rapid or casual speech but in formal or precise speech it may be fìay+.

However, fra + ay will always be fray+.

[Ftiafpi]

If anyone has a good quick question for karyu Pawl today or tomorrow, please let me know.

[Tìtstewan]

Oe!
-->
Fìtsenge, fìtsenge!!
Yeah, these points are listed there.

[Blue Elf]

Some questions I managed to get quick answers from Karyu Pawl today:

Nested causatives: (irayo ma Tirea Aean for reminding me we needed this)

Karyu Pawl didn't have a ready answer to this question. He was opposed to anything combining <eyk> with fa- but liked the idea of using <eyk> with fwa/futa. He proposed that this would be ideal for the LEP/community to tackle by giving him a few suggestions that he can look over.

Nì + ordinal numbers is productive up to a "to be determined" point. i.e. Twenty-seventh isn't used often in English.

Fì + ay will generally turn into fay+ especially in rapid or casual speech but in formal or precise speech it may be fìay+.

However, fra + ay will always be fray+.

Sooooo, fray+ is now official?

[Ftiafpi]

 Yes,  fray+ is now official.

I will attempt to imprison Pawl politely and answer more questions.

[Ftiafpi]

Oe!
-->
Fìtsenge, fìtsenge!!
Yeah, these points are listed there.

Some further details from Karyu Pawl:

Ohenga Pawl confirmed this word and we saw were it appears in the film during Norm's "a little formal" speech. He implied that he forgot about it in the film and also implied that any other honorific pronouns do not exist. I have to ask him about the sì construction mentioned in horen. Finally, he wanted to confirm if ohenga was indeed in his dictionary.

Tsala is confirmed unless otherwise stated by karyu Pawl. He didn't want to commit 100% to something without thinking a tiny bit more about it but saw nothing wrong with tsala.

Finally, I was told that we didn't have any canonical quote or ruling on nì- being productive. If that is the case then it is confirmed that, while it is right most of the time, it is not productive.

[Plumps]

Nested causatives: (irayo ma Tirea Aean for reminding me we needed this)

I don't remember this discussion ... what are nested causatives?

However, fra + ay will always be fray+.

I think we had this discussion somewhere else? How do we translate something like that? I always translated fra- as 'every'. How does this makes sense with the plural of a word?

Finally, I was told that we didn't have any canonical quote or ruling on nì- being productive. If that is the case then it is confirmed that, while it is right most of the time, it is not productive.

But we do!
In one of the very earliest blog posts "Diminutives; Conversational Expressions" he stated under 3.:

Finally, some affixes are midway on the productivity scale. The adverb-former nì- is productive when used with adjectives: nìngay 'truly,' nìwin 'fast,' nìsti* 'angrily,' nìftue 'easily,' etc. But it's sometimes also used with other parts of speech—nìtut 'continually,' nì'eyng 'in response,' nì'awtu 'alone'—and these words have to be learned as separate lexical items; you can't take them as patterns on which to base new forms.

That's as good a ruling as any!

[Tìtstewan]

However, fra + ay will always be fray+. I think we had this discussion somewhere else? How do we translate something like that? I always translated fra- as 'every'. How does this makes sense with the plural of a word?

I think fra- doesn't mean 'every' only, it can mean also as 'all'.
Maybe you will see a nice difference and maybe a translation of fray+:

Frakelutral lor lu.
Every house are beautiful.
Jedes Haus ist schön.

Frayhelutral lor lu.
All houses are beautiful.
Alle Häuser sind schön.

OR (this idea I had)

Frayhelutral lor lu.
Every of the Houses are beautiful.
Jedes der Häuser ist schön.

[Ftiafpi]

Nested causatives: (irayo ma Tirea Aean for reminding me we needed this)

I don't remember this discussion ... what are nested causatives?

Nested causatives are: he caused her to cause him to cause her to (verb) him.

But we do!
In one of the very earliest blog posts "Diminutives; Conversational Expressions" he stated under 3.:

Finally, some affixes are midway on the productivity scale. The adverb-former nì- is productive when used with adjectives: nìngay 'truly,' nìwin 'fast,' nìsti* 'angrily,' nìftue 'easily,' etc. But it's sometimes also used with other parts of speech—nìtut 'continually,' nì'eyng 'in response,' nì'awtu 'alone'—and these words have to be learned as separate lexical items; you can't take them as patterns on which to base new forms.

That's as good a ruling as any!

That fits with what Paul told me last night. It was such a quick anecdote that he didn't have time to go into much detail.

However, fra + ay will always be fray+. I think we had this discussion somewhere else? How do we translate something like that? I always translated fra- as 'every'. How does this makes sense with the plural of a word?

I think fra- doesn't mean 'every' only, it can mean also as 'all'.
Maybe you will see a nice difference and maybe a translation of fray+:

Frakelutral lor lu.
Every house are beautiful.
Jedes Haus ist schön.

Frayhelutral lor lu.
All houses are beautiful.
Alle Häuser sind schön.

OR (this idea I had)

Frayhelutral lor lu.
Every of the Houses are beautiful.
Jedes der Häuser ist schön.

Your examples are how I pictured fray+ being used, something along the lines of each of these things. I will attempt to confirm this with Pawl.

[Ftiafpi]

Frayhelutral lor lu.
Every of the Houses are beautiful.
Jedes der Häuser ist schön.

Paul used this example for a translation but his exact phrase was "All of these houses are..."

[Tìtstewan]

  Great!
Frayhelutral lu...
All of these houses are...
Jedes dieser Häuser ist...

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I talked with K. Pawl about alu, which has always been a source of trouble for me. He said that you can think of it as 'which is' or 'who is', alu very helpful in understanding how to use it. But he stopped short of thinking we needed to change the dictionary definition. He explained that thinking of it as a plus lu is very helpful as well.

One item from last year, which I am not sure I have ever mentioned, is a clarification on the difference between vey and tsngan. Vey refers to any food of animal origin (could include eggs or milk), but is primarily meant to mean 'meat'. This could of course, include fowl or fish (or insect). Tsngan refers specifically to meat obtained from terrestrial animals (yerik, talioang, etc.).

In general, there was a lot of very useful information in Pawl's '102 presentation', especially relating to conversational Na'vi. And partly as a result, a lot more Na'vi was being spoken at this meetup!

[Plumps]

I think I saw this distinction between vey and tsngan somewhere but great to have confirmation.

I'm looking forward to hearing/seeing the 102 presentation