This poll is intended to gauge the opinions of the LearnNa'vi.org community regarding which questions about the language are the most important right now. The topics herein have been retrieved from Combining our Efforts II, sorted, and in some cases merged, and this is the result.
ALL members get 7 votes to cast, and as the voting progresses the topics that people feel should be prioritized will begin to float to the top. The end result will be collected into a document to be sent to Karyu Pawl in preparation for the Na'vi Language Workshop, with some more context to further define the questions.
The poll options are given in the form of terse titles, which are elaborated upon below. If there is something you don't understand, or feel should be clarified further, please do not hesitate to post your question here before casting your votes.
Also, please take note that the poll will run for exactly three days, and whatever the standings are at the end of those three days will constitute the final say of the community – no additions after the fact will be possible. Therefore, use your votes wisely, and don't delay too long in doing so.A full kinship systemFrommer thinks that we need this and has already been given context and suggestions, so its inclusion here is meant to probe what importance the community ascribes to it.
Transitivity with verbs in ‹eyk›The causative infix changes the transitivity of verbs; intransitive ones are made transitive, and transitive ones are made ditransitive. Can it be used freely, and are the resulting constructions predictable?
How does it apply to
si-verbs? How are the cases handled then? (
Si-verbs are always intransitive, but what would be the direct object with a transitive verb is here the indirect object instead, which means that there might already be a dative in play.)
Is the resulting verb always transitive, and must the subject then always be in the ergative, or can the verb be understood in a general sense?
What happens when the base verb is a linking verb (
lu,
slu,
'efu)?
Transitivity and infix positions for all known verbsBefore being explicitly told so, we did not know that, for example,
sngä'i was intransitive and that "begin something" would be
sngeykä'i. There are more verbs like this that need clarification, and also some ambiguous ones such as
tsunslu and
kenong where it is not obvious where the infixes should go.
Rules of keMust
ke always come immediately before the verb? How about
si-verbs?
Do the same rules apply when
ke is embedded, e.g.
zenke?
Is there an
*ake form to complement
kea?
Negation with adverbsInside or outside (
ke nìwin or
*nìkwin)?
Ke or
kea?
Rules of txoWhen is the subjunctive required? Canon examples are contradictory.
Are there specific rules for the protasis (the condition) and the apodosis (the conclusion)?
Word order with sluA slu B – does A become B or B become A? Is there a rule to determine which becomes which?
Fì'u, fìkem and actionsWhen a subordinate clause is comprised of an action, can we use
fwa et al or must we use
fìkem a? (E.g. "To write this word in Na'vi is difficult.")
Rules of -pe+Can you apply the interrogative affix
-pe+ to any noun to form a "which" question?
How do you combine
-pe+ with number prefixes? Do they meld, like
fay+ and
tsay+?
More comparative constructsWhat happens when there is nothing for
to to be relevant to? (E.g. "there is no faster ikran")
Can the superlative marker
frato be applied to other parts of speech than adjectives? How?
"The more A, the more B"?
"A is as Q as B"?
Rules of sä-How and when do you (Paul Frommer) create nouns with this prefix?
More on si-constructionsFrom which word classes can
si-verbs be built?
How are participles formed? (E.g. "a clarified question" from
law si or "a careful hunter" from
nari si)
Can there be double datives? What would normally be the direct object is shifted to the indirect object with
si-verbs (e.g.
srung si oer help me), so what do you say when you need another indirect object?
Can the base noun take modifiers? (E.g. would
kem awin si be "do a quick action"?)
Phonological issuesAre final stops unreleased also in situations like
pot oel tse'a?
When do unstable vowel sequences decay? (E.g.
äa,
iì)
Are double vowels always prevented? Is
seiyi generalizable?
What happens when adpositions are added to words that end in the same vowel or consonant that the adposition begins with?
Oe +
eo = ?
Similarly, what about indefinite
-o added to words like
fya'o?
Is
sengi from
s‹äng›i? If so, what is the cause of the sound change?
Does pum have plural forms?If so, when are they used? We know from the listening excercise at Na'viteri that
pum by itself can refer back to a plural noun.
Clarification on participlesCan an active participle take a direct object?
Can you create a gerund from
‹awn› like you can with
tì- +
‹us›? If so, what would it mean?
Can you use a passive participle with an intransitive verb? If so, what would it mean?
What other infixes, if any, can the participle infixes be used with?
Rules of tsnìWe have
sìlpey tsnì and
ätxäle si tsnì. What is the general rule?
Combinations of pre-first position infixesIn a blog post at Na'viteri, Frommer said that these infixes can indeed occur together, and gave the example
z‹äp›‹eyk›o. What is the full story?
Combinations of tense infixesAre we correctly hearing
tspìmìyang in the movie for
I was about to kill him? If so, is this indicative of how different tenses can be combined, i.e. with future tense following past tense?
Are kä- and za- productive prefixes?For example, is there a
*kämunge (bring from a place) to complement
zamunge (bring to a place) and
munge (take, bring)? Can they be attached wherever such a distinction would make sense?
Which verbs can or must use the modal syntax?Apart from the actual modal verbs (
new,
zene etc.), we know that sentences with
fmi and
sngä'i are constructed in the same way:
oe zene kivä I must go,
oe fmayi kivä I will try to go. Which other verbs use the same syntax?
Tense with modal verbsIn a modal sentence (e.g.
oe new tsive'a Uniltìrantokxit I want to see Avatar), which verb is inflected for tense? That is, if the preceding statement were referring to the past, would it be
namew or
tsimve'a?
Special plural casesIs there a plural "who?" (
*fesu) when you know there are multiple persons involved?
Is the plural of
fì'u ayfì'u or
fayu? Are there differences of meaning to these?
How do you combine
fra- with demonstrative prefixes? That is, how do you say, "all these rules"?
SynonymsSeveral words in the lexicon have similar or identical translations. Are they true synonyms, or are there nuances?
Na/pxel,
hawnu/tìhawnu si,
nìn/tìng nari,
way/tìrol?
What kind of "good" is sìltsan?Morally/not evil, favorable/advantageous, ??
Inherent number of tsopìDoes
tsopì refer to a pair of lungs (or whatever number the Na'vi have), or only to one part?
Rules of nangWhen and how can you use
nang?
Use of tätxawThis word means "return" in the sense of going back to something. How do you specify that something: using cases or adpositions?
What would be the meaning of the causative
teykätxaw? Could it be used for "give back an object to someone"?
Txan and pxay with temporal wordsDo you choose which to use based on whether the word in question is countable? In English we have ”much time” (uncountable) but ”many years” (countable). Do you say
pxaya zìsìt or
txana zìsìt?
What kind of "think" does fpìl refer to?See
here.
Meanings of nì'awCan it mean "merely" as well as "only, exclusively"?
Productivity of reduplicationWe have
letrrtrr (ordinary) and
krro krro (at times). Can you create other repetitive concepts in the same way?
Attribution of adpositional phrasesFìpo lu vrrtep a mì sokx atsleng It's a demon in a false body – is the
a always required?
Use and formation of adjectivesCan we use more than two attributive adjectives with one noun (
eana txìm atsawl)? How?
Can you use noun suffixes or enclitic adpositions together with the deriving prefix
le-?
When an adjective is created by adding both
ke and
le- (e.g.
keltsun), is the attributive marker optional as it is with
le- on its own? That is,
tute akelfpomtokx or
tute kelfpomtokx?
Completion of answer-word chartFilling in the blanks
here.
Does Na'vi have any ideophones?WP article"X out of Y"How do you say, "Seven hunters went into the forest, but only three of them returned"?
Application of gender suffixesAre
*foan,
*ngae etc. possible pronoun forms?
Can
-an and
-e be freely attached to any word where they would make sense, or is there a fixed set of allowed terms?
One-time occurrencesAre there words used in only one set phrase, and/or a phrase that is only used in one very specific context?
How do you say "[noun] is [prep] [location]"?Since
tok is transitive it does not seem to work here, and if
lu cannot function as "be in a place", then what other options are there?
Other functions of the genitiveWhich are there, other than a simple possessive?
Utral Aymokriyä Tree of Voices, for example.
"Self" and "own"Are there words corresponding to "myself", "herself" etc.?
Is there a way to distinguish between "he ate his (own) food" and "he ate his (someone else's) food"?
Number system extensionsDecimal numbers (3.14 and suchlike)?
Very large numbers? Do they exist?
Negative numbers?
Simple fractions and a word for "half"?
Dates in Na'viHow do you say them?
Do the Na'vi have months, and if so, what are they called and how are they used?
Asking/giving permissionDo we use
tsun or something else?
Asking/giving directionsHow do you say, "go to the right"?
Cardinal directionsDo the Na'vi think in terms of a compass rose, or do they have a different conception of direction? Absolute or relative?
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