near, distant, and irregular adverbs

Started by roger, May 17, 2010, 11:29:45 PM

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roger

Asked about those odd 'near' and 'distant' adverbs that have been tagged as 'dubious' in Wikibooks for so long. This is what he said:

Quote from: FrommerStative verbs do take infixes. (Lu is the quintessential stative verb, and needless to say we have lolu, livu, etc.) So do verbs of location: tok allows tarmok, tolok, and so on.

So how do alìm "far away, at a distance" and asim "nearby, at close range" relate to the verbs lìm "be far" and sim "be near"? Well, the first thing to note is that alìm and asim are adverbs, not adjectives. I used alìm only once in the Avatar background dialog:

'Ì'awn alìm! "Stay back!"

(Whether or not you can hear this in the final cut I don't know.)

Sim and asim parallel lìm and alìm but don't appear in the dialog.

Note that since they're adverbs, alìm and asim do NOT have alternate forms *lìma and *sima.

Now how did these forms arise historically? Perhaps like this:

'Ì'awn nìfya'o a lìm > ? 'Ì'awn nìfya'o alìm > 'Ì'awn alìm

(I'm not sure about the intermediate step. Could be that it was reanalyzed nì+[fya'o a lìm] > nì+[fya'o alìm]

In any event, these a-adverbs shouldn't be considered the result of a productive process in the contemporary language. They're historical artifacts that have to be listed in the lexicon. The productive adverbial affix remains nì-.

Plumps

Interesting – thanks for sharing! :)

I wonder whether there will be equivalent forms for hight and depth with tìm and kxayl ...

Krrtspangyu

Quote from: Plumps on May 18, 2010, 12:55:58 AM
Interesting – thanks for sharing! :)

I wonder whether there will be equivalent forms for hight and depth with tìm and kxayl ...


I don't think so, sim and lìm are verbs, tìm and kxayl are adjectives. They could not be used as lìm in "'Ì'awn nìfya'o a lìm > ? 'Ì'awn nìfya'o alìm > 'Ì'awn alìm". So I think the a-construction is hardly probable.

Kawturi ke tsun ftivang keye'ungit sawtuteyä
Klick bitte kurz drauf. Kerin Toruk'evil tìsrungit ngeyä!

Ftiafpi

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

Kì'eyawn

eo Eywa oe 'ia

Fra'uri tìyawnur oe täpivìng nìwotx...

Kemaweyan

Irayo, ma tsmukan. Slä lu oer tìpawm: tsun fko sivar melì'ut a san nìlìm sìk sì san nìsim sìk srak?
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

roger

Quote from: Kemaweyan on May 18, 2010, 06:47:17 PM
Irayo, ma tsmukan. Slä lu oer tìpawm: tsun fko sivar melì'ut a san nìlìm sìk sì san nìsim sìk srak?

I don't know. I can only assume that it would be similar to other languages, for example if you said "goodly" or "gooder" instead of "well" or "better" in English. Or like some people say "funner", which sounds to me like it should go with "ain't never bin no funner", but of course I understand them.