Notation Change for Cases

[Taronyu]

Wm Annis' document has brought into the public forum a question that has been sort of hanging around for a while, but no one seemed to talk about it. Perhaps it got brought up here and there, but nothing really changed as a whole. Well, in the past few weeks Wm Annis' grammar, my dictionary, and now Na'vi in a Nutshell have changed, and I think it'd be a good idea if we let people know why instead of just having it happen.

I'm talking of course about the terms Nominative, Accusative, Ergative, Absolutive and the corresponding terms Subjective, Patientive, Agentive. We now are no longer using the former terms, but are relying exclusively on the second. It would be great if, as a site, we all moved over in a notation.

Here's why. Ergativity isn't really what's going on in Na'vi. We've been saying it is, for ages, but that's not really the case. It works for the Basque system, though. If they were applicable, Na'vi would look like this:

Oe-l hahaw. I sleep.
Oe-t tspang yerik-ìl. I kill the yerik.

As you can see, the subject in intransitive and the object in transitive share the same ending, while the subject in transitive changes to something else. The absolutive marker is here the -l. The -t is technically the ergative. These terms haven't really been used properly, which may have been fairly confusing for new learners, although we have managed to use the Latinate terms nominative and accusative to express what is going on fairly well.

But this is not how Na'vi is. Agentive, Patientive, and Subjective are the standard terms that ought to be applied to Na'vi. Each is different. So:

Oe-(0) hahaw. I sleep.
Oe-l tspang yerik-it. I kill the yerik.

You'll see there's zero marking on the noun in the intranstive. So, it comes out as just Oe tspang. I don't think any of us have any problem with this, but we might have problem with calling this the Subjective case, which is technically what it is. The -l then marks agentive - as it is the agent which performs the action (not technically correct semantic notation, but that's where agentive derives from, which is not a syntactic case (If you don't understand this, don't worry.)) The object takes the patientive case, -it. And this is how Na'vi works, as we know, and now we should have the correct terms to apply to it. So, I think, from here on out: Ergative, Nominative, Accusative, and Absolutive should be stricken from our vocabulary concerning Na'vi. (Unless we're talking to people who have learned, say, Spanish.) We now have three terms: Agentive, Patientive, Subjective. Right.

I hope this clarifies things. I posted it here because this is probably the best place for it.

Edit: made the 'fake' example correct in terminology. Even I don't fully have ergativity internalised.

[Ftiafpi]

I'm Ftiafpi and I approve this message.

*ahem* Being serious now, this is good. To me even the terminology seems to make more sense. It may just be me but agentive seems to be more obvious in it's use than ergative (which has no clear latin root that I can see).

Oh, and what are the glossed abbreviations for reference?

[Taronyu]

I was thinking age., pat., and sbj. Sound good?

[’eylan ’angtsìkä]

is there a clear distinction between SBJ Subjective and Subjunctive?

AGE reminds me of how old I am.  AGN?

(feel free to ignore the newbie  )

[Taronyu]

AGN sounds better. I'll use that.

Sidenote: I can't respond to your PM, and I'm not sure why. Email richard at learnnavi . org, if you could.

[Swoka Swizaw]

Nìngay, oeru suneiu mipa faylì'u leoeyktìng nang. Irayo, nìtxan.

[HTML_Earth]

Well, in the past few weeks Wm Annis' grammar, my dictionary, and now Na'vi in a Nutshell have changed,

Your dictionary still has the abbreviations ERG and ACC in it. (In the Noun Case and Plurality Inflections chapter)

[Lance R. Casey]

WP gives AGT, PAT and SBJ/SUB, respectively, with SJV/SBJV for subjunctive.

[Taronyu]

WP gives AGT, PAT and SBJ/SUB, respectively, with SJV/SBJV for subjunctive.

I'll use these.

I fixed those erg. and acc. this morning, but it looks like the database is having some issues with me updating at the moment and it didn't stick as I thought it did. I'll talk to my DBA and see how/when this can be fixed.

[omängum fra'uti]

There's also A (Agent), P (Patient) and S (Single argument) which are from the Leipzig Glossing Rules.

[Prrton]

There's also A (Agent), P (Patient) and S (Single argument) which are from the Leipzig Glossing Rules.

I think that when these terms are first introduced to new learners (and for the sake of the "old timers" correcting their vocabularies and "catching up") it would be very good to show the 'correct' pronunciations of the terms at least in IPA.

I'm more in favor of the three letter abbreviations and we need TOP and others standardized as well.

I'm glad that we're not calling -l 'ergative' anymore. So confusing.

[wm.annis]

It may just be me but agentive seems to be more obvious in it's use than ergative (which has no clear latin root that I can see).

Cuz it's Greek!

[Tsamsiyu92]

And -ru/-ur/-r remain being called dative, kefyak?

[Taronyu]

And -ru/-ur/-r remain being called dative, kefyak?

And -yä/ä remain the genitive, kop.

[omängum fra'uti]

Not to mention -ri and -ìri remain the topic.

[Muzer]

What was absolutive? I never used that one.

And I do indeed find the new words confusing - subjective sounds to me like it should be a transitive verb (as it is the subject, as opposed to the object...), and patientive also seems to make little sense to me (the one who waits for something? hrh). I'll try to use the new terms, however - but I'm the sort of person who can't change their ways when they have learnt something.

[Taronyu]

Think of it like this:

Subject - The person who is the subject, but who isn't doing anything. (Intransitive)

Agentive - the Agent. The one who goes around doing the verb.

Patientive - The patient, lying on the table, on whom the operation is performed. The object.

Make sense?

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I guess that means that tìmweypeyit is truly patientive. 

[Kemaweyan]

I guess that means that tìmweypeyit is truly patientive. 

I think, tìmweypeyti

[omängum fra'uti]

For diphthongs, it can be -it or -ti, either is correct.  On its own, -it would probably be more likely.