Some little bits on "tut"

Started by omängum fra'uti, July 11, 2011, 03:28:33 PM

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omängum fra'uti

On Saturday I asked Karyu Pawl about the particle of continuation, "tut".  Most linguistic topics I have had no trouble researching, but that one has eluded my attempts to search for anything about it, so I wanted some clarification.  I learned two things about it.

1. It is modeled after the Mandarin Chinese particle "ne".  (Here's some information I found online later.)

2. So far we've only seen it uses in the form of "ngaru tut", but that is just because the questions it's used for are asked with "nga" in the dative.  You should match the case when asking the question back.  For example...

A: Ngal poti tsole'a srak?
B: Kehe, ngal tut?
A: Srane!

I did not get a chance to ask about other uses of "ne" in Mandarin Chinese, as at the time I did not know anything about it.  I also did not think to ask about it being used with any noun case (Esp. genitive or topic) or with adpositions instead of noun case.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

Kemaweyan

Irayo, but it was clear to me because we have almost the same thing in Russian and there cases also are matched.

But I have a question. In Russian we could ask the question back concerning not only "you", but any person. We even could ask "who does?" using the same construction. Is it possible in Na'vi? For example:

A: Ngal poti tsole'a srak?
B: Kehe, ngal tut?
A: Kehe!
B: Tsmukanìl ngeyä tut?
A: Kehe.
B: Pesul tut?
A: Neytiril.
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

omängum fra'uti

That was one of the things that I did not get to clarify, since I had no knowledge of any language with such a thing ahead of time, hence why I asked.  However, given that such a use is possible in Mandarin, I would be surprised if it was not possible in Na'vi as well.  I would not go so far as to make an assumption that it was.  (In fact, the part you said was clear I thought seemed pretty clear too, but since we have not really had any word on it at all from Frommer, I just wanted to make sure that's how it worked rather than assuming.)
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

Plumps

Thanks for this little but useful information :)

Does that mean that tut is kind of a question word like srak?

Also, for me that indicates that no kop or nìteng is needed, right?

Kamean

Tse'a ngal ke'ut a krr fra'uti kame.


Tswusayona Tsamsiyu

irayo. so basically tut continues the last sentence so we don't have to mention it again (or something like that).
example:
ngal poti tsole'a srak?
kehe, ngal tut?

if my way of thinking is correct, then tut is like "do" in English.
have you seen him?
no, did you?

if that's so I think we can confidently assume that it can be used with other people as well.
Nivume Na'vit, fpivìl nìNa'vi, kivame na Na'vi.....
oer fko syaw tswusayona tsamsiyu

wm.annis

Quote from: Tswusayona Tsamsiyu on July 12, 2011, 12:06:03 PMif my way of thinking is correct, then tut is like "do" in English.
have you seen him?
no, did you?

If this is like Chinese "ne", then saying it's like English "do" is potentially quite misleading.  Though, your example is good.

"What about ...?" seems like a good dodge.

  A: Trram ke zup tompa. "It didn't rain yesterday."
  B: Fìtrr tut? "What about today?"

Tswusayona Tsamsiyu

Nivume Na'vit, fpivìl nìNa'vi, kivame na Na'vi.....
oer fko syaw tswusayona tsamsiyu

Tirea Aean

what about the children???!! xD

interesting how we have tsaw, pum, and tut which have similar functions.