Sì'eyng a ftu Na'rìng #6: tuté, alo; slu; kan

[Prrton]

(1) A couple of clarifications on on stress.

Tuté

We've known for a long time that the difference between the word tute (person) and tute (woman) is the stress on the first syllable vs. the second. Normally Na'vi does not use any accent marks or other diacritics than ì and ä to distinguish these sounds fundamentally from i and a. But K. Pawl has officially recognized the spelling tuté for "woman".

Wou, another character we have to struggle with unless its usage is optional

Looking back at some of the possible homophones, I caught wind a word like "hawnuyu" can be spoken with two different stress patterns.  Here I could see an ú being practical, although could the acute accent apply to all of the situations where writing out a word would otherwise become a homograph?

I am under the impression that the correct spelling of the word for "woman" is simply tuté. To my knowledge, nothing was discussed about it being optional.

Already mentioned by O.F. before I finished typing... The verb «hawnu» is stressed on the first syllable. I don't understand where hawnuyu or hawnuyu would come from. Adding -yu should not change the stress. I do believe that Wes Studi (as Eytukan) mispronounced taronyu as taronyu in the film, but, I'm firmly under the impression that it's properly interpreted as an error.

Probably so.  Neytiri says "taronyu".

Hmm..  maybe then it's hawnuyu and hawnúyu.

If the accents were used, it should only ever be háẃnuyu for either word. There is no «uy» diphthong in Na'vi and the stress must remain on the stressed vowel or diphthong as it occurs in the uninflected verb anyway. Only omum violates this rule at this time.

[Prrton]

I suppose that it could also be tolerated for people to use acute accents (´) in the spellings of their own names too, but I've never asked K. Pawl about it.

 The English name Thomas = Támasì

 The French name Thomas = Tomá

If people were prone to mispronounce my name as Prrton, then I guess it might be spelled Pŕŕton, but I won't be doing that.

As of now, the only word in the standard lexicon that is spelled with an (´) is tuté.

['Oma Tirea]

If the accents were used, it should only ever be háẃnuyu for either word. There is no «uy» diphthong in Na'vi and the stress must remain on the stressed vowel or diphthong as it occurs in the uninflected verb anyway. Only omum violates this rule at this time.

Sran, it's likely because "omum" is currently the only bisyllabic word that begins with a vowel.

Also, who would think of accenting diphthongs completely and accenting pseudovowels for stress?  Those don't have any stress-contrastive forms as we know it.

But otherwise, I can see even where the secondary stress is makes the two forms of "hawnuyu" homophones, even when spoken.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

  Oel kan swizawit oeyä tsopìr yerikä.

  I aim my arrow at the yerik's lung.

I am looking at this example sentence and scratching my head. In some ways it looks like two sentences. It also looks like an a (or something else) is needed between oeyä and tsopir. Am I somehow interpreting this incorrectly? (At first, it even looked like 'I aim arrow at my yerik's lungs'.)

I also seem to vaguely recall that there was some use of é early on (like last February or before) that quietly disappeared.

[Prrton]

  Oel kan swizawit oeyä tsopìr yerikä.

  I aim my arrow at the yerik's lung.

I am looking at this example sentence and scratching my head. In some ways it looks like two sentences. It also looks like an a (or something else) is needed between oeyä and tsopir. Am I somehow interpreting this incorrectly? (At first, it even looked like 'I aim arrow at my yerik's lungs'.)

I also seem to vaguely recall that there was some use of é early on (like last February or before) that quietly disappeared.

  Oel kan oeyä swizawit tsopìr yerikä.

This is also a perfect valid way to construct this, but I don't believe that it's required for the sentence to be clear.

  Oeyä swizawit kan oel tsopìr yerikä.

This separates the nouns and their genitive modifiers even more. It's still the same meaning. This 2nd one emphasizes "arrow" a bit more. Perhaps there was another tool available to the hunter for the yerik, but he or she chose the arrow.

Keep in mind that in real conversation these would have all of the LIFE and CONTEXT that one would need to clear up some of the ambiguities that we inherit with printed text. It comes with the territory.

The first one (original example) has a nice balance specifically because of the noun-genitive, noun-genitive thing going on, in my way of thinking.

I'm sure that others, like me, have been writing tuté here and there. It's simply now been officially recognized as "OK".

   

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Irayo! tsaw srung oeru lu, ma Prrton.

This does illustrate how the way we think about communication and language affects how we interpret things, as I had mentioned in an earlier post in this thread. For instance, I had trouble with Oel kan swizawit oeyä tsopìr yerikä, even if it was 'legal' and clear to you. OTOH, I had no trouble whatsoever understanding Oel kan oeyä swizawit tsopìr yerikä. The third example is good, too, but the second is still the best. I suspect some of this will rub off as i gain more experience understanding things not in logical (to me) word order.