misc. answers

Started by roger, March 23, 2010, 02:17:32 AM

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roger

A few answers to my questions:

When asked which of several defs of 'responsible' kllfro' is:
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Yes, it is a compound, and the first element is indeed kll 'ground.' But I haven't yet decided on what the fro' part means.

The idea is to be responsible for someone or something--that is, having s.o. or s.t. as your "job, duty, or area of concern" (as my desk dictionary puts it).

The line in the original script was Moat's, when she tells Neytiri that she (Neytiri) will be the one to ensure Jake's progress in learning the ways of the Na'vi:

Pori zene kllfrivo' nga. 'He is your responsibility.'
On what happens with infixing stressed syllabic C's:
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In a case like frrfen, where the stress is on frr, the ipfv remains frrfen:

frrfen (stress on 1st) + <er> --> *ferrrfen > frrfen

When the stress is not on the pseudovowel, however, it drops:

plltxe (stress on 2nd) + <ol> --> *pollltxe > poltxe
When asked about ay sometimes being a diphthong, and sometimes V+C:
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Keep in mind that ay, ey, aw, ew are diphthongs as well as VC's. (In tsawl, for example, you know the aw is a diphthong, because if it weren't, you'd have a syllable ending in two C's, which is prohibited.)

So the syllabification will tell you which you have. For example:

tswayon is tsway.on, indicating that the ay is a diphthong.
But layon is la.yon, indicating that the y is a consonant.

(I'm not sure there's much consequence to these distinctions--the pronunciations seem pretty much the same.)

Similar things hold for w.

[...]
In general, the tendency with VCV is to syllabify as V.CV rather than VC.V (assuming there's a choice--i.e., that C is one of the consonants that can appear in syllable-final position).

So the default is V.gV, as in mu.ge, a.u.gi.a, etc.

For 'egeg, the word may have originated as a reduplicated form: *'eg'eg < 'eg + 'eg, which would favor 'eg.eg.

Same with kagagag, which is clearly onomatopoetic: kag + ag + ag (a bang with two echos), hence kag.ag.ag. If you separated it as ka.ga.gag, it would lose the echo effect.
Thus several cases, such as ayoe, where syllabification follows morphology rather than normal CVCV pattern. (I'd left that as another question, but it seems to be indirectly answered here.) It should be noted, however, that in practice Paul pronounces ayoe as /a.'jo.e/, not /aj.'o.e/ as he transcribes it, and that there is also liaison across word boundaries (ma sute Amerika /ma.'su.ta.'me.ri.ka/), so this is presumably only relevant for careful enunciation.

I'd asked about the pattern of the seder, where if I had done it, I would have had contrasting topic constructions:
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As for fìtxon vs. fìtxonìri, I considered your version but decided against it: all those "-ìri's" sounded too sing-songy to me. Since fìtxon, unadorned, can be used adverbially (i.e. 'tonight'), I think the form without the ending is justifiable.

So instead of:

As for all other nights, we do X; as for this night, we do Y

we have instead:

As for all other nights, we do X; (but) tonight we do Y

Both versions seem OK to me.
That is, the expected contrast between two topics may well be the grammatical norm, but was decided against here for stylistic reasons.

Confirmed that txll'u "hookagourd" is a legit word.
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It's a real word and a new root. You're right--the majority of the plant names are compounds (along the lines of "sunflower") but some are roots (like "rose," "crocus").
So no need to try to extract "hookah" and "gourd" from it! I'd only asked about this one word in that email, as it looked so obviously Na'vi. I don't know about several others; he hasn't gotten back to me on them.

Plumps

Quote from: roger on March 23, 2010, 02:17:32 AM
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In a case like frrfen, where the stress is on frr, the ipfv remains frrfen:

frrfen (stress on 1st) + <er> --> *ferrrfen > frrfen

When the stress is not on the pseudovowel, however, it drops:

plltxe (stress on 2nd) + <ol> --> *pollltxe > poltxe

Interesting bits! Thanks for sharing!!!

Do you know what happens if the imperfective merges with the subjunctive? Does this rule still hold true then? Or is it *firvrrfen? I can't quite see the linguistic reasons behind that, really... :-\
Thanks for considering

wm.annis

Quote from: Plumps83 on March 23, 2010, 05:43:22 AMDo you know what happens if the imperfective merges with the subjunctive? Does this rule still hold true then? Or is it *firvrrfen? I can't quite see the linguistic reasons behind that, really...

Firvrrfen is fine.  The question has to do with phonotactics (what happens when certain sounds run into each other), the contraction of r + rr and l + ll.  Since that doesn't happen in the firvrrfen example, it's not an issue.

roger

Quote from: wm.annis on March 23, 2010, 07:47:54 AM
Firvrrfen is fine.  The question has to do with phonotactics (what happens when certain sounds run into each other), the contraction of r + rr and l + ll.  Since that doesn't happen in the firvrrfen example, it's not an issue.

Yes, it's specifically *ferrrfen > frrfen because *rrr is not a legal syllable.

Kemaweyan

Quote from: roger on March 23, 2010, 08:58:10 AM
Yes, it's specifically *ferrrfen > frrfen because *rrr is not a legal syllable.

Pelun kea san ferfen sìk? Na plltxe + ol -> poltxe.

Why not "ferfen"? Like as plltxe + ol -> poltxe.
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

Na'rìghawnu

#5
About ay/ey/aw/ew as diphthongs or VC, Frommer said, that
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I'm not sure there's much consequence to these distinctions--the pronunciations seem pretty much the same.

Well ... it *does* matter in the case of arranging the words in a dictionary. Not, if you do it according to English rules, where e. g. "i" and "ì" or "a" and "ä" fall into the same category (which doesn't make sense from the Na'vi standpoint), but if you try to put the words in an alphabet, which takes respect to the Na'vi sound-system, "ay" as a diphthong is a separate sound, so that words starting with "ay" don't just get in the article about "a", but get their own article. The same about the other diphthongs and pseudovowels ("rr" isn't "r+r", and therefore to put between "rp" and "rs", it's a complete different sound, so it is placed *outside* (e. g. *after*) the other "r"s).

So, if you have an Na'vi alphabet like the one in our wiki-vocabulary , where e. g. the diphthong "ay" has it's own right apart from "a", uncertainties cause trouble. Example:

maw [maw] (Adp–) after (time).
mawey [ma.ˈwɛj] (Adj) calm.
mawkrr [maw.kr̩ː] (Adv) after (time), afterwards. 

"Mawey" is given as maWEY, so it's clear, that the -aw- here isn't the diphthong. So according to the Na'vi alphabet, "mawey" should be put BEFORE "maw", because there the "aw" is the diphthong and the alphabetical order is: a, aw, ay. So any words, where there *is* -aw-, but *not* the "diphthong-aw", should preceed all words with "diphthong-aw"s. (Until now I didn't put "mawey" in front of the others, but to maintain consistency, it should be done.)

So in the case of sorting words in the dictionary correctly, the difference between the diphthong and the VC very well *has* consequences.

Of course, maybe this isn't a problem to many people, but just to the ones, who write the dictionaries, but to them it is. And since all the other people want to use the dictionaries, it may become a problem to them too, because they had to look up "mawey" not after, but before "maw".

roger

Quote from: Kemaweyan on March 23, 2010, 10:46:41 AM
Quote from: roger on March 23, 2010, 08:58:10 AM
Yes, it's specifically *ferrrfen > frrfen because *rrr is not a legal syllable.

Pelun kea san ferfen sìk? Na plltxe + ol -> poltxe.

Why not "ferfen"? Like as plltxe + ol -> poltxe.

Because infixes are never stressed, and stress does not shift when a verb is infixed.

Kemaweyan

Set tslolam, irayo. Ngian oeru kelaw lu fya'o a oe tsun tslilvam futa lì'u lu san frrfen sìk (luke san er sìk) fu san ferrrfen sìk.

Now understood, thanks. However not clear to me the way to can understand that word is "frrfen" (without "er") or "ferrrfen".
Nìrangal frapo tsirvun pivlltxe nìNa'vi :D

roger

Quote from: Kemaweyan on March 23, 2010, 11:41:50 AM
Set tslolam, irayo. Ngian oeru kelaw lu fya'o a oe tsun tslilvam futa lì'u lu san frrfen sìk (luke san er sìk) fu san ferrrfen sìk.

Now understood, thanks. However not clear to me the way to can understand that word is "frrfen" (without "er") or "ferrrfen".

In English, the past tense of "read" is "read". Context will tell. (Of course, that isn't much consolation to the language learner, any more than being told you really don't need to write vowels in Arabic is much help.)

NeotrekkerZ

Great to know about frrfen, that had been bugging me for a while.
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

Swoka Swizaw

#10
Quote from: Kemaweyan on March 23, 2010, 10:46:41 AM
Quote from: roger on March 23, 2010, 08:58:10 AM
Yes, it's specifically *ferrrfen > frrfen because *rrr is not a legal syllable.

Pelun kea san ferfen sìk? Na plltxe + ol -> poltxe.

Why not "ferfen"? Like as plltxe + ol -> poltxe.

Nìeyawr nga poltxe!