Na'vi in a Nutshell

Started by NeotrekkerZ, February 17, 2010, 09:54:45 PM

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NeotrekkerZ

QuoteIn 2.1.1. you talk about matching for case, this should be number.
will fix

QuoteIn 3.2. Language note 3.3 you say we have tsa meaning it. Tsa isn't it, tsaw is and the w is ellided when it is put into a case.
Just so I have this straight:  It's tsaw by itself but tsaX if there is an ending on it; and it's tsawl for the ergative never tsal? Attestation if possible would be nice for the tsawl thing.

Quote4.2 pronunciation note, Frommer said it often becomes we not must, slight wording change needed.
I'm not seeing what you're referring to here.

Quote5.2 Mood is a bad term as it can be confused with subjunctive/indicative/imperative etc. you might want to change this to effect or opinion or something similar.
Only for people who know about languages/linguistics.  I think the sentences immediately following clarify my meaning fairly well.  Plus if I were to use something like "emotions" instead, then <ats> becomes a problem.  I am of course open to suggestions.

Quote5.4 You only cover in passing that it is also a conditional instead focussing solely on its modal, subjunctive and optative uses.
I've already tweaked this.  It will be in the next update.

QuotePage 17, should use tok not lu.
I have it on page 13, but you are right.  Will fix.

Quote5.5 Third example (actually the sentence I play the drums) is idiomatic, should be replaced.
Will tweak.

Quote5.7 In this context fpìl is intransitive so it would be ngat(i) not ngaru.
As I understand it, the forcee/one who is made is always put in the dative regardless of the transitivity.

Quote6.1.2 <us> is <0> (not that I can see a case when it'll matter)
Will fix.

Quote6.1.3 as above regarding <awn>
Will fix.  I can't believe I got them both wrong. :-[

Quote8. 4) No. The first position is the focus (the most emphasis), the end is an extra punch that is just a bit more focussed on than any position other than first, you imply that it is the focus.
Will fix.

Quote8.1.5 another reference to tsa=it, should be tsaw
Will fix

Quote9.1.1. "just used for effect" implies that is optional. It might be better to drop that bit of the explanation and leave it as is. Also, you don't mention that it is optional for animals. You might also want to include the group-noun (brain's failing me right now) vocative here as well (I know it wasn't around when this was last updated).
Will tweak and add -ya.

Quote9.7 most of the others are idioms, I see no reason to single this one out.
It's more to distinguish it from "Have" which I view as a special construction more than an idiom.  If that makes any sense. :)

Quote9.10 I definitely don't like the look of the second will you help us sentence. It would actually mean "whether you will help us or not" which makes no sense as a question. Also, the theorising about whether fuke might replace srak, whilst good, doesn't really belong in a beginner's document. IMO
That example was based off the canon:

Quote"Ftxey . . . fuke" can also be used in direct questions. For "Are you coming?" we usually say:

(5) Srake nga za'u?

But there's another version, which corresponds more closely to "Are you coming or not?"

(6) Ftxey nga za'u fuke?

The reason I included the discussion about fuke and srak was because that second example is a yes/no question in which case their prior knowledge would tell them by that point to include a srak.  Since we don't know for sure I thought it better to address it rather than let people assume one way or the other.

I'll do something about all the pronunciation things (probably just say this is how an american would pronounce it  ;)).  Will remove "click."

Well...that was a lot of stuff.  Thanks for looking through it so thoroughly.



Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

kewnya txamew'itan

#81
1. k

2. tsaw by itself but tsal, tsat(i), tsar(i) confirmation of the tsaw is arround here somewhere and about tsal is here, Frommer uses tal oleyk pot for it led him.

3. The pronunciation of oe. You make it sound like it either becomes we or ohe whilst it can in fact still remain oe (it just normally wouldn't)

4. The problem is some people who use this document will have read the crash course in linguistics terminology or will have studied other languages to the extent that it is confusing. The terms "effect" would probably be best and, I believe that at first <ei> and <äng> (when those were the only two we had) were referred to generally as "effectuals".

5. ok.

6. it's an easy mistake to make.

7. eltu si karyur(u) seems like an obvious candidate.  :)

8. That's not what the second half of your explanation (which is correct) says. Verbs that are intransitive take a direct object because (in your examples) ngal sngeykä'i unvanit is better translated as you make the game start than you start the game. Similarly tìkangìl leykatem ngat(i) is better translated as evil makes you change. In these cases you (or the game) are being forced to verb just like in the first section. Also, if this wasn't the case, causatives of si verbs with a pseudo-direct object would be horribly ambiguous.

9. As I say, it'll rarely (if ever) matter.

10. Don't worry about it, I keep getting nari and mikyun the wrong way round and everyone muddles there infixes occasionally.

11. collective noun! That's the word I was looking for.  ;D We don't have many of these yet of course, I haven't scoured the dictionary but off the top of my head I'd think the only ones would be (tsam)pongu, olo', na'vi and specific clan names.

12. Looking back at it, I agree with you that it's probably the right decision. The only truly idiomatic ones are probably 9.4 and possibly 9.5 (in addition to 9.7)

13. Ok, I couldn't find that when I looked, irayo.

14. fair enough, as I say, you'd have to resort to other languages to get them for people with my accent.  ::)
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NeotrekkerZ

Quote8. That's not what the second half of your explanation (which is correct) says. Verbs that are intransitive take a direct object because (in your examples) ngal sngeykä'i uvanit is better translated as you make the game start than you start the game. Similarly tìkangit leykatem ngat(i) is better translated as evil makes you change. In these cases you (or the game) are being forced to verb just like in the first section. Also, if this wasn't the case, causatives of si verbs with a pseudo-direct object would be horribly ambiguous.

tìkangit leykatem ngat(i) doesn't make sense to me as there are two accusatives there.  As for the translation, "evil makes you change" and "evil changes you" convey the same meaning (to me at least), so I would consider both English translations valid.  I think however you slice it though the Na'vi must be the same.  Here's the example I drew from:

Quote from: Feb 15This is an important grammatical point. (Feel free to share.) 'Change' is indeed "latem," but it's the intransitive version, as in "Everything is changing." To change SOMETHING, you need the transitive version, which is achieved through a causative: to change something is to cause something to change.

    The causative infix is -eyk-, which is in "pre-first" position--that is, it comes before the familiar first-position infixes like -iv-, -ol-, etc. So for the imperative you can say either leykatem or leykivatem.

    "Begin" works similarly: sngä'i is intransitive: Something is beginning. To begin or start something, you need the causative form: sngeykä'i. Oel sngeykolä'i tìkangkemit. 'I began the work.'

As for your concern about the ambiguity, that was exactly the same reaction I had when I first saw the <eyk> being used that way.  I sent an email to Frommer about it, which he said was a very valid point and would get back to me about it, but that was over a month ago.  Fingers still crossed...

I'll also fix all the tsa stuff, now that my cobwebs have been cleared.  :)
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

kewnya txamew'itan

Quote from: NeotrekkerZ on May 06, 2010, 01:17:34 AM
Quote8. That's not what the second half of your explanation (which is correct) says. Verbs that are intransitive take a direct object because (in your examples) ngal sngeykä'i uvanit is better translated as you make the game start than you start the game. Similarly tìkangit leykatem ngat(i) is better translated as evil makes you change. In these cases you (or the game) are being forced to verb just like in the first section. Also, if this wasn't the case, causatives of si verbs with a pseudo-direct object would be horribly ambiguous.

tìkangit leykatem ngat(i) doesn't make sense to me as there are two accusatives there.  As for the translation, "evil makes you change" and "evil changes you" convey the same meaning (to me at least), so I would consider both English translations valid.  I think however you slice it though the Na'vi must be the same.  Here's the example I drew from:

Quote from: Feb 15This is an important grammatical point. (Feel free to share.) 'Change' is indeed "latem," but it's the intransitive version, as in "Everything is changing." To change SOMETHING, you need the transitive version, which is achieved through a causative: to change something is to cause something to change.

    The causative infix is -eyk-, which is in "pre-first" position--that is, it comes before the familiar first-position infixes like -iv-, -ol-, etc. So for the imperative you can say either leykatem or leykivatem.

    "Begin" works similarly: sngä'i is intransitive: Something is beginning. To begin or start something, you need the causative form: sngeykä'i. Oel sngeykolä'i tìkangkemit. 'I began the work.'

As for your concern about the ambiguity, that was exactly the same reaction I had when I first saw the <eyk> being used that way.  I sent an email to Frommer about it, which he said was a very valid point and would get back to me about it, but that was over a month ago.  Fingers still crossed...

I'll also fix all the tsa stuff, now that my cobwebs have been cleared.  :)

1. That was a mistake, it was meant to be -ìl. Yes both translations are valid but the makes you change reveals more about how it works in general (that with intransitive verbs the forcee takes the accusative not dative).

2. When we first got the causative it looked like the forcee always took the accusative. Wm.annis then wondered about transitive verbs and emailed Frommer wondering if a dative would work and Frommer agreed, I don't think you're going to get a response anymore. So intransitive forcees take the accusative and transitive forcees the dative. We're still not sure about verbs that already have a dative (e.g. I make you give the bow to him) but think it would probably just use fa. The first page of this thread should cover it all.
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NeotrekkerZ

Hmm, perhaps we've flushed out the final gray area then (or maybe I'm just not seeing it 100% clearly yet), here's my logic:

1.  The direct object of si verbs take the dative ending because they are considered intransitive and hence cannot have an accusative D.O.

2.  Per my Feb 15 reference, latem is considered strictly intransitive (despite how it appears to work in English, analogous to the weirdness that is tok)

2a.  By (1) then, Oe lolatem oey sìhawlur would be valid Na'vi for I changed my plans (you could use any intransitive verb with a DO, latem just seems to work well for what I'm trying to demonstrate).

2b.  But by (2) then, I could just as well follow Frommer's example and write the same sentence as Oel leykolatem oey sìhawlit.

*If you don't like this with latem, just repeat the whole thing with an si verb.

So my confusion:  is either (2a) or (2b) wrong?  And if so, why?  It seems to me that we don't have this particular situation accounted for.  Sure there's the a priori guess by wm.annis that there is a double dative, but I don't see why this would be true in Na'vi, just because it's true in other languages.  I also don't think it solves the ambiguity problem:  Consider "I made you betray him."  Without a fair amount of pointing by the speaker, I don't see how this would be clear.

The simplest fix of course is that "evil changes you/evil makes you change" is slightly idiomatic with the quasi-personification of evil, so just do a more concrete example.
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

Plumps

Quote from: NeotrekkerZ on May 06, 2010, 03:29:27 AM
2a.  By (1) then, Oe lolatem oey sìhawlur would be valid Na'vi for I changed my plans (you could use any intransitive verb with a DO, latem just seems to work well for what I'm trying to demonstrate).

I'm not sure that this is right. I'd rather use it in sentences like oeyä sìhawl lolatem »my plans changed« – but I can't really explain it. I'm just drawing this from the examples that Frommer has given and try not to stray too far away from that path.
Especially, why the si-constructions behave differently ... but maybe my background in another language doesn't help me there. It has something to do with Frommer's explanation of »being engaged in the X-activity of ...«, right?

For »I changed my plans«, I agree with your 2b example (lit.: I made/caused my plans to change)

kewnya txamew'itan

Quote from: NeotrekkerZ on May 06, 2010, 03:29:27 AM
Hmm, perhaps we've flushed out the final gray area then (or maybe I'm just not seeing it 100% clearly yet), here's my logic:

1.  The direct object of si verbs take the dative ending because they are considered intransitive and hence cannot have an accusative D.O.

2.  Per my Feb 15 reference, latem is considered strictly intransitive (despite how it appears to work in English, analogous to the weirdness that is tok)

2a.  By (1) then, Oe lolatem oey sìhawlur would be valid Na'vi for I changed my plans (you could use any intransitive verb with a DO, latem just seems to work well for what I'm trying to demonstrate).

2b.  But by (2) then, I could just as well follow Frommer's example and write the same sentence as Oel leykolatem oey sìhawlit.

*If you don't like this with latem, just repeat the whole thing with an si verb.

So my confusion:  is either (2a) or (2b) wrong?  And if so, why?  It seems to me that we don't have this particular situation accounted for.  Sure there's the a priori guess by wm.annis that there is a double dative, but I don't see why this would be true in Na'vi, just because it's true in other languages.  I also don't think it solves the ambiguity problem:  Consider "I made you betray him."  Without a fair amount of pointing by the speaker, I don't see how this would be clear.

The simplest fix of course is that "evil changes you/evil makes you change" is slightly idiomatic with the quasi-personification of evil, so just do a more concrete example.

2a) is wrong.

You're assuming that because it is true for si verbs it is true for all intransitives.

This is not the case as si verbs are not strictly intransitive, only syntactically intransitive.

Because of this strictly intransitive verbs have to use <eyk> to become transitive in I made X verb constructions.
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NeotrekkerZ

OK, so repeat the whole thing with "I write a book" vs. "I make you write a book."  What happens there?
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

kewnya txamew'itan

I write a book = oe pamrel si pukur

Because pamrel si is syntactically intransitive (albeit not semantically), the causative form becomes oel ngati pamrel seyki pukur.

If something happens to intransitive verbs, it must happen to si verbs, but not necessarily the other way round as well.
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NeotrekkerZ

Final questions (hopefully) then:

I write a book = oe pamrel si pukur.
I make you write a book = oel ngati pamrel seyki pukur.

I make you write = Oel ngaru pamrel seyki?
I make you write to her = Oel ngati pamrel seyki poru?
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

kewnya txamew'itan

Quote from: NeotrekkerZ on May 06, 2010, 05:13:58 PM
I make you write = Oel ngaru pamrel seyki?
I make you write to her = Oel ngati pamrel seyki poru?

I make you write would oel ngati pamrel seyki because it's still sntactically intransitive.

The writing to her is interesting though because I don't know what would happen if say you wrote a message to her, you'd need two datives as it is. The basic phrase would be as above just with po-[a case of some form]. I think the only way we could work this out would be a Frommerian decision.
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Plumps

#91
I think the question of a double dative in a si-construction is already on the list of the Combining Our Effords project...

Maybe you could also avoid this problem with an adposition? »writing to her« as ne po?

kewnya txamew'itan

I've always thought that ne would be better translated as to(wards) to avoid things like this. We've been told that it is directional only so no. As I say, it really ought to be translated as to(wards) not just to, it confuses people.
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Plumps

Yes, I get your point and of course I know that it is directional but sometimes it works both ways ...
tslolam sì molte ;)


Another issue I noticed right now:

6.2.1: I know we have the example from the »Why is this night...« bit with nìfya'o letrrtrr ... but how do we know that other adjectives would behave similar as in noun–attributive adjective situation?
nìfya'o is already an adverb – why would a describing adjective take the -a- marker?

NeotrekkerZ

That's a very good question, and the short answer is I don't know for sure, I was just extrapolating.  We never see an adjective in a sentence without the attributive, unless it's something like [noun le-adj] or if there's a copulative.  I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption, especially if you think of it more as a special phrasing rather than an adverb:  the adjective describes the "manner" not the adverb nìfya'o.  But again, speculating.
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

NeotrekkerZ

Version 2.1:  Updated chapter 3, 5.4, 7.1, 7.3, 9.11, LN 5.9.  Created 9.1.2, Appendix A.  Fixed the hyperlinks in the Epilogue (for some reason renaming them confuses primo pdf) and addressed the issues in the thread above.  Probably other tweaks that I've lost track of.
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

Payoang

(Why was this not stickied?)

Fantastically useful resource, ma NeotrekkerZ.

Syaron

Irayo! I feel closer to ma olo' than my human family in many ways!
Shara

NeotrekkerZ

High praise coming from you, ma Payoang.  Irayo!
Rìk oe lu hufwemì, nìn fya'ot a oe tswayon!

Plumps

LN 3.8: »You can drop the -ä ending for colloquial/informal speech« => is this still correct? I am now under the impression that this is more a concise military register... ???