Reef Na’vi part 2: Morphology, Syntax, Lexicon . . . and more

[Toliman]

Reef Na'vi part 2: Morphology, Syntax, Lexicon . . . and more
https://naviteri.org/2023/05/reef-navi-part-2-morphology-syntax-lexicon-and-more/
Posted on May 5, 2023 by Pawl

Kaltxì nìmun, ma frapo!

Srane, oe tolätxeiaw. Some personal issues kept me away, but now that they've been resolved, I'm very happy to be back.

So let's see . . . where were we?

The last couple of posts dealt with the phonetics and phonology of Reef Na'vi. This one concerns the morphology, syntax, and lexicon—and at this point there's less to say about those aspects of the dialect. I talked about most of this material in my January 2023 OmatiCon presentation, but I'll repeat the information here, for the record. I'll also introduce a few new words and expressions relevant to both Forest and Reef Na'vi.

Reef Morphology

FN and RN have virtually identical morphology (that is, the rules for building words out of meaningful elements). One difference—more of a tendency than an absolute requirement—is that for the patientive (objective) suffix, which as you know can take three forms (-ti, -it, and -t), RN favors -ti. So, for example, the Na'vi for 'I'm looking for this man' can take two forms:

  Oel fwew fìtutanit.
  Oel fwew fìtutanti.

In FN, A and B are both used, with A perhaps a bit more frequent. In RN, B is considerably more likely, although A is understood and sometimes used.

Reef Syntax

Na'vi word order, as you know, is remarkably free, and many reorderings of the elements of a given sentence remain grammatical. One exception, however, concerns the topical. Up to now, we've seen that a noun phrase in the topical case must come at the beginning of its clause. The major syntactic difference between FN and RN is that in RN, the topical is not restricted in this way. So consider these two translations of 'Thanks for this beautiful gift':

  Fìstxeliri alor irayo.
  Irayo fistxeliri alor.

In FN, only A is possible. In RN, they're both fine, even though in B, the topical comes at the end of the sentence. The structure in this case is comment+topic rather than topic+comment.

Another syntactic difference is that in RN, lu is often omitted:

  [REEF OLO'EYKTAN]
  Fìtutan a rììrmì ftu na'rìng.
  'This man in the reflection is from the forest.'

The exact circumstances under which this omission is likely to occur remain to be investigated.

Reef Lexicon

Along with pronunciation, vocabulary differences between dialects are the ones most noticeable to speakers. Looking at American vs. British English, for example, AE apartment = BE flat, AE elevator = BE lift, AE trunk (of a car) = BE boot, and so on ad infinitum.

There are also cases where two different terms for the same thing appear in both dialects, but either the usage is different, or one is strongly favored over the other. Take the word "brilliant," for example, which is found in both AE and BE. In AE, it can mean 'bright' or 'radiant' ("A brilliant spotlight lit up the actor on stage") or it can mean 'extremely clever or talented' ("What a brilliant student your son is!"). In BE, however, "brilliant" can also be a general term for anything very good or excellent ("I'm having a brilliant day"); it's not used in that way in AE.

Since we know less about RN than about FN, we don't yet have a lot of examples of such lexical differences. There will be more to come. For now, however, the most notable difference we've seen is the word for 'know.' Both FN and RN use the two terms omum and syawm (pronounced shawm in RN). However, omum is much more common in FN, while syawm is the usual term in RN.

  [REEF OLO'EYKTAN]
  Kehe, faysuteri ke shawm ayoel keut.
  'No, we know nothing of these people.'

As you know, the other big area of lexical difference is in the u/ù distinction, which has been retained from the parent language in RN but lost in FN. A comprehensive list of these distinctions is coming.

And now for some things pertaining to both dialects:

Back in the A1 script, Tsu'tey angrily said the following:

Fayvrrtep fìtsenge lu kxanì.  Fìpoti oel tspìyang fte tìkenong lìyevu aylaru!
'These demons are forbidden here. I will kill this one as a lesson to the others!'

To date, I don't believe we've had an explanation for aylaru 'to the others.'

The paradigm for alahe 'others, the others' (animate or non-animate) is as follows:

            Full                  Shorter
S          aylahe              ayla
A          aylahel            aylal
P          aylahet(i)        aylat(i)
G          aylaheyä          ayleyä
D          aylaher(u)      aylar(u)
T          aylaheri          aylari

lante (vin., LAN.te, inf. 1, 2) 'wander'

  Fo ka na'rìng lerante tengkrr syuvet fwerew.
  'They're wandering across the forest looking for food.'

ketartu (n., ke.TAR.tu) 'outcast'

This word is based on tare 'connect, have a relationship with.' An outcast is a person or being that has been disconnected from society and no longer has a relationship with others.

pxazang (n., PXA.zang) 'akula'

The akula is the fierce shark-like creature found in the seas of Pandora. In terms of its name, there's been some confusion, because the word akula certainly sounds as if it's Na'vi! In fact, however, it's the Russian word for 'shark,' акула. That word has been borrowed into English as the name for the Pandoran creature, but of course the Na'vi have their own term. Keep in mind that in RN, it's pronounced bazang.

Finally, a useful idiom:

Ngari peu? 'What's wrong? What's the matter?'

  Lam fwa nga sti nìtxan. Ngari peu?
  'You seem very angry. What's wrong?'

That's it for now. Hayalovay!