About <eng> and <ev>

[Hymake]

I've been thinking about these afixes:

- Couldn't be <eng> a deferential affix?
You have 'ngenga'. It could be from 'nga' + 'eng'. And 'ohe' is the deferential form of 'oe' because 'oeng' is already another form of the pronoun.

And in the sentence 'I apologise for this moron', 'fìskxawngìri tsapxalute s<eng>i oe', looks like the Na'vi is talking to Eywa, like we talk to god (oh my god...)

- <ev> as desiderative
I think I'm wrong, but if you see 'kìyevame'...
k<ìy><ev>ame
kame -> see
ìy -> immediate future
ev -> ? desiderative?

It would be something like English "see you soon", "i hope we'll see each other soon"...

Please, tell me if I'm absolutely wrong

Eywa ayngahu ^^

[wm.annis]

I doubt we'd get a verbal infix in a pronoun, but your fìskxawngìri example is suggestive.  And the person need not be speaking to Eywa, just someone they're respectful of.

Futures and desideratives are kissing cousins already, so I sort of doubt <ev> is a desiderative marker.  Frommer's translation of kìyevame suggests to me that <ev> might encode the notion of "again," since some languages that worry about verb aspect also mark some ideas like "again, start to..., stop ..., etc." with aspect markers.

[Ayzìsìt Alenantang]

Couldn't <eng> be something like "about"? As in "My apology is about this moron"? Then again, "ng<eng>a".
And I agree that <ev> is likely to be "again", althrough there is a woed for it, nìmun.

[Hymake]

The 'about' you talk about (oh gosh) is in fìskxawngìri -> -ìri marks topic, which can be translated into something like 'about this moron:'

[Ayzìsìt Alenantang]

It came up to me that <eng> might stand for "Doing that acion for somone else", meaning that "I apologise for this ,orom" will stand not for "I apologise about this moron", but rather "I apologise for this moron (Since he can't do it himself)".

[kewnya txamew'itan]

thinking about it <eng> bears a token resemblance to <er><äng>, is it possible that si is irregular and uses a special set of infixes in some circumstances? A perjorative imperfective would seem to express the right sentiment for the context.

Other than that, it isn't a tense or an aspect that has any relation to English at all or else it wouldn't translate back properly without it which it does:

fìskxawngìri        tsapxalute  si oe
this moron(TOP)  apology     make I
as for this moron apology     make I
I apologise for this moron.



I'm going to go with an irregular infix, it would make it more like a real language to have some irregular verbs as well and to do is often irregular along with to be and to have.

[Ayzìsìt Alenantang]

That's all well and good, but the apologise is not suppoused to be improved.
If I understand correctly "improved" means something like "proggresive", and the speaker apologises, or makes an apology, in a ceartain moment, making it a short action.
But I do agree it could be an irregular pejoritive, since the speaker is unhappy for being forced to apologise for this moron.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

The imperfective is a little awkward in this situation, I just plucked it from a few infixes that sound a bit similar.

The main point was that it could be an irregular infix.

[Taronyu]

The main point was that it could be an irregular infix.

The main point is that we don't know. This is pretty good speculation, though.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Quite so. Almost everything in this thread is just an educated (or not) guess. Until Frommer tells us, what can we do?

[Yanatan]

Thought I'd post briefly and mention that I too think <ev> could mean "again", and I brought it up on IRC a day or so ago when it occured to me.

[wm.annis]

Thought I'd post briefly and mention that I too think <ev> could mean "again", and I brought it up on IRC a day or so ago when it occured to me.

Nope.  As of today we know the <ìyev> business is a future subjunctive.  I expect Frommer's email on the subject will be on the wiki soon enough.

[Yanatan]

<ìyev> is a single infix?

[wm.annis]

It's a single infix in its own right?

Effectively, yes.  It's really two infixes that got married, discovered they were incompatible phonologically, then split up with the help of a vowel.

Edit: I used to be able to spell.

[Mithcoriel]

The "eng" really confuses me. When I first saw the sentence "fìskxawngìri tsap'alute sengi oe" (I apologize for this moron) I thought it must be a typo, and it should say "s<äng>i", not "s<eng>i", since that would make sense from context.
But you make it sound like the sentence is from a rather canonical and reliable source. So, is there no chance it's a mistake, or a case where they later on changed their mind about spelling?

[wm.annis]

But you make it sound like the sentence is from a rather canonical and reliable source. So, is there no chance it's a mistake, or a case where they later on changed their mind about spelling?

More than one reliable source, in fact.  We don't know yet what exactly is going on with ‹eng›.

[Mithcoriel]

- Couldn't be <eng> a deferential affix?
You have 'ngenga'. It could be from 'nga' + 'eng'.

That makes sense. Though personally, when I saw the word "ngenga" for the first time, I assumed that was the old word for "you", which was shortened to "nga" in modern times. And usually when you want to be formal, you use the old, longer words.

Effectively, yes.  It's really two infixes that got married, discovered they were incompatible phonologically, then split up with the help of a vowel.

Wait, so you're saying "kiyevame" is "kame" + iy + iv, but since "kiyivame" is hard to pronounce there was a vowel shift to "kiyevame"?

[wm.annis]

Wait, so you're saying "kiyevame" is "kame" + iy + iv, but since "kiyivame" is hard to pronounce there was a vowel shift to "kiyevame"?

Not quite.  According to the usual rules of infix combination, you'd end up with *iyv — an illegal combination.  See Fused -iv- Infixes for the Epistle to Suomichris about this.