Inflections

Started by HawkPidgeon, December 21, 2009, 06:27:07 PM

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HawkPidgeon

I'm pretty confused about inflections. How do you know where to put the infix in a word?

For instance:

Taron "Hunts" -> T<im>aron "Just hunted"

I can see that the infix becomes the first syllable, but I believe I've seen the infix become the second syllable of various words as well.
Fìtsenge lu Eywayä kelku, sì fìtsenge lor lu. | Oel oeti kameie fa ngeyä menari.

Elysio

#1
If you learned well your lesson you know that there are two sorts of infixes. The firsts are in the first syllabe, always, and the seconds in the penultimate. If you have a three syllabic verb with a infix in the second syllab, it's one of the second category.

More generally, the infixes are placed just before the vowel (if i've learned well too :P)

Edit : oh sorry, i didn't learned well u___u

The firsts are in the penultimate syllabe, always, and the seconds in the last.
=> ta-ron
and it's not before the vowel, it's after the consonnant...(i'd better go to bed  ;D)

HawkPidgeon

Thanks for your help...

I'm afraid I still don't quite understand, but I get it a little better now. In time, I suppose.
Fìtsenge lu Eywayä kelku, sì fìtsenge lor lu. | Oel oeti kameie fa ngeyä menari.

wm.annis

Certain infixes go in certain slots — that's just grammar we'll have to memorize.  So, the affect infixes (<ei> and <äng>) will always be in the last syllable.  The aspect and tense infixes — of which there seem to be a lot, not all of which we've been told about — go in the next-to-last syllable ("penultimate" in linguistic jargon).  Since tense and aspect infixes can sensibly go together, it looks like we'll have to memorize the order we insert those, too.

HawkPidgeon

I see... I'll have to prepare flash cards once I learn more about this.
Fìtsenge lu Eywayä kelku, sì fìtsenge lor lu. | Oel oeti kameie fa ngeyä menari.

Elysio

Well, it's not that difficult. Most of Na'vi verbs have two syllabes, so it's easy, one infixe with each syllabe.
With monosyllabics, it's juste after the consonnant, like "lu" (be), all infixes afer the "l".
And with multysyllabics, the last two syllabes. o//

And after, yes, it's all about memorization.

Karyu Amawey

Any infix that deals with time tense (ie past, imperfect, future) go after the first syllable.  Anything dealing with the speaker''s optional emotional state goes before the last syllable.

eg.
t‹ɪ‹r›m›ar<ei>on [hunt‹REC‹IMPV›<LAUD>›] "(good mood)was just hunting"
Oel ayngati kameie

HawkPidgeon

Quote from: Karyu amawey on December 21, 2009, 07:12:19 PM
Any infix that deals with time tense (ie past, imperfect, future) go after the first syllable.  Anything dealing with the speaker''s optional emotional state goes before the last syllable.

eg.
t‹ɪ‹r›m›ar<ei>on [hunt‹REC‹IMPV›<LAUD>›] "(good mood)was just hunting"

That's a perfect explanation. I totally get it now... thanks so much. Now I just have to do some memorizing.
Fìtsenge lu Eywayä kelku, sì fìtsenge lor lu. | Oel oeti kameie fa ngeyä menari.

wisnij

Quote from: Karyu amawey on December 21, 2009, 07:12:19 PM
Any infix that deals with time tense (ie past, imperfect, future) go after the first syllable.  Anything dealing with the speaker''s optional emotional state goes before the last syllable.

Not first; second-to-last.
Wé cildra biddaþ þé, éalá láréow, þæt þú taéce ús sprecan rihte, forþám ungelaérede wé sindon, and gewæmmodlíce we sprecaþ.

Elysio

I've got a questions  ;D
Why the tense infixes are melted ? How should we know they are ? How to melt them in a correct way ? (i know, hard to explain with just one example, but still)

omängum fra'uti

Hope you don't mind me hopping on this thread for a few questions about inflections.

I have a feeling the answer to this is "We don't know yet", but the information we have on the first infix seems incomplete.  Specifically, here is what the language is claimed to have, and what is given in the taron example.  As far as I can tell there are no actual lists of infixes aside from that example.

Tense
Past general: ?
Past proximate: <ìm>
Current: (No infix?)
Future proximage: ?
Future general: <ay>

Aspect
Perfective: <ol>
Imperfective: <er>

Further the rules for combination are not given at all.  It appears from the sample that the aspect's vowel is dropped and it is infixed in the tense.  The sample is marked t<ìr><m>aron but it seems to be combining the past proximate with perfective, or more precisely <ì<r>m>.  While that is purely a single example so a poor indication of the actual rule, that seems to imply t<a<l>y>aron would refer to a specific hunt some time in the future.

The lack of infix for present tense either implies there are no "aspect only" infixes, they are all assumed to be present.  The alternative is that the present tense can be taken to mean some unspecified/unknown chronology.

And one more, does the infix come before the vowel or after the initial consonant?  The answer could alter how words like fkarut (peel) are inflected.  If you just peeled something, would that be fìmkarut or fkìmarut?

Is there any insight on this I might have missed?
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

wisnij

Quote from: Tiger on December 21, 2009, 10:50:19 PM
Further the rules for combination are not given at all.  It appears from the sample that the aspect's vowel is dropped and it is infixed in the tense.  The sample is marked t<ìr><m>aron but it seems to be combining the past proximate with perfective, or more precisely <ì<r>m>.  While that is purely a single example so a poor indication of the actual rule, that seems to imply t<a<l>y>aron would refer to a specific hunt some time in the future.

Unfortunately, yeah, that's one of the things we don't know for sure yet.  :-\

Quote from: Tiger on December 21, 2009, 10:50:19 PM
The lack of infix for present tense either implies there are no "aspect only" infixes, they are all assumed to be present.  The alternative is that the present tense can be taken to mean some unspecified/unknown chronology.

Hm, good point.  teraron "be hunting" and tolaron "have hunted" are both given as aspect-only examples, so maybe they're assumed to be tense-agnostic rather than specifically defaulting to present.  I wonder if there's much practical difference much of the time, though, because presumably if they were being used in a past or future context they would also use that tense infix.

Quote from: Tiger on December 21, 2009, 10:50:19 PM
And one more, does the infix come before the vowel or after the initial consonant?  The answer could alter how words like fkarut (peel) are inflected.  If you just peeled something, would that be fìmkarut or fkìmarut?

My feeling is that consonant clusters are not broken up by the infixing, but again I don't think we have attested words that show us for certain.
Wé cildra biddaþ þé, éalá láréow, þæt þú taéce ús sprecan rihte, forþám ungelaérede wé sindon, and gewæmmodlíce we sprecaþ.

omängum fra'uti

Quote from: wisnij on December 21, 2009, 11:04:52 PM
Quote from: Tiger on December 21, 2009, 10:50:19 PM
The lack of infix for present tense either implies there are no "aspect only" infixes, they are all assumed to be present.  The alternative is that the present tense can be taken to mean some unspecified/unknown chronology.

Hm, good point.  teraron "be hunting" and tolaron "have hunted" are both given as aspect-only examples, so maybe they're assumed to be tense-agnostic rather than specifically defaulting to present.  I wonder if there's much practical difference much of the time, though, because presumably if they were being used in a past or future context they would also use that tense infix.

Thinking about it, I don't think there is much of a practical difference.  Consider oe taron vs oe teraron.  Which one says "I am hunting" and which one says "I go hunting"?  In practicallity I think "I am hunting" would actually be conveyed as oe tolaron since it is referring to a specific instance of hunting which is occurring right now, but that's besides the point.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!

wisnij

Quote from: Tiger on December 21, 2009, 11:20:53 PM
Quote from: wisnij on December 21, 2009, 11:04:52 PM
Hm, good point.  teraron "be hunting" and tolaron "have hunted" are both given as aspect-only examples, so maybe they're assumed to be tense-agnostic rather than specifically defaulting to present.  I wonder if there's much practical difference much of the time, though, because presumably if they were being used in a past or future context they would also use that tense infix.

Thinking about it, I don't think there is much of a practical difference.  Consider oe taron vs oe teraron.  Which one says "I am hunting" and which one says "I go hunting"?  In practicallity I think "I am hunting" would actually be conveyed as oe tolaron since it is referring to a specific instance of hunting which is occurring right now, but that's besides the point.
Well, what I meant was that hunt-PRS-IMPV and hunt-IMPV are not distinguished morphologically, because the present tense is unmarked, but I think pragmatically they don't have much difference anyway.

One thing that I know native English speakers have to be careful of sometimes is over-using imperfective or progressive aspects.  We tend to use them all the time for describing present activities in English, but other languages often just use the simple present for that.
Wé cildra biddaþ þé, éalá láréow, þæt þú taéce ús sprecan rihte, forþám ungelaérede wé sindon, and gewæmmodlíce we sprecaþ.

Karyu Amawey

Wouldn't "I go hunting'' be something like:

oe kä teraron?

Tell me what you think.
Oel ayngati kameie

wisnij

Quote from: Karyu amawey on December 21, 2009, 11:46:39 PM
Wouldn't "I go hunting'' be something like:

oe kä teraron?

Tell me what you think.

Mm... I'm not sure about that.  Frommer says "there are also participial and reflexive infixes in [the first] position", so there's probably a different, specific way of forming participles.  In English we just use "-ing" for everything, imperfectives and participles alike.  Na'vi may even have a totally different way of stringing verbs together like that.  Some languages use an infinitive after a finite verb, some use different inflections -- Japanese, for instance, has a special participle form followed by the particle ni to indicate intent: miru "see" + iku "go" -> mi ni iku "go (in order to) see".  I don't think we know enough about Na'vi to say confidently yet.
Wé cildra biddaþ þé, éalá láréow, þæt þú taéce ús sprecan rihte, forþám ungelaérede wé sindon, and gewæmmodlíce we sprecaþ.

omängum fra'uti

Quote from: wisnij on December 21, 2009, 11:44:03 PM
Well, what I meant was that hunt-PRS-IMPV and hunt-IMPV are not distinguished morphologically, because the present tense is unmarked, but I think pragmatically they don't have much difference anyway.

One thing that I know native English speakers have to be careful of sometimes is over-using imperfective or progressive aspects.  We tend to use them all the time for describing present activities in English, but other languages often just use the simple present for that.

Right, we're pretty much agreeing on the difference there.

I see what you're saying about overuse, point well taken.  I was actually starting to fall into that trap, being linguistically challenged, until I looked up what perfective aspect and imperfective aspect really are.  Given that the language allowed for an unspecified aspect, I was starting to come to the conclusion that for most descriptions of current actions the aspect was largely irrelevant and in a way meaningless in most contexts.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
Listen to my Na'vi Lessons podcast!