Genitives and Possession

[omängum fra'uti]

I couldn't find a thread that covered everything I wanted to say concisely, so this is a more than 140 char response to a question on twitter.

Possession in the sense of "I ate MY food" would be something like...

Oel yolom oeyä syuvet.
Here, oeyä is basically the Na'vi form of "my" and syuve is food.  The suffix on oe, -yä can also take the form -ä depending on the word, and sometimes pronouns change slightly for it.  For example, po (him/her) becomes peyä, so "peyä syuve" is his food.  For complete details, I recommend finding "Na'vi in a Nutshell" in the downloads section, if you don't already have it.

But there are other ways to give posession, if what you're stating is the existence of the possession.  For example...
Lu poru syuve
He has food
Literally this translates as "food is to him", but that indicates the existence of possession.  You can also shuffle the word order a little to change the emphasis a little.  For example of I said...
Tsasyuve lu poru
That food is his
It's mostly the same words, except I'm now specifying specific food "THAT food" rather than just generically food.  But otherwise the same words.  Semantically, "He has that food" and "That food is his" mean the same thing, it is just the focus which differs.  And that is exactly what the change in word order does, is shift the focus.

Now for an explanation of my short answer...

Oeyä syuve.  Ke tsun ngaru livu.
My food.  You no can has.  (Ok, so the translation in PROPER English is: You can not have my food.")

Here, the subject in the actual sentence is unspecified, just taking the "Oeyä syuve" in as the subject.  Now in English we would say "I can have food" - but in Na'vi, the possession is not a direct thing, so instead it is the FOOD that is able to be yours, rather than you that are able to posses the food.  Of course, I'm saying you can't have it, which is why the "ke tsun".

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Oeyä syuve.  Ke tsun ngaru livu.
My food.  You no can has.  (Ok, so the translation in PROPER English is: You can not have my food.")

So the subjunctive infix in livu has the net effect of making 'to be' to be 'has'?

Here, the subject in the actual sentence is unspecified, just taking the "Oeyä syuve" in as the subject.  Now in English we would say "I can have food" - but in Na'vi, the possession is not a direct thing, so instead it is the FOOD that is able to be yours, rather than you that are able to posses the food.  Of course, I'm saying you can't have it, which is why the "ke tsun".

Can you explain in a little more detail about the concept of 'indirect possession' in Na`vi? I wonder if having the wrong concept of possession (among many other things!) isn't one of the things that is tripping me up when I try to write in Na`vi.

[omängum fra'uti]

No, has was translating it to lolspeak instead of English.

The direct translation would be "My food is not able to be to you".  The <iv> in lu is the "to" of "to be".  It's the infinitive form.

And the indirect possession is purely because in "lu" takes the subject as the object being possessed, and the possessor as the indirect object.

[Carborundum]

Oeyä syuve.  Ke tsun ngaru livu.

Ke ngaru lu would mean "it's not for you/it's not yours", so why is tsun necessary?

[Rangtsulfätu]

Oeyä syuve.  Ke tsun ngaru livu.

Ke ngaru lu would mean "it's not for you/it's not yours", so why is tsun necessary?

In a litteral translation ke ngaru lu and ke tsun ngaru livu seem to mean the same, but in a more free translation, ke ngaru lu means you don't have it and ke tsun ngaru livu means you can't have it.

[Carborundum]

Oeyä syuve.  Ke tsun ngaru livu.

Ke ngaru lu would mean "it's not for you/it's not yours", so why is tsun necessary?

In a litteral translation ke ngaru lu and ke tsun ngaru livu seem to mean the same, but in a more free translation, ke ngaru lu means you don't have it and ke tsun ngaru livu means you can't have it.

But isn't "you can't have it" pretty idiomatic? The more obvious interpretation seems to be "you are (physically) unable to have it", which is not the intended meaning.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Oeyä syuve.  Ke tsun ngaru livu.

Ke ngaru lu would mean "it's not for you/it's not yours", so why is tsun necessary?

In a litteral translation ke ngaru lu and ke tsun ngaru livu seem to mean the same, but in a more free translation, ke ngaru lu means you don't have it and ke tsun ngaru livu means you can't have it.

But isn't "you can't have it" pretty idiomatic? The more obvious interpretation seems to be "you are (physically) unable to have it", which is not the intended meaning.

Spanish distinguishes from this idiom a bit, for example if you said in a shop puedo comprar este you'd be likely to get the answer yes and no more as poder is closer to "to be able to" than can so I think it is a similar (although by no means identical) situation to that of na'vi.

In Spanish though, it would be acceptable to use poder here the implication being that you will physically stop them from having it.

[omängum fra'uti]

Right, there's a difference between the question "Can I X" which, even in English, "May I X" is really what you should be asking, and the statement, "You can X" or "You can not X".  In Na'vi, if you wanted to ask "May I X", I imagine it would just be "Srak X?"

[Carborundum]

Right, there's a difference between the question "Can I X" which, even in English, "May I X" is really what you should be asking, and the statement, "You can X" or "You can not X".  In Na'vi, if you wanted to ask "May I X", I imagine it would just be "Srak X?"

So if X is "have food", that'd be lu oeru syuve srak?
I like it. It could potentially be interpreted as "do I have food?", but context would solve that. Also, how often does one ask something like that anyway?
I still think the answer to that question would be ke ngaru lu, or just ke lu. Assuming I may not have food, obviously.

[omängum fra'uti]

Hmm, that's a good point that it could mean "Do I have food"....

I suppose take the question aspects of it as advisory at best until we hear something more specific, since different languages do it different ways.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

And the whole concept of 'have' in all these posts is because of ngaru or oreu being the dative case?

[omängum fra'uti]

That's the basic explanation yeah.  Lu + dative = possession.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Right, there's a difference between the question "Can I X" which, even in English, "May I X" is really what you should be asking, and the statement, "You can X" or "You can not X".  In Na'vi, if you wanted to ask "May I X", I imagine it would just be "Srak X?"

I'd probably do may I verb as oe [verb] a fì'uti fkol tung srak? or oe zivene [v<iv>erb] srak?

[omängum fra'uti]

Hmmmm, interesting idea.

*"Set oe tung tivìng nari srak?"
May I look now?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

No, tung would have to be accusative as you are being allowed. 

You might be able to drop the fkol but I'm not sure either. Alternatively, if it's a question of self restraint you could use <äp>.

[omängum fra'uti]

I was going for the modal style, it seems if any verb would be happy in that form, tung would be one.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

You have a point and I realised that my last post doesn't make much sense.

Anyway, your post "set oe tung tivìng nari srak" still doesn't work as I am being allowed to do something not doing the allowing, the oe should be in the second clause with the tivìng nari srak.

Also, I think, if tung doesn't take the modal form (although it seems reasonable to assume it can) then you'd want a fìkemit a.