Na'vi Affixes question

Cournal · January 04, 2010, 11:38:58 PM

Oe' taronyu lu.
Oe' (subject) taronyu (pred.) lu (intr.)
I am a hunter

For the word taronyu what does (pred.) stand for? I know all the others but my list doesn't have (pred.) And please include the definition.

Thanks

Plumps · January 05, 2010, 01:29:30 PM

I'm not sure.
Where did you get this sentence from?

I've never seen it before in that context. I would only know it as an abbreviation for "predicate" which would be wrong here because to my knowledge that can only be a verb...

I can only guess that it refers to the suffix -yu that changes a verb into a person specialising in a verb (as it is said in the Wiki article on Na'vi)
So, taron = to hunt + -yu => taronyu = the hunter

The apostrophy after oe is also something new to me - never seen that before ... is that supposed to be a subject marker?

I hope others can help you more.

omängum fra'uti · January 05, 2010, 01:38:56 PM

I can offer no help either. Oe' isn't a word, as there is no glottal stop after oe, and as for what that means, you'd have to ask whoever you got it from because that's not the common markings used to indicate the parts of a sentence.

Hawnuyu atìtse'a · January 05, 2010, 02:03:28 PM

@Plumps83, he was referring to the whole word as the predicate nominative. It is the complement for intransitive verbs, in this case he is describing himself with another noun and the action is not transferred.

Taronyu · January 05, 2010, 02:40:19 PM

Quote from: Hawnuyu atìtse'a on January 05, 2010, 02:03:28 PM
@Plumps83, he was referring to the whole word as the predicate nominative. It is the complement for intransitive verbs, in this case he is describing himself with another noun and the action is not transferred.

Score.

Exactly. I should have explained predicate. Essentially, the house is yellow = yellow there isn't the direct object, because the verb is intransitive. It's a predicative nominative, meaning that it's in the nominitive case and is connected to "the house"by the verb.

Plumps · January 05, 2010, 03:34:39 PM

Well, who said that you couldn't learn something on this site

Yeah, I thought something like that but wasn't sure whether a noun, adjective or a whole sentence could be marked as predicative. It seems they can.

Thanks for pointing that out.

I hope that helps Cournal as well

Hawnuyu atìtse'a · January 05, 2010, 03:39:42 PM

I'm known among friends as that-guy-who-always-corrects-grammar-and-we-are-still-friends-for-some-reason.

Cournal · January 05, 2010, 03:41:43 PM

sure does thanks!

Plumps · January 05, 2010, 03:55:59 PM

Quote from: Hawnuyu atìtse'a on January 05, 2010, 03:39:42 PM
I'm known among friends as that-guy-who-always-corrects-grammar-and-we-are-still-friends-for-some-reason.

And I'll keep it at that

As I said it was helpful and I appreciate it. As interested as I am and as certain as I am sometimes of certain grammatical rules I know for sure that there are hundreds of people who know way more than I ... and I'm thankful for it! No hard feelings