Consonant / Vowel breaks

[DistantReach]

In my fledgling reading, I saw that vowels are read as breaks in a word, making them their own syllable. My question is this -

In a word that is structured CVCV (such as "kame" - 'See') Is the pronunciation (phonetically) - 'k - ah -m - e'? Basically four syllables? I am not language expert, but I feel like getting a grip on word structure and how to actually properly enunciate is a key to Na'vi. Any help?

Irayo.

[Loti]

Kaltxì!

I've taken all of this from the phonetic's page written on learnnavi.org but padded it out a bit for you to help. Kudos to the writers and compilers of the page.

We're told that the syllable structure for Na'vi is (C)(C)V(C). This means that our syllables have to have a vowel (or a diphthong, aw, ew etc) in. Note, r and l can become pseudovowels, which means they can take the place of the vowel in a syllable. When r and l are treated in this way, they are lengthened to form ll and rr.

The syllable can be structured in any of the following ways.

V
VC
CVC
CCVC
CV
CCV.

Consonants cannot form a syllable on their own, (unless they're ll or rr).

Any consonant can be in initial position if the pattern is CV or CVC.

We are also told that only certain consonants can follow each other in the syllables (a consonant cluster, the CC in CCVC):
f, s, ts + {p, t, k, px, tx, kx, m, n, ng, r, l, w, y} (NOTICE: glottal stop ', f,s,ts, h, v,and z cannot be the second consonant in this cluster.)

There are also only some consonants that can appear in the final position in the CCVC pattern. These are -
px,tx,   kx, p, t, k, ', m, n, ng, r, l.

This means that f, h, s, ts, v, z always start a new syllable.


So in the case of kame, there are technically two legitimate ways of splitting the word - ka-me and kam-e, as we must have one vowel/diphthong per syllable. I personally don't know which one is the better way, although ka-me to me feels more natural.

For your flying beasties, the ikran, we can split as ik-ran or i-kran. But we know k cannot start a consonant cluster, only f, s and ts, so ikran must split as ik-ran.

Another word, for example, is the noun "honour" - meuia.
We need one vowel/diphthong per syllable, there are only vowels here  so this splits me-u-i-a.

sìlronsem, an adjective meaning clever, is split sìl-ron-sem as l and n cannot be first consonants in a consonant cluster.

trr meaning day, will be one syllable as the rr is a pseudovowel.

I hope this helps you out and I hope I haven't made any mistakes(!).

Edits made with help from Nessimon.

[Nessimon]

Kaltxì!

You are just about right Loti, only you've forgotten about "ll" and "rr". These are syllabic consonants, which means they have approximately the same value as vowels. This again means that "ll" or "rr" don't always start a new syllable. Like the word:

kllte
/kl.tɛ/
ground

Hence a word don't even need a "vowel" in the sence we know it. I.e.:

krr
/kr/
time

[Loti]

Of course, yes! I'm such a ditz - I was even using the word krr before writing this post! I'll change my post to make it correct.

Thank you very much!

[Na'rìghawnu]

@Nessimon

Why do you know, that it is /kl.tɛ/ and not /klt.ɛ/?

[Nessimon]

@Nessimon

Why do you know, that it is /kl.tɛ/ and not /klt.ɛ/?

You are quite right, I cannot possibly know that, but as loti said, this split /kl.tɛ/ "feels" more natural (his example was ka-me vs. kam-e). But, /klt.ɛ/ can also be correct.

[AyekongAyauyä]

@Nessimon

Why do you know, that it is /kl.tɛ/ and not /klt.ɛ/?

You are quite right, I cannot possibly know that, but as loti said, this split /kl.tɛ/ "feels" more natural (his example was ka-me vs. kam-e). But, /klt.ɛ/ can also be correct.

CV syllables are the only kind that are universal in every human language, so it usually makes sense to assume a C between two Vs is an onset to the syllable after it rather than a coda to the syllable before it. (That's why it sounds more "natural".)

[Nessimon]

Irayo ma Ayekong!

That's a good explanation ("feeling natural" just doesn't do it:P).
But I've come to understand, after reading a couple more of Na'rìghawnu-yä posts, that he asked because we don't have much knowledge about splitting syllables in Na'vi. And either I had found a new source (which I hadn't), or I was misleading other's (which I unintentionally was:P) it would be important to mention this.

Now I apologize for putting words in your mouth Na'rìghawnu, but I did it with all good intentions.

And still, thank you Ayekong for these very interesting (and perhaps very relevant) facts^^

Eywa yangahu!