Stress, Once Again

[Erimeyz]

We've discussed stress a couple of times, notably here: http://forum.learnnavi.org/pronunciation-phonetics/emphasis-on-which-syllable/ and here: http://forum.learnnavi.org/intermediate/my-dictionary/msg15121/#msg15121

We know some words from the ASG were marked for stress.  We know that early versions of some word lists (including the pocket guide and Taronyu's dictionary) had speculations about stress for other words.  We know that Frommer has said "Word stress in Na'vi is unpredictable and distinctive. Stress must thus be specified for each word."  ... which is a bit discouraging, since so many of the words we're using are unmarked.  We even know that some of them are marked wrongly.  At least so says Taronyu, and I'm certainly not going to dispute him.

I've seen the following speculations:

* Stress patterns in languages almost always follow rules, so we can infer those rules for Na'vi given what we know so far
* Unmarked words should get no stress
* Unmarked words should get stressed on the final syllable
* ... and the reason some words were marked on the final syllable (which would otherwise be redundant) is because they are compounds...

The only firm conclusion I've seen from anyone is "we really wish Frommer would tell us more."  Which is kind of like saying the sky is blue - it's a universal constant, even on Pandora.

The problem with waiting for Godot Frommer is that people are speaking Na'vi right now, stress or no.  And even more are trying to learn to speak it right now (myself included).  I can't appeal to Frommer... but I can appeal to the collective wisdom of the Learn Na'vi community.  wm.annis, Taronyu, Prrton, omängum fra'uti, and anyone else hanging out on the Intermediate board - I'm looking at you.

What advice would you give to a new learner seeking shelter in the storm and trying to decide between HAWnu mì HUfwe and hawNU mì huFWE?

  - Eri

[Queso6p4]

I could be wrong, of course, being this is unmarked territory, but I would do what you already suggested as well as stress the penultimate syllable for words that aren't marked for stress. Thankfully there aren't many Na'vi words that have more than two syllables.

[Na'rìghawnu]

as stress the penultimate syllable

Why the penultimate? As long as we consider the actors in the film using (more or less) correct pronounciation, it IMHO would suggest, that - IF there is a stress in all words - it surely is not in the penultimate, but in the ultimate, because there are many words heard in the film stressed on the last syllable. But there are also examples, which contradict this simple rule.

I'm not such an expert with my ears, but sometimes I really well got the impression, that certain words are not accentuated at all, like "toruk makto", which most times I hear it, seems to completely lack any stress - exspecially in the scene, where Neytiri explains to Jake the legend of "toruk makto" the first time. She speaks slowly and very calm and exspecially in these words ("toruk makto") there is - at least IMHO - absolutely no audible stress; they are completely taira (flat), how it is called in Japanese, where they have a lot of words without a stressed syllable.

But as I said. I might be wrong.

[Taronyu]

We know some words from the ASG were marked for stress.  We know that early versions of some word lists (including the pocket guide and Taronyu's dictionary) had speculations about stress for other words.  We know that Frommer has said "Word stress in Na'vi is unpredictable and distinctive. Stress must thus be specified for each word."  ... which is a bit discouraging, since so many of the words we're using are unmarked.  We even know that some of them are marked wrongly.  At least so says Taronyu, and I'm certainly not going to dispute him.

I personally didn't come up with those speculations, but borrowed them from Karyu, until I found that he had submitted them often where they weren't in the ASG. I then removed stress except where Frommer had indicated it on the blog, or the ASG had it. When I said that the stress is marked wrong in the ASG, I meant that the few words that Frommer gave us on his blog did not match, or that the ASG did not match the stress used in the movie. And feel free to dispute me: I am actually wrong on a fairly regular basis, mostly due to orthographic errors or stupidity, sometimes due to assuming to much, and every now and then because I just didn't know.

I've seen the following speculations:

* Stress patterns in languages almost always follow rules, so we can infer those rules for Na'vi given what we know so far
* Unmarked words should get no stress
* Unmarked words should get stressed on the final syllable
* ... and the reason some words were marked on the final syllable (which would otherwise be redundant) is because they are compounds...

The only firm conclusion I've seen from anyone is "we really wish Frommer would tell us more."  Which is kind of like saying the sky is blue - it's a universal constant, even on Pandora.

I don't like the first point. Almost always...so we can infer? No. Sometimes, so we cannot infer. We must know, or nought.
I don't know about the second point. Personally, I like this option, but given the errors in the ASG, we must assume that they can be changed at any time.
Third point = ridiculous.
Fourth point = We'll have to look harder, but I refuse to believe in regularity, and I won't be making rules. Why? Because we have a firm conclusion on this matter. Frommer's word. As you stated,

Word stress in Na'vi is unpredictable and distinctive. Stress must thus be specified for each word.

The problem with waiting for Godot Frommer is that people are speaking Na'vi right now, stress or no.  And even more are trying to learn to speak it right now (myself included).  I can't appeal to Frommer... but I can appeal to the collective wisdom of the Learn Na'vi community.  wm.annis, Taronyu, Prrton, omängum fra'uti, and anyone else hanging out on the Intermediate board - I'm looking at you.

What advice would you give to a new learner seeking shelter in the storm and trying to decide between HAWnu mì HUfwe and hawNU mì huFWE?

This is a problem, but I don't think we can do anything but use the stress we got. I don't want to make new rules, because that would contradict frommer. I don't want to stress things wrongly, but that's going to happen anyway. Finally: think about Na'vi, and how we, as a community, are using it. This isn't a spoken language: it's a written one. This is why my pronunciation is worse than Williams. Because I haven't bothered to fix it, as I don't think it matters, all that much. As far as I know, we have one, ONE, contrasting pair for stress: túte and tuté. I pronounce that one with the stress correctly, for now. For the rest: We wait.

[dotster]

Hear hear. I agree with Taronyu. There's not much we can really do about if for now but wait. I would be careful when practicing your spoken Na'vi and just know you might be saying it wrong and might have to relearn it one day.

[Erimeyz]

Thanks for everyone's thoughtful comments.  Good stuff.

  - Eri