Sentence for Dissection

[NeotrekkerZ]

It doesn't. Zene may be intransitive, but yom is not, and "him" is the object of the latter (the subject is understood from the preceding clause).

My concern is not so much with direct/indirect objects in this sentence, but with "you."  I don't know if it takes the ergative or not(I'm thinking not though).

[Lance R. Casey]

It doesn't. Zene may be intransitive, but yom is not, and "him" is the object of the latter (the subject is understood from the preceding clause).

My concern is not so much with direct/indirect objects in this sentence, but with "you."  I don't know if it takes the ergative or not(I'm thinking not though).

It doesn't, and we do have an explicit example (Jan 20) of this type of sentence:

Oe new yivom teylut
I want to eat teylu

[NeotrekkerZ]

Thanks, I knew there was one, I just couldn't find it.

To sum up then, it would be Nga zene yivom ye'rìn poti.

[omängum fra'uti]

EDIT:  After reviewing the correspondences, I do not believe we have enough syntax formulation to correctly translate "you must eat him soon" for the same reason we don't know how to translate " you can feed her to him."  We don't know how to combine the endings when there is an intransitive verb paired with a transitive verb that is taking direct and indirect objects.

Endings don't combine, and there's no verb combination.  Lets look at the parts.

There's two clauses with an implicit link here.  First...

Nga zene

You must.  This stands alone as a clause, and follows all the rules of an intransitive verb.  You can shuffle the order, add adjectives and adverbs, and so on.

Next, you have the subordinate (Of a sort, not really a true subordinate) clause...

yivom ye'rìn pot
Eat soon him/her

Again this clause stands alone with one exception.  Because the previous clause already named a subject, and this clause is using the same, you can drop it here.  If it were not the same (EG you must be eaten by him) you'd need to give it specifically.  So this comes out as "to eat him soon".  Putting them together you get "You must eat him soon".

I wouldn't use yiyevom here, and certainly not to mean proximate, because the iy part is NOT the same as the future proximate like we once thought it was.

Finally....  The last one would translate as...

Tsun nga poanur poet tivìng
Literally "you can give her to him".  (Normally I wouldn't use the gender endings but since the 3rd person pronoun was being used to represent two different things, the distinction was needed.)  As long as it was contextually understood that the giving was as food, you wouldn't need to say it.  For example in this conversation...

Oengìri ikranan zene yivom ulte yeriker spxin lu...
Our (male) Ikran needs to eat and our (female) hexapod is sick...

Tsun nga poanur poet tivìng
You can give (feed) her to him

[AuLekye'ung]

So, using my earlier phrase:

The dancing palulukan is dancing in the forest.  You must eat him soon.

Sruseua palulukan srereu mì na'rìng.  Zene nga yivom ye'rìn pot.

Is that correct, then?

[Erimeyz]

Wish there was a way to say You have my thanks, but I can only get Ngaru lu oeyä...  no word for just thanks or gratitude.

Here's a list of all the canonical ways we have so far to say "Thank you."

  - Eri

[AuLekye'ung]

Wish there was a way to say You have my thanks, but I can only get Ngaru lu oeyä...  no word for just thanks or gratitude.

Here's a list of all the canonical ways we have so far to say "Thank you."

  - Eri

In that case, ngaru irayo seiyi oe nìtxan, ulte Eywa ngahu!

Still wondering if my sentence was correct.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

The tswuson-a was a typo - I did know that that was supposed to be there, just missed typing it in.

1. Yes, I like the "obvious edit is obvious" type phrase though.  Tongue

What do you mean?

So, cut the futa and leave yom as yìyom?  Not sure what the conflicting sentences in 2-4 meant.

1. I like it when people use an adjective/verb both as an attributive and predicative as in "obvious edit is obvious", "dancing thanator is dancing", "blue sky is blue".

2. Either have the futa and leave it as yìyom or cut the futa and use yìyevom.

Some points:

• mì triggers lenition, so txon > ton
• on a note of personal taste, I would drop the final u in taronyuru
• "is verb-ing" is an anglicism; you only need ‹er› for the ongoing meaning, not lu
• futa (=fì'u-t a) does not work there, because there is no following subordinate clause, and with zene, the subject is intransitive (nga zene yìyevom pot)
• since iyev/ìyev could come from either ‹ìy› or ‹ay›, you could state ye'rìn explicitly

3. It depends, they are both valid, just different. Eywa tusìng lu for example means that Eywa is giving using giving in the same way as in "a giving person" whilst Eywa terìng means that Eywa is giving right nnow and continuously.

4. Futa does work, new can be used transitively with futa or the futa can be dropped and the modal subjunctive used.

5. Good point.

Whenever you have a two-verb combo(want to go, must eat, can think, etc.) the second has to take <iv>.

And, why does "him" have to be in the dative?

This came up in one of the correspondences with Dr. Frommer.  Basically, if you have an intransitive verb(a verb that does not take a direct object) then the subject does not take the ergative.  Since you cannot have an accusative without a corresponding ergative that must mean that the "direct object" takes the dative.

That is for intransitive verbs, because yom is transitive, the accusative should be used.

[Lance R. Casey]

4. Futa does work, new can be used transitively with futa or the futa can be dropped and the modal subjunctive used.

But that is not the issue here. The given sentence was this:

Ngal zene yìyom futa

First of all, zene is intransitive and requires the subjunctive without an intervening subordinator (same source as above).
Second, futa is here employed as the object of yom, which is largely meaningless since there is no subordinate clause following; fì'ut on its own would be no problem.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

Oops, for some reason I thought it was new in which case the futa would work. With zene it might but I can't say with as much certainty as I had.

Futa wouldn't be an object of yom though a the a is placing it in the (intransitive) zene clause, for it to be an object of the yom clause it would have to be a fì'ut.

But anyway, I was wrong, I thought it was new being talked about and so based my argument on a flawed assumption.

[omängum fra'uti]

With zene (And tsun) you can't use the futa form - per Frommer both are strictly intransitive, so must follow the modal verb short form.

[AuLekye'ung]

With zene (And tsun) you can't use the futa form - per Frommer both are strictly intransitive, so must follow the modal verb short form.

Wait, what is the "modal verb short form"?  Sorry if I sound like a complete skxawng.

[omängum fra'uti]

Intransitive clause with modal verb followed by clause in the subjunctive..

IE "I want to see you"...

"I want" - intransitive
Oe new
"To see you" - subjunctive
tsive'a ngat

Oe new tsive'a ngat
That could also be written
Oel new futa (oel) tsive'a ngat
Meaning the exact same thing.  However, the same is not true of zene or tsun, they MUST be written in the first form, because the verbs are always intransitive.

[Erimeyz]

Wait, what is the "modal verb short form"?  Sorry if I sound like a complete skxawng.

The three modal verbs (want, can, must) have a specific "form" (way in which they are used).  One of them (want) has two forms: a longer one and a shorter one; the other two (can, must) only have the shorter form.  See here for more details.

  - Eri

[AuLekye'ung]

Ahhh, this makes more sense now.  I was unclear as to the definition of subjunctive.

So:

I want to eat the ikran.
I want - Oe new (NOT oel)

eat the ikran.
yivom ikranit. (Has the accusative?)

     or

I want to eat the ikran.
I want - Oel new

eat the ikran.
futa yivom ikranit.

Does that need the second oel?


Then,

I can eat the ikran.
Oe tsun yivom ikranit.

I must eat the ikran.
Oe zene yivom ikranit.

Srane?

[Lance R. Casey]

Yep, you've got it.

Also, it's worth repeating that "eat the ikran" by itself is just yom ikranit; it is the presence of the modal that causes the subjunctive.

[Lance R. Casey]

Futa wouldn't be an object of yom though a the a is placing it in the (intransitive) zene clause, for it to be an object of the yom clause it would have to be a fì'ut.

Na'vi word order may be free, but not that free: the subordinator invariably comes between the subordinate clause and that which it is attributing this clause to. Hence, with X marking the main clause and Y the subordinate one, we get X fwa (=fì'u a) Y, but Y a fì'u X. Therefore, if zene were indeed transitive, the sentence would have to be ngal zene futa yivom Z, where Z is a noun or noun phrase in the accusative (with free variation within the clauses, of course).

Correcting for transitivity and mood, the sentence in question is nga zene yivom fì'ut a Y, where Y is null, and this would be as strange as "you must eat this thing that" would be in English. So yes, in order to work in the sentence, the object must be the simple accusative fì'ut -- and that is why I said that futa doesn't work in the way it was used.

[Kì'eyawn]

Futa wouldn't be an object of yom though a the a is placing it in the (intransitive) zene clause, for it to be an object of the yom clause it would have to be a fì'ut.

Na'vi word order may be free, but not that free: the subordinator invariably comes between the subordinate clause and that which it is attributing this clause to. Hence, with X marking the main clause and Y the subordinate one, we get X fwa (=fì'u a) Y, but Y a fì'u X. Therefore, if zene were indeed transitive, the sentence would have to be ngal zene futa yivom Z, where Z is a noun or noun phrase in the accusative (with free variation within the clauses, of course).

Correcting for transitivity and mood, the sentence in question is nga zene yivom fì'ut a Y, where Y is null, and this would be as strange as "you must eat this thing that" would be in English. So yes, in order to work in the sentence, the object must be the simple accusative fì'ut -- and that is why I said that futa doesn't work in the way it was used.

Wow, i'm sorry; maybe i haven't been following this thread closely enough, but i just got lost.  So, when would you use just fì'ut instead of fì'ut a (futa)?

[Lance R. Casey]

Wow, i'm sorry; maybe i haven't been following this thread closely enough, but i just got lost.  So, when would you use just fì'ut instead of fì'ut a (futa)?

When there is no following subordinate clause that defines fì'u:

Oel tse'a fì'ut
I see this thing

Oel tse'a fì'ut a oeru wìntxu ngal
I see this "you-show-me" thing
I see this thing that you show me

Oel tse'a futa ngal yerom yerikit
I see this "you're-eating-a-hexapede" thing
I see that you're eating a hexapede

In the latter example, fì'u is basically just a dummy that anchors the subordinate clause.

[AuLekye'ung]

Oel tse'a fì'ut a oeru wìntxu ngal
I see this "you-show-me" thing
I see this thing that you show me

Why is the "I" in the second part (oeru wìntxu ngal) not accusative?

Aren't "see" and "show" transitive verbs?