Trying out some new things

[Kì'eyawn]

Kaltxì, ma smukan.  I'm trying to take some of the things i've learned more recently and apply them.  It would make my night if you could look this over.

I know the thing that stops me becoming the person i can be is the person i am now.
Oel omum futa oeru fteykang slivu tute a tsun livu oe fì'uri lu tute a oe lu set.

Oe-l   omum fì'u-t=a                 oe-ru ft<eyk>ang   sl<iv>u            tute     a    tsun l<iv>u     oe     fì'u-ri             lu tute     a     oe
I-ERG know  this.thing-ACC=that i-DAT stop<CAUS> become<SUBJ> person that can be<SUBJ> i.NTR this.thing-TOP be person that i.NTR
lu  set
be now

I do not claim any knowledge whatsoever in the use of the topical suffix; but that "fì'u" just looked...naked...and i didn't know what else to do with it =\


I'm assuming ftang (v., stop) is intransitive, so i added the causative infix (is that the right term, BTW?)

I'm still very shaky with the finer points of Na'vi, so my use of the language, let's say, lacks finesse; any help is greatly appreciated.

Ayngaru irayo seiyi oe, ma oeyä eylan, ulte Eywa ayngahu

[NeotrekkerZ]

Kaltxì,

I love sentences like these, they make you think and get some debate going.  Here's my take:

1.  I think you need from becoming to clean it up a bit which turns "from becoming the person I can be" into a prepositional phrase.

Fwa tspang oeti fpi slivu tute a oe tsun livu, lu tute a oe lu set. which translated literally would be something like
This stopping-me-from-becoming-the-person-I-can-be thing is the person [that/who] I am now.

I got rid of "I know" because in my world at least, if I could say that sentence I would have to know it.  

If you insist on I know in the sentence it would be with futa and probably 'u, a instead of fwa and I would probably start a new sentence for the last part of it:

Oel omum futa 'u a tspang oeti fpi slivu tute a oe tsun livu.  Tsa lu tute, a oe lu set.

Now to go get some aspirin...

EDIT:  I'm not sure about the transitivity of tspang either.  If it is strictly intransitive you would need the <eyk> infix:  tspeykang instead.

[Na'rìghawnu]

I love such sentences too. Unfortunately I discovered it too late ... I have to leave in a minute. That's why just a single thought:

Avoid this notorious 'u!

It's not attested, that this can be used as a separate word on it's own right. Nowhere! It's a morpheme to make up words, but no independent word - as far as we know.

[NeotrekkerZ]

That's another reason I tried to do it with fwa first.

[Kì'eyawn]

Kaltxì,

I love sentences like these, they make you think and get some debate going.  Here's my take:

1.  I think you need from becoming to clean it up a bit which turns "from becoming the person I can be" into a prepositional phrase.

Fwa tspang oeti fpi slivu tute a oe tsun livu, lu tute a oe lu set. which translated literally would be something like
This stopping-me-from-becoming-the-person-I-can-be thing is the person [that/who] I am now.

I got rid of "I know" because in my world at least, if I could say that sentence I would have to know it.  

If you insist on I know in the sentence it would be with futa and probably 'u, a instead of fwa and I would probably start a new sentence for the last part of it:

Oel omum futa 'u a tspang oeti fpi slivu tute a oe tsun livu.  Tsa lu tute, a oe lu set.

Now to go get some aspirin...

EDIT:  I'm not sure about the transitivity of tspang either.  If it is strictly intransitive you would need the <eyk> infix:  tspeykang instead.

I love sentences i can find that the vocabulary is fairly small, but the grammar is challenging.  I added the "I know that..." at the beginning just to flex my teeny grammar muscles a bit

The verb "stop" is ftang, ma tsmukan; tspang means "kill"--and i wasn't planning on doing any of that! =)

And i'm not sure about using fpi this away; in another translation i was told that it was an adposition and not a conjunction (i recently changed that translation to use our new knowledge of constructions using fte--come to think of it, i should go update that...)

In any case, ma mesmukan, i thank you for your help; i have "real world" things i have to go do<PEJ> =P, but i'll be back on here sometime tonight.

Eywa mengahu.

Edit:  Messed up my hyperlink.  Durr...

[NeotrekkerZ]

The verb "stop" is ftang, ma tsmukan; tspang means "kill"--and i wasn't planning on doing any of that! =)

Yeah, I noticed that just now.  I was going off memory and sometimes I get words that look the same mixed up.

And i'm not sure about using fpi this away; in another translation i was told that it was an adposition and not a conjunction (i recently changed that translation to use our new knowledge of constructions using fte--come to think of it, i should go update that...)

I'm actually not using it as a conjunction, I'm using it as an adposition in the pre-position location.  In the sentence it functions as a preposition.  Admittedly, not a 100% in this section of the sentence.

[Kì'eyawn]

Hmm...  Maybe the underlying problem is this whole "the thing that x" is not a construction available in Na'vi; maybe i need to just get down to the meat of the issue and say,

"The person i am now is what is stopping me [from] becoming the person i can be."  So that would be...

Tute a oe lu set a fì`u oeru fteykang slivu tute a tsun livu oe

Yes?  No?  Maybe?

[NeotrekkerZ]

In that case, I'm not seeing the "is."  Maybe

Tute a oe lu set lu fwa oeru fteykang slivu tute a tsun livu oe
The person that I am now is that which stops me becoming the person who I can be

I've been using "that which" as what, your construction would be "this thing that." 
I'm also thinking the second tute should take the ergative, even though I didn't mark it as such.

To play Simplicity Devil's advocate,

Tute, a lu oe set, ftereykang oeti fpi slivu nulsìltsan.

[NeotrekkerZ]

I think I may have found a fix for the fpi issue in the sentence.  Consider this sentence from Frommer:

Fwa sute pxel nga tsun oeyä hì'ia tìngopit sivar fte pivlltxe nìlor fìtxan oeru teya si.

My translation of this is That people like you can use my little creation to speak so beautifully fills me with joy,

but look at fte.  It's standard definition is so that.  In his sentence it sounds better with the implicit meaning in order to, but here's the cool part:

His clause is basically "you can use it to speak..."          X = you can use it
Your clause is basically "it is stopping me becoming..."    X = it is stopping me
Both seem to have the same implicit meaning of in order to/so that:  X so that Y. 

Let me know if you agree, but I think I would now replace fpi with fte.

[Kì'eyawn]

I'm not sure how you would use fte in this sentence, ma tsmukan.  I mentioned in another thread that i've been translating this word either as "so that" or, in this new use we've seen, "for to" (an archaic English construction, but one that helps me understand the underlying grammar).  So, i'm not sure it really fits here.  What about...

The person that i am is stopping me becoming the person i can be.
Tute a oe lu fì'ul fteykang futa oe slivu fwa tute a tsun livu oe
Tute        a     oe lu  fì'u-l      ft<eyk>ang   futa       oe     sl<iv>u          fwa tute     a    tsun livu         oe
Person that i   be     that-ERG stop<CAUS> that-ACC i.NTR become<SBJ> that person that can  be<SBJ> i.NTR

The best grammatical explanation i can come up with--and it's terribly convoluted--is this:
This person-i-am-thing is stopping this i-am-becoming-(this-person-i-can-be-thing)-thing

What do you think, ma smukan?  Does this seem to be getting at it?

[NeotrekkerZ]

That's interesting, if I were doing that I would put a comma before fì'ul.  It looks a little funky to me otherwise.  But I think that works.

[Kì'eyawn]

That's interesting, if I were doing that I would put a comma before fì'ul.  It looks a little funky to me otherwise.  But I think that works.

Hehe, it looks a little funky to me no matter how i do it =)  But it seems grammatically okay, then?  It just feels so awkward, when the original English sentence didn't seem all that complicated...  Oh well.

[NeotrekkerZ]

I'd say so, except that if you want "is stopping" it would be fteykerang, what you have is "stops."

[Kì'eyawn]

I'd say so, except that if you want "is stopping" it would be fteykerang, what you have is "stops."

Right, good catch.  Irayo, ma tsmukan.