Writing a letter, need a proofreader.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I don't think a comparison with ser and estar is necessarily wise, it was that that led to many people thinking that tok was also used for temporal conditions.

That said, I understand what you mean about representing different aspects of "being", the problem is that, if adpositions can be used with lu, lu can also be used for certain forms of location and makes it seem that tok is only for "I am here/there at kelutral/the tree of voices" etc.

[omängum fra'uti]

The tok vs lu+ro thing was discussed quite a bit and the answer is that the INTENT was that lu + ro would, while technically grammatical, be an incorrect usage and that tok would be correct there, but with any other adposition, you'd use lu.  However some of the discussion did get him thinking about other possibilities, so there is still a possibility that could expand some in usages.

[Rain]

All righty then, so what is the overall consensus? What does everyone agree on? I'd like to be ready to send by Wednesday.
Again, Irayo for all the help and clarification.

Rain

[MIPP]

Tok is seeming more and more like a useless verb...it might as well go away in the near future.

Yeah, given -ro- it seems that all uses of tok can be replaced with lu and an adposition so:

oel fìtsengit tok = oe fìtsengero lu

Of course there's probably a slight distinction that we don't know yet but even if there is tok does seem pretty useless now.

According to Omängum Fra'uti, Paul said not to use -ro+ with lu, because that would totally obliterate the point of tok...i am guessing the whole tok vs lu +adp thing has not been 100% decided yet. hmmm.

Yay! At least some use remains for it! 

And I'll be interested to see where the boundary lies.

I get the feeling there's some comparison that could be made here with Spanish ser and estar. Both verbs are forms of what we in English would say is "to be", but each is used for a different purpose. Like, ser is used to indicate characteristics such as size and color, whereas estar is used both for location (like tok) and temporary conditions, such as indicating health.

Na'vi appears to have three different verbs for these purposes; lu is used for the first case, tok for location, and 'efu for feelings. Meh, obviously the comparison is not exact, but it seems like this sort of thing is what Karyu Pawl is probably trying to sort out. (Or perhaps he already has and we're just not in the know as of yet.)

@ Rainan: Just curious, but what is it you're asking Dr. Frommer about? Is it something that we've been wondering about as a community for a long time now, or something totally different? Either way, it's awesome that you're emailing him!

Kayrìlien

Well, only a thing about ser (must be read as sìr) and estar (must be read as istar [in portuguese] and ìstar [in spanish]).

When to use ser

We use it to say something that someone is.

Pt: Ele é ("ser" verb) bonito.
Sp: El es ("ser" verb) guapo.
En: He is beautiful.
nN: Po lu sevin.

When to use estar

We use it when we want to say where something is.

Pt: Eu estou ("estar" verb) em casa.
Sp: Yo estoy ("estar" verb) en casa.
En: I am at home.
nN: Oel tok kelkut.

We also use it to the gerund (your -ing form).

Pt: Eu estou ("estar" verb) a jogar/jogando.
Sp: Yo estoy ("estar" verb) jugando.
En: I am playing (a game).
nN: Oe uvan seri.

We also use it to say how we are.

Pt: Eu estou ("estar" verb) feio.
Sp: Yo estoy ("estar" verb) feo.
En: I am ugly (at the moment)
nN: (actually i don't know how to say )



Sorry for the spam, i just had to say this 

[Rain]

That's fine, I took spanish too.









Five years ago. LMAO