How to build a sentence

Started by Antoine, October 23, 2017, 04:54:37 AM

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Antoine

Kaltxi, I would like to know how to build a sentence in Na'Vi because I galley a little. Thank you
Kiyevame. eywa ngahu

Eana Unil

Kaltxì and welcome here :)

Well, that depends on the sentence you want to build, I guess. For complex sentences you'd have to learn the language (somewhat at least) imo, for simpler sentences some online recourses may suffice already.

What do you want to translate?

Antoine

Kaltxi I would like to translate for example: I will eat thanator. for me it is: oel ka yom palulukanit or oeru yom palulukanit. I would love to have a guide a site for especially the sentences or the story to put a, ur, tx, ... Thank you

Kiyevame

Plumps

Welcome, ma Antoine ;)

Well, the first attempt is almost correct:

oel yom palulukanit

But this is only the base structure (after the English, or so many other languages' model). Na'vi gives you free range to arrange the sentence in all 6 possible word orders.

yom oel palulukanit
oel palulukanit yom
...


You're a French speaker, right? I bet you can find a lot of useful information here. Xelloss has created a Na'vi for dummies kind of guide ;) It teaches you the basic structures of Na'vi.

Antoine

Yes I am French. I try to translate it: you are stupid. Ngaru read skxawng. its good ?

Kiyevame

Antoine

And for a sentence of more than three words, there is an order to respect?

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

"I will eat thanator" can be translated a number of ways.

Because of (at least in English) the imperative in your sentence, you will want to use the imperative future verb infix in the sentence: Oel yasyom palulukanit. The <asy> infix in yom indicates that you have every intention of eating the thanator. This is the most general form of this translation. If you are planning to immediately eat a thanator, there is a more immediate infix, <ìsy>, so the sentence will become Oel yìsyom palulukanit. Accoording to Paul Frommer (who we refer to as K. Pawl, or just Pawl), the <asy> or <ìsy. infis are actually the preferred infix over <ay> or <ìy> for a statement of the form "I <verb> <noun>, although most people don't often use these infixes.

One thing to note about sentences using yom, or any transitive verb: The nouns in the sentence need 'case markers' to identify their role as subject or object, as the words can be in any order, as Plumps points out. In this case, you are the subject, so oe gets the subject (or more correctly the 'agent') marker -l, thus oel. The object (or patient) palulukan gets the -it marker, thus palulukanit. This is really important in Na'vi.

Furthermore, unless you have a huge appetite, I doubt you are going to eat an entire thanator, but you might eat some thanator meat. This illustrates the use of the genitive form of a noun, yet another noun case to learn. So, you might write oel yasyom tsnganit palulukanä. Here, the meat tsngan is the object, so it gets the -it case marker. (Note there are multiple forms of the case markers that you can use, based on the spelling of the root noun.) palulukan gets the genitive, or possessive case marker ä, which makes the noun mean 'of <noun>' or <noun>'s in English.

Finally, sometimes Na'vi has several words with close meanings. In this case, you can use tsngan or vey for 'meat'. tsngan is generally used when you are referring to the flesh of a terrestrial animal, like a thanator. vey can refer to the flesh of any animal, but is used more commonly to refer to the flesh of a non=terrestrial animal, like an ikran, or perhaps a fish-like animal.

In many three or four word sentences, you are free to arrange the words in any order you want, as long as you have properly used the noun cases. When using the genitive case for posession, it is customary (but not absolutely necessary) for the possessor noun to follow the noun of what is possessed. The other common practice is to put the word you want emphasized the most at the end. So for example, if you are emphasizing the act of eating, you can use oel palulukanit yasyom or Tsnganit palulukanä oel yasyom.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Plumps

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on October 24, 2017, 05:41:46 PM
Finally, sometimes Na'vi has several words with close meanings. In this case, you can use tsngan or vey for 'meat'. tsngan is generally used when you are referring to the flesh of a terrestrial animal, like a thanator. vey can refer to the flesh of any animal, but is used more commonly to refer to the flesh of a non=terrestrial animal, like an ikran, or perhaps a fish-like animal.

Where do you get this from? ???

tsngan is the overall term of meat (unprocessed) of an animal, vey is food made of meat. Nothing to do with terrestrial ;)

Eana Unil

Kaltxì nìmun ma Antoine,

Here you can find a collection of most of the learning materials: https://forum.learnnavi.org/beginners/fb-lm2/

I also highly recommend to join our Discord Server, where many members of our community chat via voice and text. We also have a French language channel there. http://discord.me/learnnavi

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Ma Plumps, I got that from  Pawl.

I'm interested where you got yours ;)

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Tirea Aean

tsngan vs. vey... A quick search around is this post from `EA in 2013:

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on July 30, 2013, 03:10:05 PM
One item from last year, which I am not sure I have ever mentioned, is a clarification on the difference between vey and tsngan. Vey refers to any food of animal origin (could include eggs or milk), but is primarily meant to mean 'meat'. This could of course, include fowl or fish (or insect). Tsngan refers specifically to meat obtained from terrestrial animals (yerik, talioang, etc.).

I don't think I was there for that AvatarMeet.

EDIT: this term distinction is a bit off topic where I think the question was how sentences are structured (grammar/syntax, etc.)

Plumps

 :-[ :-[ :-X :-X :-[ :-[

I'm so sorry, ma Tim! :-[ :-[

I don't know where I got this from ... I always went with the first definitions that we got: vey (food made from meat) and tsngan (flesh)

I was wrong and do have to (re)learn something new ;)

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Ma Plumps, you got my curiosity piqued. Our English word 'meat' has a meaning very similar to [v]vey[/b], which would be 'animal flesh as food'. Although it can apply to any animal tissue, it is most often used to describe muscle tissue and it's associated tissues used as food. The Na'vi word tsngan is very close to the Na'vi word for muscle tsngem (A word I didn't remember we had), which implies that most of the meat the Na'vi eat is muscle meat (which is also the most plentiful tissue in an animal's body). So, to use vey to describe a meal of meat is not completely wrong, as the definition is a tiny bit different from the English definition of 'meat'. English does not have a specific word for a generic meal of meat, but other languages might have such a word.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Blue Elf

Quote from: Antoine on October 24, 2017, 03:58:55 PM
Yes I am French. I try to translate it: you are stupid. Ngaru read skxawng. its good ?

Kiyevame
Seems discussion went different way and this question remained unanswered, so: translation is straightforward in this case - Nga lu skxawng (you are moron / idiot). We do not have word with direct meaning "stupid", but current translation is near enough to carry the same meaning. Because of limited vocabulary we often need somehow reword sentence to keep the meaning with the words we have.
Oe lu skxawng skxakep. Slä oe nerume mi.
"Oe tasyätxaw ulte koren za'u oehu" (Limonádový Joe)


Teyvit te Koletxi Rosarey'itan

Oel palulukanit yom would be right  :)
You are usesing lenition when
you want to talk about two or
more of the same things

example: one tsmukan 2 or 3 or more than 4 (smukan)

(Kx > k) (K > H)

(Px > P)  (P >F)

(Tx > T) (TS > S)

Tirea Aean

Quote from: David Colletti on July 11, 2018, 01:32:22 PM
Oel palulukanit yom would be right  :)


Correct :)

Plumps, at Reply #3, offered the same solution (although in a different word order) on 24 October 2017. o.o

Kyttin13

I need help building simple sentences as well...how to build a sentence with 2 verbs, like, "I  need to cook." or "I want to learn." (Lol! Or get *real* fancy and say "I want to learn to speak na'vi!" I know the last one's a little ahead of me for awhile yet!)

Mech

#17
Others can explain you better  than me but these are called "secondary phrases". There is one main verb (eg. "i want") and a secondary one ("to learn") and so on.

The secondary verb takes the <iv> infix that corresponds to "to", like oe new (I want) nivume (to learn) and i guess you can go on with pivlltxe (to speak) and so on.

This contruct is done with the modal verbs, like new (want), zene (must) etc.

For verbs that aren't modal, or with more compelx phrases, I gues you must use the particle a or its derivatives, that connects the secondary phrase

oe new futa nga nume = I want this: you learn = I want you to learn

Kyttin13

So...both verbs would have the iv inserted? No differentiation needed???

Vawmataw

Quoteoe new futa nga nume = I want this: you learn = I want you to learn
It's actually oel new futa nga nivume. Remember the case endings + new is a modal verb and nume takes the iv even if the sentence is more complex.
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