"Has"

[Eywayä Irrtok]

Hey guys, I'm doing some study and I am trying to find a word for "has". It can be a variation of "lu" - was, is, will be, are. And I thought seeming as it was possessive, it could have been "luyä" which is literally "belonging to is" or "is's". Neither is there a word for "own" for which i could substitute it for.

Irayo tsmuke si tsumkan pok!

[Ikran]

I think the best way to express possession (apart from genitive) is using topic marker -ri:

Oe-ri ikran lu
I+TP ikran to be

That could be translated as: "(talking about me), I have an Ikran".

[Eywayä Irrtok]

I think the best way to express possession (apart from genitive) is using topic marker -ri:

Oe-ri ikran lu
I+TP ikran to be

That could be translated as: "(talking about me), I have an Ikran".

That may well be correct, but I read that as "I am an Ikran"

[Ikran]

That may well be correct, but I read that as "I am an Ikran"

Yeah, that could be the case. "I am an Ikran" is Oe ikran lu, so maybe the -ri conveys the possessive meaning. Other alternative could be the dative (which is used to express possession in many languages): Oe-ru ikran lu. At this point, we just don't know...

[Coda]

Given the current state of the vocabulary, the best we can do is say something to the effect of:

Tsa'ikran lu Neytiriyä.
That banshee is Neytiri's.

The key here is the genitive case marker yä - it denotes ownership in much the same way that adding an apostrophe-s on the end of a word in english does.

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Given the current state of the vocabulary, the best we can do is say something to the effect of:

Tsa'ikran lu Neytiriyä.
That banshee is Neytiri's.

The key here is the genitive case marker yä - it denotes ownership in much the same way that adding an apostrophe-s on the end of a word in english does.

Would it be possible to say:

Tsa'ikran aleNeytiri.  ==> Tsa'+ikran a-le-Neytiri.
That+banshee ATTR-ADJ-Neytiri.
That (is the) banshee of Neytiri. Or, in common 'ìnglìsì, That's Neytiri's banshee.

What I did there is just use the le- prefix on Neytiri which turns the noun into an adjective, then the -a- affix to denote that the adjective is modifying the noun 'ikran'

[omängum fra'uti]

Given the current state of the vocabulary, the best we can do is say something to the effect of:

Tsa'ikran lu Neytiriyä.
That banshee is Neytiri's.

The key here is the genitive case marker yä - it denotes ownership in much the same way that adding an apostrophe-s on the end of a word in english does.

Where did the ' in tsaikran come from?  Neither tsa- nor ikran have a glottal stop in them.

Also that sentence doesn't quite say it the way you mean it I don't think...  Of course in the end we don't know for sure, but the way I read that...


Tsaikran Neytiriyä (Neytiri's ikran) lu (is)

Would it be possible to say:

Tsa'ikran aleNeytiri.  ==> Tsa'+ikran a-le-Neytiri.
That+banshee ATTR-ADJ-Neytiri.
That (is the) banshee of Neytiri. Or, in common 'ìnglìsì, That's Neytiri's banshee.

What I did there is just use the le- prefix on Neytiri which turns the noun into an adjective, then the -a- affix to denote that the adjective is modifying the noun 'ikran'

I don't think that works either.  But this one I'd defer to people more familiar with other languages to know if there is any case where turning a proper noun into an adjective is sensical in any way.

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Hmm, yes... I suppose turning a proper noun into an adjective might be problematic... but I thought it was possible in English in some cases? Lets see if I can think of one.... nope, I can't.... other than possession with adding 's making a noun modify another noun, in which case the -yä suffix would indeed be the more correct way.

EDIT: Well, I guess we should use proper name rather than proper noun, since "the English language" would be a case where a proper noun is used as an adjective.

Kìyevame.

[Coda]

Given the current state of the vocabulary, the best we can do is say something to the effect of:

Tsa'ikran lu Neytiriyä.
That banshee is Neytiri's.

The key here is the genitive case marker yä - it denotes ownership in much the same way that adding an apostrophe-s on the end of a word in english does.

Where did the ' in tsaikran come from?  Neither tsa- nor ikran have a glottal stop in them.

Also that sentence doesn't quite say it the way you mean it I don't think...  Of course in the end we don't know for sure, but the way I read that...


Tsaikran Neytiriyä (Neytiri's ikran) lu (is)

I wanted to say "that ikran," and extrapolated from tsa'u.  I kept the ' because it didn't sound right as either tsatikran or tsaikran.  I think you're right about something being off in that sentence, though.  I might be missing a noun case particle on tsa'ikran, but my grammar sense doesn't seem to be working now.  I'll look it up later, but if anyone else wants to chime in, feel free.

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Perhaps it just needs the topic marker to make the meaning more clear?

Tsaikran-ri Neytiriyä lu.

That way, "That ikran" becomes the topic for the verb to point at, making the sentence read either "That is Neytiri's ikran," or "That ikran is Neytiri's."  Either way, it works.

[omängum fra'uti]

That's not really the same as "Neytiri has an ikran" though.  If you just want to say "That ikran is Neytiri's" then Tsaikran Neytiriyä lu should be sufficient.

I'm not sure that a genitive (yä) can be the direct subject of being though, grammatically speaking.

[Coda]

That's not really the same as "Neytiri has an ikran" though.  If you just want to say "That ikran is Neytiri's" then Tsaikran Neytiriyä lu should be sufficient.

I'm not sure that a genitive (yä) can be the direct subject of being though, grammatically speaking.

That's the problem, though - we don't have a word for "have" yet.  Hence the genitive circumlocutions.

[omängum fra'uti]

Right, we don't have a word, but unfortunately we don't know a lot right now, so there are some things we just don't know how to say.  The concept of "to have" is one of those things, at the moment.  But that doesn't make other things suddenly mean that, the other things still mean the same thing they would mean if we did have a way to say someone has something.

[Coda]

I'm not saying that tsa'ikran Neytiriyä lu literally means, "Neytiri has a banshee," I'm just trying to provide an alternate way of saying that something belongs to someone.  I'm pretty sure we're on the same page here. 

[omängum fra'uti]

I just wanted to make it clear to others who might come across this thread that there is in fact no way to say that currently, and that they would have to find another way to say what they wanted.

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Srane, ma omängum fra'uti.

I think this goes back to the whole thing Prrton said about being prepared to have to relearn everything once Frommer comes out with more info.

Just make sure that nothing you are learning becomes written in stone (in your mind), so that if (more likely when) you have to change it later it can be replaced easily and without causing major damage (something that might discourage you from continuing your study in Na'vi).