Re: Help me with some sentenses :)

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Kaltxì!

The 1st is right, but the second has a tiny problem: you use pay as an adjective, but it's a noun, so it needs the adjective deriving affix "le-".
Oeyä sempulìl taron ayswiräti lepay.

You also could make pay into it's genitive:
Oeyä sempulìl taron ayswiräti payä. (my father hunts water's creatures)


Po is just the pronoun equal to the english he/she/it, well, maybe just it (see the descs
Eg if you wanted to say in the above sentence that "his father...", it would be "peyä sempul lu taronyu.".

[Hawnuyu atxen]

No, you don't need "-a-" here, because of the "le-". If you use it like "noun le-noun", you don't need "-a-", but if you use it like "le-noun-a noun", the "-a-" is needed to show it modifies the noun standing after it.
So if you change the word order to "lepaya ayswiräti", than you need it.

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Yes, exactly

sorry that the sentenses dos not make no sense, but its youst an exampel Wink

[Hawnuyu atxen]

...
Of course, ask it!

[Hawnuyu atxen]

I'm sure you know the sentence "Oe-l nga-ti kam<ei>e".
I-erg you-acc see

"I" is in the ergative, because i'm the one who does the action to you (you is in accusative since it's the object of the action).
In Taronyu's dictionary you can see that verbs are marked as vtr or vin. Transitive verbs always (with some exceptions) needs a subject and an object, and intransitives never. So if you use a transitive verb (eg. somebody see something) you have to add the l/ìl to the subject (somebody) and it/t/ti to the object (something).

There are also some verbs that can be both (eg. see: i see you/i see).
Also there are some special rules (those exceptions i mentioned before), like "si" compound verbs (any si verb), what are always intransitive, or the modals can make it trickyer...

Hope it helps and doesn't just confuses you more

[Muzer]

There are examples of us having sentences from Frommer that use a transitive verb intransitively with no case markers, but it's still not fully understood exactly when you should, as far as I know.

My theory is that when you are just missing off the object because it's obvious from context, but there should still be an object (in other words, the object exists, but is implied rather than stated), you keep the case endings (eg in something like: "Person 1: Na'vi is a fun language. Person 2: Yes, I know."), but when you use it completely intransitively ("I always hunt", for example, with no implied object at all), you lose them. Again, this is just my theory - we don't know whether or not it is correct or not.

[Hawnuyu atxen]

There are examples of us having sentences from Frommer that use a transitive verb intransitively with no case markers, but it's still not fully understood exactly when you should, as far as I know.

My theory is that when you are just missing off the object because it's obvious from context, but there should still be an object (in other words, the object exists, but is implied rather than stated), you keep the case endings (eg in something like: "Person 1: Na'vi is a fun language. Person 2: Yes, I know."), but when you use it completely intransitively ("I always hunt", for example, with no implied object at all), you lose them. Again, this is just my theory - we don't know whether or not it is correct or not.

You mean like:
P1: Lì'fya lena'vi lu lì'fya sìltsan.
P2: Srane, omum oel (futa lì'fya lena'vi lu lì'fya sìltsan).
? With the part in brackets just known because P1 said it?

but when you use it completely intransitively ("I always hunt", for example, with no implied object at all), you lose them.

That's what i tried to say with the example of "i see you" vs "i see" ("oel ngati kame/tse'a" vs "oe kame/tse'a"). I thought this was known to be correct (i mean the use of transitive verbs intransitively, like "see" above)...

[Hawnuyu atxen]

it maked it a little more confused, but here is someting overvelding confusing:

I have heard that the l/ìl is joust added if the person that is verbed iss in the sentense.
That it is like this:
Oel yom ngati. (I eat you, thats mean Cheesy)
Oe yom. (I eat) here the verbed is not in the sentense so tere is no l, but here:
Oe-ri yom mì utral. (this is soposed to mean I eat in a tree) but here the verbed is not in the sentense, but it is a noter noun, so is it then right to use the topic affix?

Is this right?

Well, there are times when you can leave either the l/ìl or t/it/ti, but usually they should be there.
Eg, in my sig you can see the sentence "Ke'u ke lu ngay, frakemit tung.", here "frakem" is in the accusative, because there's a "fkol", it just can be dropped. Above, where i translated what Muzer suggested, you can see "Srane, oel omum.".

The topic marker -as kewnya txamew'itan would say- is a can of worms...
In the sentence you wrote, it isn't required ("oe yom mì utral" is enough). Normally it just shows the main thing of the sentence (eg. if you have 5 pronouns, but only one possess something, it COULD work) but we (as far as i know) still don't know completly how does it work...

[Muzer]

it maked it a little more confused, but here is someting overvelding confusing:

I have heard that the l/ìl is joust added if the person that is verbed iss in the sentense.
That it is like this:
Oel yom ngati. (I eat you, thats mean Cheesy)
Oe yom. (I eat) here the verbed is not in the sentense so tere is no l, but here:
Oe-ri yom mì utral. (this is soposed to mean I eat in a tree) but here the verbed is not in the sentense, but it is a noter noun, so is it then right to use the topic affix?

Is this right?

Well, there are times when you can leave either the l/ìl or t/it/ti, but usually they should be there.
Eg, in my sig you can see the sentence "Ke'u ke lu ngay, frakemit tung.", here "frakem" is in the accusative, because there's a "fkol", it just can be dropped. Above, where i translated what Muzer suggested, you can see "Srane, oel omum.".

The topic marker -as kewnya txamew'itan would say- is a can of worms...
In the sentence you wrote, it isn't required ("oe yom mì utral" is enough). Normally it just shows the main thing of the sentence (eg. if you have 5 pronouns, but only one possess something, it COULD work) but we (as far as i know) still don't know completly how does it work...

OK, so here's a quick summary of what we think we know:

* If the verb is intransitive (marked "vin." in the dictionary), you don't use an ending for the subject (the person doing the action), unless you're using <eyk>, in which case it works as a transitive verb.
* If the verb is transitive, and you age using it in the general sense (I always hunt), you PROBABLY miss off the case ending for the subject, as far as anyone knows
* If the verb is transitive, and you are using it with a subject and a direct object, BUT one of those things is NOT stated directly in the sentence, because it is obvious from context, you still use case endings for the other one.
* If the verb is transitive with a subject and a direct object stated, you use case endings for both.
* If the verb is a "si" verb, you miss off the ending for the subject, and use the DATIVE ending for the direct object
* Verbs like lu and slu are odd - the only thing that ever takes an ending is the indirect object in the dative (for things like possession - "lu tsko oeru", I have a bow, or for saying you love/like things, for instance), and everything else never has endings.


I hope I haven't missed anything and that I am correct.

[Hawnuyu atxen]

First: thanks for summarizing it up for Ikranari

2nd:

* If the verb is a "si" verb, you miss off the ending for the subject, and use the DATIVE ending for the direct object

As i know this isn't always true...
(forgive me for the very bad example)
eg. "Oe tìtaron si ngaru" and "Oe tìtaron si nga" could mean two totally different things (i hunt for you / i hunt you (or something like that, if it's even correct...)).

So if i know correctly, the direct object in this case gets the dative only if it gets something (as you normally would use the dative, just here it shows the object too).

If i'm completly lost, please clear this for me

[Muzer]

First: thanks for summarizing it up for Ikranari

2nd:

* If the verb is a "si" verb, you miss off the ending for the subject, and use the DATIVE ending for the direct object

As i know this isn't always true...
(forgive me for the very bad example)
eg. "Oe tìtaron si ngaru" and "Oe tìtaron si nga" could mean two totally different things (i hunt for you / i hunt you (or something like that, if it's even correct...)).

So if i know correctly, the direct object in this case gets the dative only if it gets something (as you normally would use the dative, just here it shows the object too).

If i'm completly lost, please clear this for me

Um, just no

Due to the free word order, if that was allowed, how would you know what is the subject and what is the object?

No, you always use the dative. It's in NiaN, and somewhere in http://wiki.learnnavi.org/index.php?title=Canon

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Tam, oeru txoa livu... i remember reading something like this somewhere, but it seems i misread it. Thanks!

[omängum fra'uti]

Well, there are times when you can leave either the l/ìl or t/it/ti, but usually they should be there.
Eg, in my sig you can see the sentence "Ke'u ke lu ngay, frakemit tung.", here "frakem" is in the accusative, because there's a "fkol", it just can be dropped. Above, where i translated what Muzer suggested, you can see "Srane, oel omum.".

Where did you get the impression that "fko" (In any case) is allowed to be dropped?  The only time we've been specifically told it can be dropped that I am aware of is when it is already the subject, but that is not special to fko, it is a general practice in Na'vi.  (IE "Pefya fko syaw ngar?" "Oeru (fko) syaw XXX.")  In your sig, I'd probably have taken "ke'u" as the subject there, and been confused by your meaning.  (Also, not sure "tung" is even transitive like that.)

[Hawnuyu atxen]

Blame Prrton, he as the one to suggest it here. (post#43). After some arguments tsrräfkxätu asked it, and "frakemit tung" became the result there.

Ke'u lu ngay, frakemit tung.

There is a silent «fkol» in there that makes this the closest thing Na'vi has to "passive". It's not very IndoEuropean, but quite elegant in its simplicity.

The pattern is:

Promote the accusative noun to the head (most prominent area) of the sentence or clause and leave out the ergative "agent" if he/she/it is not needed. If completely "missing" the agent is assumed to be «fkol».

 [Nothing is true, (one) allows every action.]

PS: I think of it as "Yoda passive".

MOE, tewti (and other things like that)... i just saw that basically i was the reason of getting the "double negative not optional" thing... now everybody can blame me for this

[omängum fra'uti]

I'd probably disagree with Prrton about leaving off fkol there, but I wouldn't sweat it on that one.  The transitivity is just a case of "we don't know".

[Hawnuyu atxen]

If it wasn't for the sometimes very special rules of na'vi, i'd say it's certainly transitive, but like this it's only 75% (i want it, and Karyu Pawl might say it is transitive
BTW you disagreed back than too

[omängum fra'uti]

Well at least I'm consistent!

Even if you accept that case, I think there's plenty of examples of it not being a general rule, so I wouldn't go making it as general suggestions.  In this case Prrton's reasons seemed to be related to making it a short and sweet expression, not so much for clarity.