Si and ulte

[Uniltse'ayu]

Kalxtí frapo. what's the difference between ulte and sí ??

[Eywayä mokri]

You can find the difference in the vocabularies.

By the way utle is used to connect two sentences, and si to connect two words.

[Uniltse'ayu]

You can find the difference in the vocabularies.

By the way utle is used to connect two sentences, and si to connect two words.

irayo ma Ewayä Mokri =]

[Doolio]

example:

oe taronyu lu ulte oeyä tsmuke täftxuyu lu - i am a hunter and my sister is a weaver

oe si nga saronyu lu - you and me are hunters

[kewnya txamew'itan]

a good example would be "he has bows and spears and she has blue flowers and seeds"

poanru sko sì sukru lu ulte poeru ayseze sì ayrina' lu

the two lists of objects ({bows and spears} and {flowers and seed}) use sì as they seperate nouns whilst the two phrases ({he has bows and spears} and {she has blue flowers and seeds}) use ulte as they seperate clauses.

I hope that helps.

[Doolio]

that's good, 2in1

[Uniltse'ayu]

irayo irayo irayo!! 

[justNaviBrother]

You can find the difference in the vocabularies.

By the way utle is used to connect two sentences, and si to connect two words.

Ngaya" tingay 

[Mithcoriel]

Some times it seems a bit hard to tell the difference.
What about
"I hunt and weave" ?
"Oe taron si täftxu"

Si or Ulte? I mean, this is basically short for "I hunt and I weave", which are both in themselves complete sentences. So should I use ulte?

Can it maybe be said that, if it separates two verbs, it's generally ulte, while, if it separates nouns or adjectives, it's si?

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I was thinking about just this ma mithcoriel only this morning.

I think that if you say "I hunt and weave" then you would use sì but if you say "I hunt and I weave" then you would need ulte.

But then IANAL so that may not be right. It seems to me to be the only reasonable way to do it.

[Kxliopì]

In the sentence "I hunt and I fish", you are defining the subject for each verb, you can use ulte to separate the two clauses. If the subject applies to both verbs, "I hunt and weave", then use sì. Same with multiple subjects to a verb. It seems to be a matter of delineation, from what I gather in this thread.

-liu

[Na'rìghawnu]

Well... who knows? Of course in

multiple subjects to a verb [better: predicate]

there is no choice as to use "sì". Because "ulte" is surely not used whitin the borders of one and the same sentence*. And a subject is just the subject of this same sentence, no matter, how many words are included in this subject.

*) NB: A "sentence" must not end in a dot; it must include a predicate and a subject, although the latter one can be elliptic, e. g. because it is the same than the one of the preceding predicate.

But with "and" and predicates it's a delicate thing. As far as I know [if anybody knows better, please tell me!], we have no evidence in the corpus of "sì" between any verbs at all. It's always "ulte", so we simply don't know, whether it is possible to use "sì" here at all. It may be the case, but also it may not be. The Japanese language e. g. does an alike thing, and it does it consequently: There is an "and", which can be used to connect nouns (and only nouns), and there is a way to connect predicates (and only predicates). You have to use the latter one every time you want to connect predicates, no matter, whether they are "in the same sentence" (like "(The Na'vi) hunt and weave") or not. So it's absolutely possible, that this is also the case with "ulte".

Unless we get more information, we simply can't decide.

[Nawmaritie]

We might have something about sì connecting two verbs from the movie transcript:

Na'vi: ...fte tsivun pilvlltxe sì tivìran na ayoeng.
English: ...to speak and walk as we do.

here we have a connection of two verbs. It just depends on how reliable the movie is as a grammar source

Even if it is, it leaves the question, whether sì can be used post-positioned (connected) with verbs, too.
Actually, I hope not, I want to continue thinking of the "suffixed" -sì as the Na'vi form of the latin -que

[Na'rìghawnu]

About the movie-line ... ok, IF this is correct Na'vi, then we have got an evidence. Thank you for the finding! But, as you pointed out already, these things are a bit tricky. Will recently added a disclaimer to the movie-lines-wiki-page:

Nobody knows for sure what was said, and these are just our best guesses, and they might be wrong, and the actors or characters may have said things badly anyway.
Do not take anything here as being correct Na'vi!

I want to continue thinking of the "suffixed" -sì as the Na'vi form of the latin -que

This wouldn't cause troubles. The Latin -que very well can connect verbs too. It's not restricted to special parts of speech. It can be attached even to prepositions (inque etc.) and also can connect sentences: e. g. sentences starting with an "Itaque" are nothing more, den "Et ita ..."-("And so ...")-sentences: "Ulte ha ..." if you'd like. But any other sentence can also take -que as a connection to the preceding sentence: "~~~sentence about a temple~~~. Inque hoc templo ..." is "~~~sentence about a temple~~~. And in this temple ..." No problem.

The only word, to which it's impossible to attach -que (in classic Latin! in the later times this became possible as well) is the negation "non". But it's also impossible to use an "et" before the "non". "And" and "no" in classic Latin always becomes "neque".

[Nawmaritie]

I want to continue thinking of the "suffixed" -sì as the Na'vi form of the latin -que

This wouldn't cause troubles. The Latin -que very well can connect verbs too. It's not restricted to special parts of speech. It can be attached even to prepositions (inque etc.) and also can connect sentences: e. g. sentences starting with an "Itaque" are nothing more, den [...]

Oh, thank you for the information, I didn't know that (anymore, I guess. Maybe I should try and find my books in one of the boxes ^^ )

[Na'rìghawnu]

You are welcome.

Now, Paul, please tell us more about this topic too.