Kaltxì, ma frapo.
Whether you’ve been celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Festivus, or anything else, I hope this holiday season has been, and continues fo be, a healthy and happy one for you all.
Before anything else, I want to reassure you that I haven’t forgotten about the UDHR submissions! I was hoping to have some comments for you by this time, but other matters have intervened. I will, however, get to them in the next few days. Ayngeyä tìmweypeyri irayo!
In the meantime, here are some odds and ends I hope you’ll find useful:
More on indirect questions
There’s nothing here that’s really new. It’s more of a completion of things we already know.
Many of you have seen this explanation before—back in 2011, actually!—but I think it’s worth a review. An Indirect question is a question embedded in another sentence, which allows you talk about the question. For example, “Why did he leave?” is a direct question; “I know why he left” is indirect, where the speaker is commenting on the direct question. As this example shows, some languages—English, for instance—require different syntax for direct and indirect questions:
DIRECT
Why did he leave?
*Why he left?
INDIRECT
*I know why did he leave.
I know why he left.
As you know, Na’vi prefers directness, retaining the original quote for reported speech and the original question for embedded questions. So rather than the equivalent of “She said she would come,” Na’vi retains the speaker’s original statement: Poltxe po san oe zasya’u sìk, “She said (quote), ‘I will come’ (unquote).’
For embedded questions, Na’vi makes the underlying semantics clear. When we say, “I know why he left,” what are we really saying? It’s that we know the answer to the question, “Why did he leave?” Na’vi spells this out explicitly, using the noun for answer, tì’eyng, in a shortened form, teyng,as the base of various subordinate conjunctions: tì’eyng + a teyngla, tì’eyngit + a –> teyngta, etc.
Our example sentence ‘I know why he left’ then becomes Omum oel teyngta lumpe po holum. In tortured English, this is essentially, “I know the why-did-he-leave answer.’
With that in mind, here are the teyng-forms we’ve already seen:
SUBJECTIVE: teynga
Teynga lumpe po holum ke lu law.
‘It’s not clear why he left.’
AGENTIVE: teyngla
Teyngla lumpe po holum oeti heykolangham.
‘Why he left made me laugh.’
PATIENTIVE: teyngta
Omum oel teyngta lumpe po holum.
‘I know why he left.’
That’s what we’ve seen up to now. But teyng exists in the other three cases as well:
DATIVE: teyngra (from tì’eyngur + a)
Rutxe law sivi teyngra lumpe po holum.
‘Please clarify why he left.’
GENITIVE: teyngä (from tì’eyngä + a)
Tìrunìl teyngä lumpe po holum oeti keftxo ’eykolefu.
‘The discovery of why he left saddened me.’
tìrun (n., tì.RUN) ‘discovery’
TOPICAL: teyngria (from tì’eyngri + a)
Teyngria lumpe po holum oel ke tslam ke’ut.
‘I understand nothing about why he left.’
(‘As for why he left, I understand nothing.’)
Note: The dative and topical forms were submitted to me by the LEP a little over a year ago. Irayo nìtxan, ma smuk!
One more thing: teyng can take adpositions too. For example:
Ayoe perängkxo teri teynga lumpe po holum.
‘We’re chatting about why he left.’
Moving on, here are a few things I’ve discussed with people privately via email that I’d like to share with everyone:
<ay> and <ìy> vs. <asy> and <ìsy>
A question arose about the “intentional future” infixes, the ones with s. How would we translate the well-known quote from Lord of the Rings, “You shall not pass!” Using ftem ‘pass by,’ would it be Ngal oeti ke ftìyem Or Ngal oeti ke ftìsyem? This was my response:
I would say that for “You shall not pass!” it’s better not to use <ìsy> and just use <ìy>. As you know, adding the s to the future infixes adds the idea of intent to a simple prediction about the future. That’s why the sy-forms are used exclusively in the first person: You know what your own intentions are, but you can’t make assertions about someone else’s, since you’re not in their head.
When you say Oe hasyum, you’re actually saying two things: (1) Something is going to happen, i.e., my departure; (2) it’s going to happen because it’s my intention—i.e., I am going to cause it to happen. (Of course, we have sentences like, “John intends to leave,” but that’s a little different. It’s making a statement about John’s current mindset as we understand it, but it’s not really making a prediction about the future. John may wind up not leaving at all, due to circumstances beyond his control.) For “You shall not pass,” we’re not saying, “Your intention is not to pass,” or that “I can compel you to intend not to pass.” It’s really a simple prediction about your behavior, even though it’s based on my own intentions.
Counterfactual ‘should have’
A question arose about how to express counterfactual ‘should have’ expressions in Na’vi as in, “You should have gone (but you didn’t).” Here’s what I wrote:
As you know, “should” in Na’vi is sweylu, which literally means, “it’s best (that).”
So “You should (counterfactually) have gone” is actually “If you had gone, it would have been better.”
From the rules we’ve seen, this is:
(1) Zun nga kilvä, zel sweylilvu. Turning it around:
(2) Zel sweylilvu zun nga kilvä.
But we also know that if the time of both clauses is the same, we can use the bare verb in the zel clause:
(3) Zun nga kilvä, zel sweylu. And turning that around,
(4) Zel sweylu zun nga kilvä.
Finally, in sentences like (4), we can omit zel in casual conversation to get:
(5) Sweylu zun nga kilvä.
So all of (1) through (5) are acceptable for “You should have gone.”
One wrinkle:
The above assumes that the “better” part was in the past: You didn’t go last year, and LAST YEAR it would have better if you HAD gone. But we could also mean that the better part is NOW: If you had gone last year, the situation would be better NOW. (There were negative consequences of the person’s not going that are affecting the present situation.) This changes (1) and (2) to:
(1’) Zun nga kilvä, zel sweylivu.
(2’) Zel sweylivu zun nga kilvä.
Note that there are no parallels to (3) and (4), since the verb in the zel clause can only go into the root form if the time of both clauses is the same:
(3’) *Zun nga kilvä, zel sweylu.
(4’) *Zel sweylu zun nga kilvä.
However, we can omit zel as in (5) to get:
(5’) Sweylivu zun nga kilvä.
And finally, a new idiom:
na fkxen eo fkio Literally, ‘like vegetable food before a tetrapteron.’
It’s used in the sense of ‘to go to waste.’ Tetrapterons (ayfkio) are predators and have no use for vegetable-based food. If you place vegetables before them, that food will go to waste.
Ngeyä fìtìkangkemvi atxantsan ke slayu na fkxen eo fkio.
‘This excellent work of yours will not go to waste.’
That’s it for now. Hayalovay!
Irayo! I put the three new words into my homonym detector (now 6.4x faster thanks to checking spellings using 16 dictionaries at once. Win to atan!) and found nothing new. Anyway, I was looking to put the teynga adposition rule into Fwew’s deconjugator, but I am not sure whether or not adpositions can go between teyng and a like case endings can (e.g. teyngteria. Can they? 🤔
I would assume that the “new” adp. + teynga rule is not really a special rule but just stems from the fact that after an adposition, we don’t use a case ending, which makes it natural for adp. + teynga to work – exactly the same way that adp. + fwa / tsawa works. I don’t think that *fwteria would work (just looking at phonology makes that form impossible of course, but even if it was possible, I’m pretty sure it would not work), and i think that similarity *teyngteria wouldn’t work.
“tì’eyngteri a” should work following known grammar rules (same as fì’uteri a / tsa’uteri a), but teynga, fwa & tsawa are contracted forms, and it feels unnatural to split them again with adpositions without just using the longer, original forms.
You’re right about the adp. + teynga rule being a consequence of the fact that we don’t use case endings after an adposition. So, for example, teri teynga is simply a contraction of teri tì’eyng a. In the same way, we can take the perfectly permissible (as you’ve noted) tì’eyngteri a and contract it to teyngteri a. I don’t think there’s a problem with that.
If I may ask a follow-up question: given that teyngteri a is fine, can we also extend this pattern to fì’u and tsa’u to get futeri a and tsateri a?
(My own feeling about this: tsateri a sounds quite natural to me because we can already contract tsa’uteri to tsateri anyway. As for futeri a, I’m a bit worried it will cause ambiguity with the conjunction fu …)
I was writing basically the same thing but you beat me – you are as fast as a homonym detector 😛
It’s weird how a space can change perception. I was 100% against teyngteria because it didn’t make sense to me to put a “teri” into a contraction, but with the space, teyngteri a it suddenly looks fine (even though I’ll still have to get used to it), as it makes sense for “teri” to be able to go behind a contracted “tì’eyng” hrh
Does that mean we can also say things like «lumpe po holùm a teyng ke lu law» or «lumpe po holùm a teyngteri ayoe perenggo»?
Followup to the followup: what about putting case endings on trying with a preceding a? … a teyngri, … a teyngri/teyngit, … a teyngur, … a teyngìl, … a teyngä?
Irayo! Somehow I already implemented that into Fwew’s deconjugator (teyng redirecting to tì’eyng) and correctly assumed it’s valid 😁
I guess that means teyngta is a new homonym (contraction of tì’eyngit a “the answer that” and a contraction of tì’eyngta “from an answer”). Just like fmawnta ans tsata 😁
Your win to atan homonym detector is very impressive! As for your question, see my comment to Tekre above.
Irayo! Oh, by the way, would teyngä count as a homonym, being the genitive of the contraction of “answer” and the subordinator being spelled the same? Also, does teyngä imply genitive forms of fwa and tsawa? 🤔
Leaving out zel is new, isn’t it? I haven’t been active that much but I remember that it was said, back when counterfactuals were introduced, that it can’t be left out – interesting development in the language 🙂
Is slu attached to the idiom ‘going to waste’ or could other verbs also be used with it?
Happy Hanukkah!
Yes, the option of omitting zel before sweylu in casual conversation is an exception to the general rule. Sweylu is so common that the zel is simply understood.
Slu is not part of the idiom. Other verbs are possible.
Happy Holidays to you as well!
Irayo nìtxan ma Karyu! Kop ngaru, Kerìsmìsì fu Hanuka fu Kuanza fu Saturnalia fu Festivusì lefpom 😀
Ngaru nìteng, ma tsmuk!
Faylì’uri amip irayo seiyi nìtxan.
Since we’re on odds and ends, I figured this question might fit in here: I’ve noticed that “pehem/kempe si” has had a pronoun or modal verb between the noun part and si in 4 examples on this blog (examples: Kempe po sayi?; Ha kempe tsun sivi set?; …teyngta kempe zene sivi… x2) without any rule being specified for these pattern. Does these example mean kempe si (or kem si) have looser rules about order than other si verbs, or can these patterns be used more broadly?
Tìpawm a eltur tìtxen si! I need to think about this more before I can give you a definitive answer, but my initial thoughts are these: The examples you gave, where the kem-part and the si-part are separated, all sound very natural to me, as do the versions where they’re not separated: Po kempe sayi? Ha tsun kempe sivi set? Etc. i think the reason is the interrogative pe that’s attached to kem. As you know, interrogatives are very movable without a change in meaning (Pesengne nga kerä? Nga pesengne kerä? Nga kerä pesengne?). Moving pehem/kempe in these examples feels like part of the general pattern for interrogatives. So the question becomes, how many other si-constructions allow you to question the nonverbal part with -pe-? I’ll get back to you on that!
Tì’eyngìri irayo nìtxan! My question was if the word order pattern of the quoted examples was specific to kempe/pehem si, kem si, or any si verb. Your tentative answer of kempe/pehem being very movable answers that.
It never occurred to me that -pe+ wasn’t already allowed for “do noun” si-verbs like srung si, uvan si, etc…, but it would be nice to know how much the nonverbal part can be modified on these.
I had always thought that the movability of interrogatives in Na’vi is just the same as the movability of their non-interrogative counterparts, as we can likewise say «tsatsengne nga kerä», «nga tsatsengne kerä», «nga kerä tsatsengne» saylahe. Since the examples where «kempe si» is split all have «kempe» at the beginning of the clause, they seem to me rather like a symptom of influence by Indo-European languages where interrogatives are normally moved to the beginning of the clause or even the entire sentence even if it means suspending grammatical rules that are otherwise quite strong.
Mipa aysäomumìri irayo nìtxan!
Just for clarification on details and extended usage, I have a question:
Would something like the following also work?
Teyngria lumpe po holum komum / kemum.
“(I have) no idea why he left.”
And:
Ayoel lawk teyngta lumpe po holum.
“We’re talking about the reason / why he left.”
Concerning the info about the counterfactual bit;
how would the following fit into the picture, or rather, what’s the difference to the sentences using zun/zel?
Sweylu fwa nga kilvä / kolä.
In a post from April 5th, 2011, you gave this info:
Sweylu fwa nga kolä.
‘You should have gone.’
And a comment on the quote from Lord Of The Rings:
I always translated Gandalf’s famous line as follows:
Nga ke tsun ftivem!
Sort of matches the syllable count too, especially in the German audio track / translation (“Du kannst nicht vorbei!”) 😀
Addendum:
Does the difference look like this?
Sweylu fwa nga kolä.
It was best that you went / You should have gone (and you did).
Sweylu zun nga kilvä.
It would’ve been best that you went / You should have gone (but you didn’t).
I meant
Sweylivu zun nga kilvä, of course.
Horen 6.23.1.2: “Note that this refers to a past event that did happen and was the right thing to do, not an unfulfilled past action (which is another use of “should” in English). NT (5/4/2011)
“
👍
Understood.
That’s it! 😊
Your sentences with teyngria and teyngta are fine.
I like how your Na’vi translation matches the German syllable-for-syllable!
Personally, if I were making such sentences in Na’vi, I would say it like “Ke smon oer lun a po holum” (the reason he left is not known to me) and “Ayoel lawk lunit a po holum” (we’re talking about the reason why he left).
I want to say both ways are valid just like “We’re talking about the reason that he left” and “We’re talking about why he left”
Is it always about reporting an indirect question though? Can we still use (pro)noun and “a” for cases when it is not a question?
For something like “I see how you did that. You did that fast, but precisely.”
Would «tì’eyng» still be appropriate if it’s not about a question? Does “I see the answer” make sense in the same way as “I know the answer” and “the answer is clear” saylahe?
We already know that other nouns can be used with «a».
If I’m understanding you correctly, sure, tì’eyng can always be used simply as a noun, even when modified with a clause introduced by a
. For example, Oel ke tslam tì’eyngit a ngal tolìng ayoer. ‘I don’t understand the answer you gave us.’
Yes, absolutely. “I see how you did that” would simply be “Oel tslam teyngta nga fyape tsakem soli.”
What if the intended meaning were «tsea» rather than «tslam»? My inclination then would be to translate “I saw how you did that” as «oel tsea fyaoti a nga tsakem soli» instead of using «teyngta» because it’s not really about an “answer” at that point (and more generally I think «tsea tìeyngti» might be semantically questionable except in the case of visible language such as sign language or writing). Is that right?
Kaltxì ma Zángtsuva, in what context would you use tse’a over tslam?
For example, “I saw how you cut the gourd. You used a special motion for that.”
Not to put words in Záng’s mouth, but I believe they meant as in “I saw the method with my own eyes” as opposed to “I understand how you did it”. As in observation as opposed to learning.
PS: Kaldì ma Vawmataw 😉
Ngaru tìyawr ma Txonpay.
Fìpostìri irayo nìtxan!
Could “Teyngä” existing similarly open the way for something like a “Fuä” and “Tsayä” (As a contraction, would that “e” vowel replacement kick in for these hypotheticals? I’ve thought a little and think no, but am not fully certain) for clause nominalization?
Retooling the example for “Teyngä”, something like “Tìrunìl fuä po holum…” also seems permissible to me, and I know there have been instances for me where the same sort of constructions would feel natural.
I had that exact same question here (and I am not sure whether or not teyng can exist as a noun outside of a subordinator or adposition ending context)