Canon/2011/January-March

From Learn Na'vi Wiki
Revision as of 19:24, 2 February 2011 by Wm.annis (talk | contribs) (modal ftang)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The Na'vi language canon is the complete collection of information about the Na'vi language provided by authoritative sources, namely Paul Frommer and the creators of Avatar (James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox).

The canon comprises two things:

  • words and phrases spoken or written in Na'vi
  • descriptions of the linguistic elements of Na'vi such as orthography, morphology, syntax, and grammar

The Na'vi words and phrases from canonical sources are presented or linked to on the Corpus page (where copyright allows). Documentation, explanation, and analysis of Na'vi linguistics are presented on other Learn Na'vi wiki pages (Phonology, Morphology, Grammar, etc.). This page serves to document the canonical sources themselves. The majority of the examples on this page come from email correspondances with Frommer.



This page includes information dated January 2011 - March 2011. To access past information please see:

Stop!

Quoted by Wm Annis, February 2 2011 (forum post).

Well, that's an interesting question. I checked the dialog for the film and the video games, and in fact I didn't have any "stop V-ing" constructions. What I did have were examples of "stop N" (presumably, stopping the N's from V-ing, although that wasn't expressed). For "stop N," I had used a si- construction:
ulte kawtu ke tsun ayoer tìftang sivi 'and no one can stop us'
Txo ke tsiyevun oe tìftang sivi for . . . 'If I should not succeed in stopping them . . . '
So what to do for "stop V-ing"? Well, since sngä'i takes modal syntax for "begin to V" which is the same as "begin V-ing," I don't see why it shouldn't be the same for ftang. So yes, your surmise is correct.
...
The one thing you can't do with ftang is to use it transitively: So you can't say *Oel pot ftolang, but only Oe poru tìftang soli. Again, I think that's OK.