L E P/Miscellaneous function words

Lexical Expansion Project

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self, one's own (A)

"He ate his (someone else's) yerik" vs. "He ate his (own) yerik."

[1] Models are European reflexive pronouns and African logophoric pronouns; looser association w Algonquian "4th person". Perhaps self-GEN vs. lapeyä ?

informative particle (*fay') (B)

"Hey, this is *fay' good!" (informing another that they should try it, vs. eliciting agreement when both are already eating it, which would perhaps be "ko")

"There is *fay' still yerik flesh in the storage!" (informing the guy, who seems to think that he already has to hunt another yerik)

like Bavarian "fei" = /fay/ or Japanese "yo". These particles are used in the sense of "it seems to me that you don't know about it, but I think you really should - so I tell you that..." [2] In Japanese the "yo" is a sentence ending particle - so in Na'vi it may be too? Other emotive/discourse particles (spoken punctuation) might also be useful, such as a particle used for "thinking aloud" or parenthetical comments (spoken parentheses) which one does not expect to be answered.

'part of a whole' affix ()

could be used to expand vocab: rain-drop, fire-spark, sand-grain, flower-petal, spine-vertebra, food-crumb, tree - piece of wood, land-island, to sing - a note, to sew - a stitch, to cry - a tear (or maybe a sob), wind-gust, to teach or to know - a datum, rope-fiber, to drink - a sip, to eat - a bite, to walk - a step, to run - a leap (thus the vertical vs. horizontal distinction that s.o. wanted vs. 'jump'), to swim - a stroke, to fly - a wing beat, to explode or break - a shard, nose-nostril, year-season, queue-nerve, clan - a clanmember, Na'vi - one of the people. Cognate w diminutives? w hapxì? "Eywapxì" = "a living being"? Or could 'u be used for some of these, esp. from verbs?

particle to answer back someone (*torr) (B)

A: We won't fight in this war. - B: *Torr! (= Your statement is wrong. We will!)

A: I suppose you wasn't able to hunt a yerik. - B: *Torr, it's already in the storage. (= Your statement is wrong.)

Modelled according to German "doch". Can be used only after negative sentences to express disapproval, that means: to contradict the negative sense and therefore stress out the (positive) contrary. [3] Japanese uses the verb "be different" for this.

in vain (particle) (B)

Kuuyi muki The water is hot. vs. Kuuyi 'as muki The water was hot (but isn’t any longer).

Pam kiihut peenani He is going to paint the house vs. Pam 'as kiihut peenani He was going to paint the house. (but didn’t).

This idea is shamelessly stolen from Hopi, where the particle ’as indicates something done "in vain" or that "isn't so now" or "didn't really happen." It's priority was put up for vote, and B won. [4]

mis-, do something wrongly (B)

misunderstand, botch

Klingon verb suffix {-Ha'}, secondary usage: {yaj} "understand", {yajHa'} "misunderstand"

thing (A)

What is that thing?!

The Turks are quite expressive with such a word a Turkish thing.

although, nevertheless, but ... anyway (A)

It's very hot out, but I'll do it anyway (although it's hot out...)

Some languages have both "although" and "nevertheless" words and use both, while some favor one side or the other. Yet other languages are content with "but."

should, ought to (B)

Should we ask for this word?

You ought not speak that way to her.

the two types of "but" (A)

My father went into the hills, but my mother to the coast. (simple contrast)

"Hamlet" wasn't written by Dickens, but by Shakespeare. (more like "instead", correcting the wrong assumption)

Many languages (the majority?) makes a difference between the contrast in the named to sentences, while English covers both concepts using "but". In German there is "aber" vs. "sondern", in Japanese "ga" vs. "naku", in Swedish "men" vs. "utan" etc.

"particle of unimportance" (*ängal) (B)

If you drink that much alcohol you will feel bad. - *Ängal. (= I don't care.)

It is *ängal, whether our chances are good or bad, we must try it! (= It doesn't matter, ...)

In German "egal" = /e.'ga:l/ is used to express, that something is seen as unimportant (it doesn't matter, I don't care, ...). "Egal" can be used as a predicate noun (something is egal = it doesn't matter) or as a sentence itself (= I don't care about what was mentioned). In German "egal" can't be inflected, so it's impossible to use "egal" as an normal adjective, so you can't say "eine egale Warnung" (a warning, I don't care about), but maybe this could be possible in Na'vi?