Lexical affixes

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Revision as of 00:27, 27 February 2010 by Wm.annis (talk | contribs) (→‎Prefixes: gerund)
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Prefixes

These are all the known prefixes that change the class of a word as of February 2, 2010. None of these appear to change the position of the stress accent.

  • nì- forms adverbs from nouns, adjectives and verbs, as in nìNa'vi Na'vily, in Na'vi (TO), nìftue easily from ftue easy, nìtam enough from tam suffice, be enough (ASG, Dictionary)
  • sä- forms a noun for the means through which an action takes place, as in säspxin disease from spxin sick (MND) and sänume teaching, instruction from nume learn (ASG).
  • tì- forms nouns from adjectives and verbs, as in tìftia study (n.) from ftia study (v.) (SciMag), tìngay truth from ngay true (ASG, Dictionary)
    • tì- with a participle (a verb with the ‹us› infix) forms a gerund, koren a’awve tìruseyä ’awsiteng the first rule of living together (GMA).
  • le- forms adjectives from nouns, as in lehrrap dangerous from hrrap danger (ASG, Dictionary), leNa'vi Na'vi (adj.) from Na'vi Na'vi (n.) (ASG, Weaving Song)

Suffixes

  • -tu, short for tute person, is used to derive person nouns from parts of speech other than verbs (vs. -yu, which operates on verbs), as in reltseotu artist and pamtseotu musician from pamtseo music (Art-related vocabulary).
  • -yu creates an agent noun from a verb, as in taronyu hunter from taron hunt (ASG, Dictionary). It does not appear to alter the stress accent of a word.