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== Practice Sentences ==
 
== Practice Sentences ==

Revision as of 04:45, 27 January 2010

Note: This beginner's guide is a work in progress. There is still a lot to be done before it gets released. Feedback from everyone is welcome, including from beginners and experienced Na'vi learners. Please add your comments on the Beginners' Guide talk page, or post to one of the Beginners' Guide threads on the Learn Na'vi forum (such as the Letters and Sounds thread), or send a forum PM to Erimeyz.



[Placeholder for introductory text]

See Spot Run

Consider this sentence:

Neytìril tse'a ikranit.

This means "Neytiri sees the ikran." Now consider this sentence:

Ikranit tse'a Neytìril.

This also means "Neytiri sees the ikran." In fact, all of these sentences mean "Neytiri sees the ikran":

Neytìril ikranit tse'a.
Ikranit Neytìril tse'a.
Tse'a Neytìril ikranit.
Tse'a ikranit Neytìril.

One of the most interesting features of Na'vi is that it has free word order. That means that in simple sentences like these, the words can be arranged in any order and still mean the same thing.

This is not the case in English. "Neytiri sees the ikran" is very different from "The ikran sees Neytiri". English uses word order to determine which word is the subject (the one seeing) and which is the object (the one being seen). The subject comes before the verb and the object comes after it. If you swap the positions of the subject and object, you'll change the meaning of the sentence.

So in a Na'vi sentence like Tse'a ikranit Neytìril, how can you tell who is seeing whom? By using noun cases.

In these sentences, notice that Neytìril is actually Neytìri + l, and ikranit is actually ikran + it. The l and it are called case markers, and they indicate the case of each of the two nouns. "Case" is a linguistics term; it simply means what role the noun is playing in the sentence. In these sentences, the l indicates that Neytiri is the subject (doing the seeing), and the it indicates that the ikran is the object (being seen). The use of case markers allows Na'vi word order to be flexible; no matter what order you say the words in, you can always tell who is seeing whom.

A sentence with a subject, a verb, and an object - sentences like "Neytiri sees the ikran" - are called transitive sentences. More precisely, the verb in such sentences is called a transitive verb. Transitive verbs are those in which someone or something is doing an action to some other person or thing, verbs like see, throw, drop, and find: I see the ball, I throw the ball, I drop the ball, I find the ball. The subject of a transitive verb (here "I") is called the agent. The object of a transitive verb (here "ball") is called the patient, also known as the direct object.

  • The agent always takes the ergative case, which is marked using the suffix -l. Neytìri + ergative case marker (-l) = Neytìril.
  • The patient always takes the accusative case, which is marked using the sufix -it. ikran + accusative case marker (-it) = ikranit.

In the sentence Tse'a ikranit Neytìril the -it tells you the ikran is in the accusative case and is therefore the patient, and the -l tells you Neytiri is in the ergative case and is therefore the agent. So even though the literal translation of the sentence is "Sees the ikran Neytiri", you know that the meaning and the correct translation of the sentence is "Neytiri sees the ikran".

Allomorphs

Suppose it's the other way around, and it's the ikran that sees Neytiri. Here's how you'd say that in Na'vi:

Neytìrit tse'a ikranìl.

Here Neytiri is in the accusative case and is the patient, while the ikran is in the ergative case and is the agent. But did you notice something? The case markers were a little bit different than in our first example. Here, the ergative case marker is -ìl (ikran + ìl) instead of -l, and the accusative case marker is -t (Neytìri + t) instead of -it. Why?

The answer is that each noun case has multiple markers, and which one you use depends on the noun that's being marked. These multiple markers are called allomorphs.

  • The ergative case has two allomorphs: -l and -ìl.
  • The accusative case has three allomorphs: -t, -it, and -ti.

For nouns ending in vowels, use -l and -t.

(Examples. Put these on separate indented lines, one verb per example, uninflected plus both cases, three examples)

For nouns ending in consonants, including the pseudovowels rr/ll and the diphthongs ay/ey/aw/ew, use -ìl and -it.

(Examples, as above, two examples for consonants, one for rr/ll, one for diphthongs)

The -ti accusative allomorph is the "long form", and it's used when speaking formally or for dramatic emphasis. It can be used after either vowels or consonants.

(Examples)

Spot Runs

Consider this sentence:

Neytìri hahaw.
Neytiri sleeps.

Neytiri is the subject, but what's the object? There isn't one, because by sleeping Neytiri isn't doing anything to anything. That is to say, she's not an agent, and there is no patient that she's acting upon. She's just sleeping. A sentence like "Neytiri sleeps" which has a subject and a verb but no object is called intransitive, and the verb in the sentence is an intransitive verb. Other intransitive verbs include go, agree, run: I go, I agree, I run.

Just as before, Na'vi's free word order means that the sentence could also be written as:

Hahaw Neytìri.
Neytiri sleeps.

You've probably noticed that in the sentences above Neytìri has neither the ergative case marker -l nor the accusative case marker -t. That's because Neytiri is neither an agent nor a patient; she's neither acting on something nor being acted upon. Instead, she is simply the subject of the sentence. Subjects of intransitive sentences are always in the subjective case. And as you may have guessed, the subjective case has no case marker - it's simply the noun by itself without any suffixes.

So now you know three of the Na'vi noun cases, and one of them didn't even take any work to learn! Here's a summary:

Na'vi Noun Cases

Case After Vowels After Consonants Other Examples
Subjective No marker No marker Neytìri hahaw Neytiri sleeps
Ergative -l -ìl Neytìril tse'a ikranit Neytiri sees the ikran
Tsu'teyìl taron swirät Tsu'tey hunts the creature
Accusative -t -it -ti (long form) Neytìril tse'a ikranit Neytiri sees the ikran
Tsu'teyìl taron swirät Tsu'tey hunts the creature
Eywal fyawìntxu Na'viti Eywa guides the people


Practice Sentences

Using the following vocabulary words, read the sentences below and see if you can understand what they mean. Then say them out loud so you can practice your pronunciation.

  • Vocabulary: Nouns
(a few, indented)
  • Vocabulary: Verbs
(a few, transitive and intransitive (not marked), indented)
  • Practice Sentences
(several, varying word order, numbered)
  • Answers
(numbered)

How'd you do? It's tricky; you have to read the Na'vi words and think about what they mean based on their case markings, not where they happen to be in the sentence. If you were able to get most of them, you're doing well. In fact, congratulations are in order: not only can you read and speak Na'vi, but now you're thinking in Na'vi, too!

Time to move on to Lesson Five.