User:Erimeyz/Beginners' Guide: Lesson Five - Noun Cases

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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:

Neytiril tse'a ikranit.

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

Ikranit tse'a Neytiril.

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

Neytiril ikranit tse'a.
Ikranit Neytiril tse'a.
Tse'a Neytiril ikranit.
Tse'a ikranit Neytiril.

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 Neytiril, how can you tell who is seeing whom? By using noun cases.

In these sentences, notice that Neytiril is actually Neytiri + 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. Neytiri + ergative case marker (-l) = Neytiril.
  • 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 Neytiril 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:

Neytirit 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 (Neytiri + 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

[Intransitive sentences, the subjective case]

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.