User:Erimeyz/Beginners' Guide: Lesson Six - Verb Tenses

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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.



[Introductory text goes here, maybe]

All This Has Happened Before

Consider the following sentences:

Neytiri hahaw. Neytiri sleeps.
Neytiri hamahaw. Neytiri slept.
Swirä tul. The creature runs.
Swirä tamul. The creature ran.
Tsu'teyìl swirät taron. Tsu'tey hunts the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät tamaron. Tsu'tey hunted the creature.

The second sentence in each pair is in the past tense. More precisely, it's the verb that's in the past tense: slept, ran, hunted. To put a verb in the past tense, Na'vi does something unusual: it uses infixes, which just means that it adds something in the middle of the verb instead of at the beginning or end. The infix here is <am>. (Note: infixes are sometimes written with angle brackets like these <> around them, just to make it clear that they are infixes and not suffixes like -it or prefixes like ay-.)

We'll explain exactly where in the middle of the verb <am> goes, but for now just look at some examples:

eyk lead
ameyk led
rol sing
ramol sang
zong save
zamong saved
yur wash
yamur washed
lonu release
lamonu released
kurakx drive out
kamurakx drove out
pähem arrive
pamähem arrived
teswotìng grant
teswamotìng granted
kllkulat dig up
kllkamulat dug up

Here's the rule: for verbs with one syllable, the past tense infix <am> is inserted immediately in front of the vowel in that syllable; for verbs with two or more syllables it is inserted immediately in front of the vowel in the second-to-last syllable.

Read that rule again, carefully, then go back through the list of verbs above and see how it applies to each one.

Got it? Good! On to the future!

All This Will Happen Again

Consider the following sentences:

Neytiri hahaw. Neytiri sleeps.
Neytiri hamahaw. Neytiri slept.
Neytiri hayahaw. Neytiri will sleep.
Swirä tul. The creature runs.
Swirä tamul. The creature ran.
Swirä tayul. The creature will run.
Tsu'teyìl swirät taron. Tsu'tey hunts the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät tamaron. Tsu'tey hunted the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät tayaron. Tsu'tey will hunt the creature.

You can probably guess this next part. To put a verb into the future tense Na'vi uses the infix <ay> in exactly the same way as the past tense infix <am> is used. Read through the following examples and see for yourself:

eyk lead
ameyk led
ayeyk will lead
rol sing
ramol sang
rayol will sing
lonu release
lamonu released
layonu will release
pähem arrive
pamähem arrived
payähem will arrive
kllkulat dig up
kllkamulat dug up
kllkayulat will dig up

So now you know how to talk about the present (no infixes), the past (<am>), and the future (<ay>). That pretty much covers it, right? Well, almost.

All This Is Just Now About To Happen

While English has three tenses (past, present, and future), Na'vi has five, count 'em, five tenses: past, present, future, recent past, and immediate future. They look like this:

Tsu'teyìl swirät tamaron. Tsu'tey hunted the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät tìmaron. Tsu'tey just now hunted the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät taron. Tsu'tey hunts the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät tìyaron. Tsu'tey is about to hunt the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät tayaron. Tsu'tey will hunt the creature.

The near-term tense infixes <ìm> and <ìy> are inserted into verbs in the same way as their general-term counterparts <am> and <ay>:

ameyk led
ìmeyk just led
eyk lead
ìyeyk about to lead
ayeyk will lead
lamonu released
lìmonu just released
lonu release
lìyonu about to release
layonu will release
kllkamulat dug up
kllkìmulat just dug up
kllkulat dig up
kllkìyulat about to dig up
kllkayulat will dig up

How recent is recent? How soon is about to? There's no specific rule - it depends on the perspective of the speaker and the context of the conversation. <am> and <ay> are not necessarily in the distant past or future, they just aren't in the immediate past or future. Similary, <ìm> and <ìy> could be some distance ahead or behind, just not as far as something else the speaker could have chosen to talk about but didn't.

In English, Please

There are actually several different ways to translate a simple Na'vi sentence into English:

Tsu'teyìl swirät taron.
Tsu'tey hunts the creature.
Tsu'tey is hunting the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät tamaron.
Tsu'tey hunted the creature.
Tsu'tey was hunting the creature.
Tsu'tey had hunted the creature.
Tsu'tey had been hunting the creature.
Tsu'tey used to be hunting the creature.
Tsu'teyìl swirät tayaron.
Tsu'tey will hunt the creature.
Tsu'tey will be hunting the creature.
Tsu'tey is going to hunt the creature.
Tsu'tey is going to be hunting the creature.

In English these types of sentences go by such various names as future perfect, pluperfect progressive, and so forth. In Na'vi there's just past, present, and future (plus recent past and immediate future). Any of the English variations of the basic tenses can be used as valid translations of the corresponding Na'vi tense. In many cases, however, there may be one best or most appropriate translation; as usual, you can tell what's most appropriate by the context of the conversation. Things will get a little more complicated when we talk about aspect in Na'vi, but you don't need to worry about that for now.

Practice Sentences