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Grammar

A Taste of Na’vi Grammar

This page is a bird’s eye view of Na’vi grammar. It’s just to give you a feel for how Na’vi
works, focusing on things that are probably unusual to most readers. It will not teach you
the language. If you want to learn more you should check out the many resources
offered here at LearnNavi.org

Tripartite

In English, we mark the role a noun is playing in a sentence by word order. A sentence like
a dog bites the man is quite a different state of affairs from the man bites a dog. In Na’vi,
the role a noun or pronoun plays in the sentence is marked by changing the ending of the
word rather than by word order.

Nantangìl frìp tutet.

Frìp tutet nantangìl.
Tutet nantangìl frìp.
Each of the sentences above mean the same thing, a viperwolf bites the person. We know
this because the subject of each sentence, the viperwolf (nantang), is marked with the
ending -ìl; and the direct object, the person (tute) is marked with the ending -t.

These endings, called “cases,” are fairly common in Human languages, too. What is more
unusual, though, is that in Na’vi the subject of a transitive verb, such as frìp to bite, is
marked differently than the subject of an intransitive verb, such as hahaw to sleep.

Nantangìl frìp tutet. The viperwolf bites a person.

Nantang hahaw. The viperwolf sleeps.
Here you will notice that the subject of an intransitive verb gets no ending at all. In Human
languages, this separate marking of transitive subjects, intransitive subjects and direct
objects is quite rare, and is known as a tripartite case alignment.

There are other case endings for different syntactic roles in Na’vi, for possession, for
indirect objects and for topics. The forms of the endings change according to both fixed
sound rules and style. See one of the fuller references for all the forms that can appear.

Dual, Trial and Plural

In English, nouns and pronouns can be either singular (house, dog, I) or plural (houses,
dogs, we). Na’vi has these, but also has the dual for when there are two of something and
the trial for when there are three. Plenty of Human languages have a dual (even English
once had dual pronouns), but the trial is rarer.

In Na’vi these changes in number are marked with prefixes.

Nantang hahaw. A viperwolf is sleeping.

Menantang hahaw. Two viperwolves are sleeping.
Pxenantang hahaw. Three viperwolves are sleeping.
Aynantang hahaw. Viperwolves (four or more) are sleeping.
Certain consonants undergo a change called “lenition” when they follow a number prefix.
For example, the word tute person becomes mesute in the dual, with the t at the
beginning of the word becoming s from lenition. When a word takes the plural prefix ay-
and starts with consonant that can take lenition, the plural prefix can be dropped, leaving
only the consonant change to let you know the word is plural. So, the plural of person can
be aysute, but is far more often simply sute.

Pronouns as well as nouns distinguish dual, trial and plural forms:

Mefoti yìm. Bind (the two of) them!

There is an additional subtlety in the first person non-singular pronouns, we. Na’vi
distinguishes inclusive we – me and you from exclusive we – me and some other people
but not you. So for example, the dual inclusive form is oeng me and you and the exclusive
is moe we two (but not you).

The Verb

The verb is perhaps the most complex part of Na’vi grammar, not only because of the
different ways its meaning can be extended, changed and refined, but also because the
form these changes take: infixes. Rather than adding to the beginning or end of words,
such as the noun case and number markers, Na’vi verbs get syllables inserted into them
to express different grammatical ideas and to extend the meaning of the verb. For
clarification, infixes can be highlighted with angled brackets around them, as in, for
example, ‹ìm›, the near past marker.

Na’vi verbs can be marked for tense, which will be very familiar to speakers of European
languages, including English. What is less familiar to anyone who hasn’t studied, say,
Native American Indian languages, is that Na’vi doesn’t simply mark past and future, but
distinguishes the recent past from the general past, and the near from the general future.
Both of these future tense forms mark a prediction about a future event.

Oe kܓy݊. I am about to go, I will go soon.

Po k‹ay›ä. He will go.
Oe pܓm݊hem. I just arrived.
Fo p‹am›ähem. They arrived.
Na’vi makes another distinction in the future tense: intent. If the speaker wishes to say that
they have an intention to bring about a future state of affairs, rather than a prediction about
said future affairs, then slightly different future forms with an s are used.

Oe kܓsy݊. I will go soon.

Oe k<asy>ä I will go.
In addition to the tense infixes there are aspect infixes. Verb aspect will be unfamilar to
most readers, but has to do with how an action is presented in relation to other events.
The imperfective aspect is used to describe an action that is ongoing, while the perfect
presents an act as a complete whole. Typically, the imperfective, ‹er›, sets the background
scene in a narrative, and the perfective, ‹ol›, presents snapshots of events taking place
against that background. Na’vi is much more likely to mark aspect than tense.

Mì na’ring po t‹er›ìran a krr, ts‹ol›e’a nantangit.

When he was walking in the forest, he saw a viperwolf.
If both tense and aspect need to be mentioned Na’vi has blended affixes which combine
tense and aspect marking, such as ‹alm› for the past perfective. There are quite a few of
these blends. Fortunately, the full complement of tense and aspect infixes will rarely be
seen in a verb. Once a tense, aspect or affect has been established, there is no need to
keep repeating the marking on subsequent verbs.

Na’vi also has a set of infixes which mark how the speaker feels about the state of affairs
they are describing. For example, the infix ‹ei› indicates the speaker feels good about what
they’re saying, while ‹äng› means they’re unhappy.

Ngaru irayo s‹eiy›i oe. I thank you (and am happy to).

Kxawm oe h‹arm›ah‹äng›aw. Maybe I was sleeping (and am unhappy about that)
The same position used for these affect infixes is also used for markers of evidence and
formality. For the full rules about which sort of infixes go where, and what they do, please
see one of the larger references.

Flexible Word Order

As hinted at in the discussion on noun cases, Na’vi word order can be very flexible
because the case endings let us know who’s doing what to whom. Since word order
generally isn’t needed for syntax, Na’vi uses it for style and emphasis. For example,
Frommer has said that the end of the sentence is “where the ‘punch’ is,” making it like
English and Latin in putting emphasis at the end of a phrase.

However, though the order of subjects, verbs and objects is free, within noun phrases
Na’vi word order is more strict. For example, an adjective that’s modifying a noun has to
stay right next to the noun, to which it is connected by attaching an a to the adjective on
the side closest to the noun.

Tse’a tutet atsawl oel. I see a large person.

Tse’a tsawla tutet oel. I see a large person.
Although we can shuffle around oel and tse’a, the words tsawl large and tute person
must stay next to each other. If we want to say a very large person we must make sure
that very does not intrude between the noun and adjective.

References

A Reference Grammar of Na’vi a very detailed look

at what we know so far.
The Na’vi Language Wikibook has another
presentation of Na’vi grammar, though it isn’t kept as up to date.

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