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Na'vi Grammar

The information (...) is not intended to be anything like a complete description; the Phonetics and Phonology section is the most complete, but the Morphology and Syntax sections are mere sketches. Given my contractual obligations, a more thorough treatment awaits another venue. But I hope this sketch will answer a few questions and perhaps serve to counterbalance some of the erroneous information that has made its way to the Internet.

Paul Frommer

 
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Word Classes and Morphology

Nouns and Pronouns

Basics

Nouns are inflected for case and number but only rarely for gender. There are no articles ("a" or "the").

Gender

Masculine nouns may be distinguished by the suffix -an, and feminine by -e, which is stressed: tsmuk or tsmuktutsmuke (sibling), tsmukan (brother), tsmuke (sister).

tsmuk or tsmuktu (sibling)
Gender Suffix Na'vi example English translation
Masculine -an tsmukan Brother
Feminine -e tsmuke Sister

Numbers

Number (singular, dual, trial, plural) is indicated by prefixes. Both trigger lenition (indicated by the "+" signs rather than the hyphens that usually mark prefix boundaries). In nouns which undergo lenition, the plural prefix may be dropped, so the plural of tokx (body) is either aysokx or just sokx.

# Prefix Na'vi Example English translation
Singular   nari Eye
Dual me+ menari Eyes
Trial ? ? ?
# Prefix Na'vi Example English translation
Singular   tokx Body
Plural (ay+) aysokx
sokx		 Bodies

Like nouns, pronouns exist in singular, dual, trial, and plural forms. In the first person dual, trial, and plural, a distinction is made between inclusive and exclusive forms.

Na'vi pronouns encode clusivity. That is, there are different words for "we" depending on whether I'm including you or not. There are also special forms for "the two of us" (with or without you), "the three of us", etc. They do not inflect for gender; although it's possible to distinguish "he" from "she", the distinction is optional.

oe (I)
Pronoun sing. dual trial plural
1st person, exclusive oe moe ? ayoe
1st person, inclusive - oeng ? ayoeng
2nd person nga ? ? aynga
3rd person po mefo ? ayfo

The deferential forms of "I" and "you" are ohe and ngenga. Possessive forms include ngeyä (your) and peyä (her/his). "He" and "she" can optionally be differentiated as poan and poe.

Case

Nouns and pronouns take six cases: Subjective, Agentive, Patientive, Genitive, Dative, Topical. The case system is tripartite: it distinguishes between intransitive subjects (S), transitive subjects (A), and objects (P). Case morphemes are suffixes, generally with several allomorphs.

The word order of Na'vi is largely free.

Topical (suffix -ri)

The topical case introduces the topic of the clause, and is somewhat equivalent to (though much more common than) English "as for." It can also appear where a genitive or dative might be expected.

Genitive (suffix -yä)

Dative (suffix -ru)

Oeri ontu teya längu .

I-TOP nose-GEN full is-NEG-ATTITUDE

"My nose is full."

Since the topic is "I," the subject (genitive) "nose" is associated with "me" in the same manner that adjective ("full") is attributed to the subject, rather than the topic.

In addition to case, the role of a noun may be indicated with adpositions.

Verbs

Verbs are inflected for tense, aspect, mood/dependency, and speaker attitude, but not for person or number. Verb inflections are effected exclusively through infixes, which are of two types — first position and second position.

With monosyllabic verb roots, first-position infixes simply come before second-position ones. With multisyllabic roots, however, first-position infixes occur in the penultimate syllable and second-position ones in the final syllable.

First-position infixes indicate tense, aspect, or mood; there are also participial and reflexive infixes in this position, the latter being in "pre-first" position so it can co-occur with other first-position infixes. Second-position infixes indicate speaker attitude — positive orientation, negative orientation, or uncertainty/indirect knowledge. Many of these infixes are optional on the sentence level. (In discourse, however, overt indication of tense or aspect may be required.)

Aspect is perfective or imperfective. Tense has five points on the time line: present, past proximate, past general, future proximate, future general. Verbs can be inflected for tense alone, aspect alone, or a combination of tense and aspect.

Root: taron (hunt)

Note: English translations are only approximate and represent one of several possibilities.

Tense only:
taron: 'hunt'
t<ìm>aron: "just now hunted"
t<ay>aron: "will hunt"

Aspect only:
t<er>aron: "be hunting"
t<ol>aron: "have hunted"

Both tense and aspect:
t<ìr><m>aron: "was just now hunting"

Many more such forms exist. inluding second-position infixes:

tìrmareion: "was just now hunting" (and the speaker feels positive about it)
tayarängon: "will hunt" (and the speaker feels negative about it)

In the last two examples, the root is indicated in red. Such forms raise an interesting question: To what extent can a root be obscured by inflections and still be recognizable? When Na'vi listeners hear tìrmareion, for example, do they immediately recognize it as a form of the verb taron? By the same token, are speakers able to produce such forms spontaneously? I'd like to think the answer to both questions is yes, but the matter requires further study; we need more samples of discourse from Pandora!

Adjectives

Adjectives are invariant and undeclined. A derivational prefix forms adjectives out of other parts of speech.

Adpositions (ADP)

Any adposition may occur either as a preposition before the noun, or as an enclitic after the noun, a greater degree of freedom than human languages allow. These can either precede or follow their heads with no semantic distinction; in the latter case, they're bound to the noun or pronoun.

"With you" may be either hu nga or ngahu.

When used as prepositions, more along the lines of what English does, certain adpositions trigger lenition. This may cause some ambiguity with short plurals:

One of the leniting prepositions is mì (in)

We are using the word tokx (body) as an example. According to number rules, the (ay+) suffix for the plural (ay)sokx (bodies) is optional due to lenition.

  Na'vi English
Noun ADP + Noun Noun ADP + Noun
Singular tokx mì tokx Body In the body
Plural (ay)sokx mì (ay)sokx Bodies In the bodies

The current list of Na'vi adpositions is:

Na'vi English
fa "per" (with, by means of)
hu "with" (accompaniment)
fpi "for the sake of"
ne "to" (direction)
ftu "from" (direction)
ta "from" (generic)
ta'em "from" (above)
ìlä "via, along"
ka "across"
mì "in"
ta'em "from" (above)

Syntax

The most notable aspect of Na'vi syntax is the freedom of word order. The case system allows all 6 sequences of S, O, and V. Additionally, adjectives, genitives, and relative clauses can either precede or follow their heads.

Nouns and adjectives are tied together by the morpheme a, which comes between them and is attached as a bound morpheme to the adjective. For example, "long river" is either ngima kilvan or kilvan angim.

There's obviously a lot more to say about syntax — for example, how the language handles subordination and complementation. That will be for another time.

Welcome to Learn Na'vi! How to learn and speak Navi - Avatar's alien Na'vi Language - created by Paul Frommer for James Cameron's movie "Avatar." Up-to-date Navi word list, dictionary/lexicon, and list of Navi grammar rules available, only at LearnNavi.org! We're getting new content all the time. We've even got the Na'vi alphabet (and pronounciation guides). Audio and video sections coming soon!