AUXILIARY INFIXES

Learn the Na'vi Infixes

Introduction

Beyond the core infixes, we have several other sets used to indicate inferential, intent, the reflexive, and the causative. The intent infix goes in the first <1> position, while the inferential infix goes in the second <2> position. The reflexive and the causative infixes are the only infixes to go before the first position, which we indicate with <0>.

Inferential

To show an action that you can infer might happen based on evidence you have, you can use <ats>, ie. poan yawne latsu poeru nìlam.

Intent

To show intent to perform an action, you use one of two modified future tense infixes:

InfixExample
Near Future Intent<isy>oe hisyahaw
General Future Intent<asy>oe hasyahaw

Reflexive

Rather than using a tertiary word to show the reflexive, Na’vi uses the infix <äp>, ie. yäpur oe, which occurs before any infixes for tense or aspect. This infix can only be used with transitive verbs, and causes them to become intransitive.

Causative

To indicate causation in Na’vi, we use the infix <eyk>, ie. oel heykahaw ngati, which occurs before any infixes for tense or aspect. Verbs that use the causative infix are always transitive, which means that normally intransitive verbs become transitive when modified by the causative.

A common area of confusion can be how Na’vi handles “I cause you to verb X” situations. If the causative is used with a transitive verb, the noun being caused to verb will take the dative case, ie. oel ngaru teykaron yerikit.

Participle Creation

In Na'vi, we have two infixes for creating participles out of verbs. They both take the first <1> position.

The active participle infix makes "verbing" adjectives and can be used with any verb. The passive participle infix makes "verbed" adjectives, and it can only be used with transitive verbs. Because participles create adjectives out of verbs, we use the participle + -a- to mark the affected noun.

InfixExample
Active Participle<us>tswusayona ikran
Passive Participle<awn>tawnarona yerik