Talk:nizhóní

Also "excellent"?

Can this also mean "excellent"? 71.66.97.228 08:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Sentences and phrases are more than the sums of their parts. Nizhóní does not mean excellent, but I’m sure that there are some sentences and phrases with it that would translate into English with excellent. It’s like два (dva) с (s) половиной (polovinoj)..."с (s)" means with, but this phrase translates to "two and a half." That does not mean that "с (s)" also means "and", because it does not. In spite of the meanings of the parts, the whole phrase translates to English using the conjunction and instead of the preposition with. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Evolution of nominalized verb form back into a verb?

The form of this word looks very much like nizhǫ́ + -í, a noun, which has turned back into a verb in how it's used. It looks like the same thing is now happening with hózhǫ́ and hózhóní. Whatever the case, the etyl doesn't look right -- there is no two-syllable verb root in Navajo, so the root here couldn't be -zhóní. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 05:46, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Right, the verb nizhǫ́ was nominalized with -í, then turned back into a verb. Same with hózhǫ́. The stem of each is -zhǫ́. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:24, 21 March 2012 (UTC)