Yivrian verbs

Verb classes

Yivrian verbs are lexically divided into three classes: stative verbs, durative active verbs, and punctual active verbs. This classification is a property of the verb itself, not of any particular inflected form – it is a lexical distinction rather than a morphological one. The semantics of a verb will usually suggest which class it belongs to, but the assignment is ultimately conventional, and there are verbs whose class membership is not predictable from their meaning alone.

Stative verbs are those which describe a state that the subject is in, or a quality that the subject possesses. Many stative verbs correspond to predicate adjectives in English. This class includes verbs such as lavenya “to be tall” and gaimenya “to be gentle.” Some stative verbs are transitive; these typically describe attitudes or emotional states directed at someone or something, such as anya “to love” or thoyya “to be afraid of.” The object of a transitive stative verb occurs in the dative rather than the nominative.

Active verbs are those which describe an action or event undertaken by the subject. Active verbs are further subdivided into two subclasses:

• Durative active verbs describe actions conceived of as having temporal extent – they persist over a span of time and may have an internal structure with a beginning, middle, and end. Typical durative verbs are kendya “to rule” and essunya “to build.”
• Punctual active verbs describe actions conceived of as instantaneous or momentary, with no appreciable internal duration. Typical punctual verbs are miithya “to strike” and samenya “to cut.”

The primary morphological consequence of this distinction is that stative and durative active verbs share the same full set of tense and aspect markers, while punctual active verbs support only a restricted subset. The specific restrictions are described in the relevant sections below.

Tense, Negation, and Temporal Aspect

The Yivrian verb is generally agglutinative, which is to say that affixes indicating the various verbal properties are added one after another in a series. There are three morphological slots for affixes following the aspectual suffixes, which occur in the order Voice > Tense/Negation > Phase. We will discuss tense, negation, and temporal aspect first, and discuss voice after that.

Tense and Negation

Tense and negation are always indicated together in Yivrian. Yivrian has two tenses, past and present, and two degrees of negation, affirmative and negative. The negative affix is placed between the theme vowel (which indicates voice) and the temporal aspect ending.

The suffixes for tense and negation are as follows:

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	–	-t-
Past	-l-	-r-

The present affirmative, as this table shows, is the unmarked form and does not have any overt morphological exponent. These affixes are illustrated below:

	Affirmative	Negative
Present	kendya	kendyat
	rules	does not rule
Past	kendyal	kendyar
	ruled	did not rule

Temporal Aspect

Temporal aspect in Yivrian is a morphological category distinct from aspect (which is indicated by the aspectual suffixes). It indicates the degree of completeness of an action or its temporal orientation. The temporal aspect suffixes come last in the verb’s morphology, following the tense/negation suffixes. The set of available temporal aspects depends on the verb class.

Stative and durative active verbs support the following temporal aspects:

Aspect	Suffix	Description
Simple	–	Indicates the beginning or onset of an action, or the entry into a state. This form has an inchoative meaning.
Progressive	-a	Indicates an action in progress or a state that is already in effect. This is the unmarked and most common form for stative and durative verbs.
Cessative	-am	Indicates an action at its termination, or a state which is ceasing to hold.
Prospective	-n	Indicates an anticipated or expected future occurrence of the action or state. In the past tense, indicates past intention or imminence (“was going to,” “was about to”).

Note that for stative and durative verbs, the simple form is not the unmarked form. The progressive is the default, and the bare simple form specifically conveys an inchoative sense. For example, kendyaa “rules” (progressive) is the ordinary way to say that someone rules, while kendya (simple) means “begins to rule.”

Punctual active verbs support only the following temporal aspects:

Aspect	Suffix	Description
Simple	–	A simple occurrence of the action. This is the unmarked form for punctual verbs.
Perfective	-as	Indicates a completed action, viewed from a later point.
Prospective	-n	Indicates an anticipated or expected future occurrence of the action. In the past tense, indicates past intention or imminence (“was going to,” “was about to”).

The following table shows the durative verb kendya in the present active with both negation grades:

	Simple	Progressive	Cessative	Prospective
Affirmative	kendya	kendyaa	kendyaam	kendyan
Negative	kendyat	kendyata	kendyatam	kendyatan

And the punctual verb miithya in the present active:

	Simple	Perfective	Prospective
Affirmative	miithya	miithyaas	miithyan
Negative	miithyat	miithyatas	miithyatan

Voice

The category of voice indicates the relationship between the subject and the object and the nature of their thematic roles. See the syntax section for a discussion of the use of the voices. Yivrian distinguishes three voices:

• Active – Indicates that the semantic role of the subject is higher than that of the object, if there is one. This is the unmarked voice for all classes of verbs.
• Passive – Reverses the thematic roles of subject and object, and makes the active subject argument of an active sentence optional. This is semantically the same as the passive in familiar European languages, although the syntax is rather different.

Voice is indicated by a gradation of the vowel that is part of the aspectual suffix. The reference form (and the form given above in the list of aspectual suffixes) is Active. The full set of forms is:

Name	Ending	Example
Active	-a	kendya, to rule
Passive	-o	kendyo, to be ruled

Stem formation

Nearly all verbs in Yivrian are formed from noun stems by the addition of one of several derivational suffixes. The resulting verb stem is what carries the tense, voice, and temporal aspect inflections described above.

The base form -ya

The suffix -ya is the default and most productive verb-forming suffix. It derives a verb directly from a noun stem, and the resulting verb may be stative, durative active, or punctual active depending on the semantics of the stem. The lexical class distinctions described above (stative vs. active, punctual vs. durative) apply primarily to verbs in this base form.

The rules for forming the base verb stem are as follows:

• The ending -ya is added directly to the end of the nominative form of words ending in a consonant. This includes both C-class and U-class words. If the final consonant is /l/, then the /l/ and /j/ of the ending coalesce into [ʎ] spelled {yy}, as indicated in the Phonology section. If the final consonant is /r/, then the ending -atya is used instead. Ex: miith ~ miithya, thol ~ thoyya, per ~ peratya
• If the word ends in -a, then the -a is dropped and the ending -ya is added after the last consonant. If the word ends in -ra, then the -a is preserved. Ex: kenda ~ kendya, hara ~ haraya
• If the stem ends in any other vowel, the ending -ya is merely added following the final vowel. Ex: essu ~ essuya

The habitual -vva

The habitual suffix -vva is attached only to stems whose base form (-ya) produces an active verb. The resulting verb indicates repeated, customary, or generalized action, and is always a durative active verb regardless of whether the base form is punctual or durative.

For example, miithya “to strike” is a punctual active verb, but miithavva “to strike repeatedly, to beat” is durative.

The causative -nya and -hya

The causative indicates that the subject causes someone or something else to perform the action or enter the state described by the base verb. There are two causative suffixes, which have essentially the same semantics but whose distribution is governed by the lexical class of the base verb:

• -nya is attached to stems whose base form produces an active verb (whether punctual or durative). Ex: kendya “to rule” > kendanya “to cause to rule, to install as ruler.”
• -hya is attached to stems whose base form produces a stative verb. Ex: lavenya “to be tall” > lavahya “to cause to be tall, to make tall.”

The resulting verb is always a punctual active verb.

The copular -(i)nya

The copular suffix -(i)nya derives stative verbs from stems whose base form would normally produce an active verb. The meaning of the resulting verb can be quite idiosyncratic, but the usual sense is “to be like or typical of the subject of the active verb.” For example, kenda “king” forms the active verb kendya “to rule,” but the copular form kendainya means “to be kingly, to be royal.”

The copular suffix includes a vowel-lengthening infix like the pronominal suffixes: when attached to a stem, an epenthetic -e- is added (for consonant-final stems), and the preceding vowel is lengthened (diphthongized). Ex: lav ~ laivenya.

Note that the causative -hya can also be attached to copular stems, producing a verb that means “to cause someone to have the quality described by the copular.” For example, kendahya means “to cause to be kingly,” i.e. “to coronate, to enthrone.”

Morphology of derived stems

The rules for forming the base verb (-ya) are described above. The other derivational suffixes (-nya, -vva, -(i)nya, and -hya) follow simpler rules:

• After words ending in a consonant, an epenthetic -a- is added between the stem and the derivational suffix. With the copular ending -(i)nya, the vowel -e- is used instead, as with the pronominal suffixes. Ex: lav ~ lavanya, laivenya.
• After words ending in a vowel (including a), the derivational suffixes are simply added following the vowel. Ex: essu ~ essunya.

Mood

Mood in Yivrian is indicated by a set of modal prefixes. These prefixes are not exclusive of each other – more than one of them may be used at a time, although their order is fixed. The following chart shows the modal prefixes with their meanings in the order in which they must occur:

Mood	Prefix	Description
Interrogative	ko-	Indicates yes/no questions
Imperative	to-	Indicates a command, order, or logical necessity for the action to occur
Debitive	so-	Indicates a suggestion, a moral obligation or strong tendency for the action to occur
Conditional	ro-	Indicates a contrafactual or suppositional quality about the action
Volitive	do-	Indicates desire on the part of the subject to do the action
Potential	mo-	Indicates ability on the part of the subject to perform the action
Intensive	vo-	Strengthens the quality of the action, indicates that the action occurs often or to a great degree

The forms given above contain the vowel -o-, which is the vowel that all of the modal prefixes use when they are the first or the only prefix. However, the vowel used in the prefixes changes when more than one prefix is used, according to the following rules:

• The first prefix or the only prefix takes the vowel o. Ex: to + anya > toanya; to + kendya > tokendya.
• The prefix nearest to the root takes the vowel e if the root begins with a consonant, or no vowel at all if the root begins with a vowel. Ex: to + vo + anya > tovanya; to + vo + kendya > tovekendya.
• Any prefixes between the first and the last take the vowel e. Ex: to + ro + vo + anya > torevanya; to + ro + vo + kendya > torevekendya.

Although there are no theoretical restrictions on the number of modal prefixes that may be used at one time, in practice series of more than three prefixes are extremely rare.

Irregular Verbs

The vast majority of verbs in Yivrian are regular in every way. However, there are a small number of verbs that are irregular in the formation of their derived stems. These verbs either have no noun stem or do not follow the rules given above for the derivational suffixes.

Most of these follow the pattern of peyya “to say,” which forms its base form as if from the stem pel-, but which truncates the final consonant of its stem to pe- in the other derived forms:

Stem form	Form
Base	peyya
Causative	penya
Habitual	pevva
Copular	peinya
Copular causative	pehya

Verbs following this pattern are ditya, keyya, kuyya, peyya, seyya, tayya, meaning “to carry, to hear, to do what?, to say, to put, to have”, respectively.

There is one verb sudya “to take” which follows this pattern except in the copular forms, which are regular with respect to the root sud-: sudya, sunya, suvva, suidenya, sudahya. Note that even the copular forms are not perfectly regular, since sudya is considered to be formed from suda (not sud).

There are four verbs which form their derived stems by truncating a final consonant, as peyya, except in the causative. These verbs all have unique causative forms:

Base	Causative
manya	maya
nayya	naya
onya	oanya
renya	reya

The other derived forms of these verbs follow peyya. For example, the full set of derived stems of manya “to want” are manya, maya, mavva, mainya, mahya.

There is one verb, fayya “to go” which is suppleted by fasya “to leave” in all of its derived forms except the base and the copular. Thus, the stems of fayya are:

Stem form	Form
Base	fayya
Causative	fasanya
Habitual	fasavva
Copular	failenya
Copular causative	fasahya

Note that fasya is a regular verb that has its own forms in those stem positions where it does not supplete fayya.

The verbs eya and atya

Eya means “to be,” and atya means “to do,” and they are both known as pro-verbs because of their unique syntactic properties. They are the only verbs in Yivrian that are entirely irregular, although their conjugations are somewhat similar.

eya “to be”

Eya only occurs in the active and passive voices, and it only has two derived stems: the base form eya, and the causative enya. (However, eya is a stative verb, and so terming these forms as base/causative may be somewhat misleading.) The base forms are listed here in full:

Present Active

	Simple	Progressive	Cessative	Prospective
Affirmative	eya	eyi	eyim	ean
Negative	eit	eita	eitam	eitan

Past Active

	Simple	Progressive	Cessative	Prospective
Affirmative	eal	eala	ealam	ealn
Negative	eir	eira	eiram	eiran

Present Passive

	Simple	Progressive	Cessative	Prospective
Affirmative	eo	eo	eom	eon
Negative	eot	eota	eotam	eotan

Past Passive

	Simple	Progressive	Cessative	Prospective
Affirmative	eol	eola	eolam	eoln
Negative	eor	eora	eoram	eoran

Infinitives

	Affirmative	Negative
Active	yei	yeilat
Passive	yeilo	yeilot

The moods of eya are also formed differently from other verbs. Whatever the nearest prefix is to the stem, it has no vowel even if it is the only one present. The other prefixes are formed regularly. Thus:

to + eya > teya to + ro + eya > toreya to + ro + vo + eya > toreveya

atya “to do”

Atya is a punctual active verb. It exists in active and passive forms and in all derived stems except the copular and copular causative. The stems are respectively atya (base), anya (causative), and avva (habitual). In the conjugation of atya, the initial a- irregularly drops out in certain forms; however, the forms which lose the initial a- are consistent across all of the derived stems.

As a punctual verb, the base form atya takes only the simple, perfective, and prospective temporal aspects. The conjugation of the base form is as follows:

Present Active

	Simple	Perfective	Prospective
Affirmative	atya	atyis	atyan
Negative	atyat	tyatas	tyatan

Past Active

	Simple	Perfective	Prospective
Affirmative	atyal	tyalas	tyaln
Negative	atyar	tyaras	tyaran

The passive is formed regularly by replacing -ya with -yo. In the present passive the sequences -oa- and -ua- are reduced to -o- and -u- (just as the sequence -aa- reduces to -i- in the active). Thus, the present passive of atya is:

Present Passive

	Simple	Perfective	Prospective
Affirmative	atyo	atyos	atyon
Negative	atyot	tyotas	tyotan

The causative anya is also punctual and follows the same pattern, with -ny- in place of -ty-. The habitual avva, however, is a durative verb and takes the full set of durative temporal aspects. The only complication is that medial -vv- alternates with initial w- when the initial a- drops. Thus the present active habitual is:

Present Active Habitual

	Simple	Progressive	Cessative	Prospective
Affirmative	avva	avvi	avvim	avvan
Negative	avvat	wata	watam	watan

Likewise in the other voices and tenses.

The moods of atya are formed similar to those of eya. Whatever the nearest prefix is to the stem, it has no vowel even if it is the only one present. If the form that the modal prefix is attached to would not normally have an initial a-, that a- is restored in the presence of the modal prefix. The other prefixes are formed regularly. Thus:

ro + atya > ratya ro + tyatas > ratyatas to + ro + tyatas > toratyatas to + ro + vo + tyatas > torevatyatas