Arêndron Morphology
2: Verbs

Person and number

Arêndron verbs inflect for the same person and number combinations as the pronouns, but there is no gender distinction in the third person singular, and the fourth person singular and plural are not distinguished. The endings for person and number are as follows:

Two-syllable verbs stress the second syllable in the first and second persons and the third person plural, the first in the third person singular and the fourth person. Longer verbs stress the last syllable of the stem throughout.

The -a ending of the third person singular is elided before a word beginning with a vowel. This may be shown in writing with an apostrophe (there is no equivalent in the native script).

Stem alterations

Many two-syllable verbs change their stem vowel when it is stressed (that is, in the third person singular and the fourth person). Compounds of stem-changing verbs are usually also stem-changing, in spite of having the stem vowel stressed in all the persons and numbers.

Stem alterations take one of two forms: either the vowel is lengthened with the addition of a circumflex, or the vowel becomes a diphthong. For example, shim- “to write” has the first person singular shimê (no change), but the third person singular sheima. Bagh- “to read” has the first person singular baghê, but the third person singular baugha. All stem-changing verbs have the third person form listed in the dictionary entry.

Tense, aspect and mood

Arêndron distinguishes two tenses, past and non-past, and four aspects: simple, habitual, protractive and completive. Aspects cannot be combined; there is no such thing as a completive habitual, even though semantically the combination makes sense. There are three moods (not counting the imperative, which I treat separately): indicative, dubitative and optative. Moods (other than indicative, which is the “default” mood) cannot combine with aspects, and the optative mood only exists in the non-past tense.

Simple non-past is used for single actions taking place in the present; or, with the use of the future auxiliary verb kux-, single actions that will take place in the future. I am going home.
Simple past is used for single actions that took place in the past. I went home yesterday.
Habitual non-past is used to emphasise the repeated occurrence of an action over a period of time. I always go home on foot.
Habitual past is used when an action used to occur repeatedly but no longer does. I used to go home on foot until I got married.
Protractive non-past is used for actions, single or habitual, begun in the past that continue into the present. I have gone home on foot every day for five years.
Protractive past is used to emphasise the continuation of an action into a past time from a still earlier past time. I continued to go home on foot after I married.
Completive non-past is used to show that an action already begun is being completed in the present. I am arriving at home.
Completive past is used to show that an action had already been completed in the past, and often functions similarly to the English perfect. He has gone home; he will be there when you arrive.
Dubitative mood expresses doubt about the statement rather than claiming it to be certainly true. I may be going home.
Optative mood expresses the desire or wish that something occur. Let me go home.

Tense, aspect and mood are shown by means of infixes, which come between the verbal stem and the person/number inflections. These infixes are as follows:

The example column in the above table gives the first person singular for each combination of tense and aspect; to form the other persons and numbers, simply replace the -ê ending with the appropriate ending as in the table above.

The third person singular is exceptional in some respects: it forms a simple past in -en, dropping the a (thus, lauren), and past forms of the other aspects with -en rather than -na (for example, the habitual form is laurûlen). The optative also drops the a, leaving -ar (thus, laurar).

The -e- of the simple past may be elided, especially if it follows a vowel or a single consonant, although many speakers retain it after r (as in the above example of laurenê). Retaining the -e- after plosives is considered to be a characteristic of rustic speech.

The aspectual forms stress the infixes; the simple past, the dubitative past and the optative stress the last syllable of the stem. Because of this, stem-changing verbs use the altered stem for these tenses and moods (in all persons). The dubitative non-past has the same stress and stem-changing rules as the simple non-past.

Dubitative palatalisation

In a very similar manner to locative palatalisation in the nominal morphology, many clusters formed with the -y- infix in the dubitative non-past simplify to single consonants. To summarise: ty, dy, ky become ch, j, c respectively; sy and thy become sh; the y is lost after ch or sh; nasal plus y becomes nh; ngy and rgy become nh and ry.

Finally, gy after a vowel and ghy disappear with diphthongisation of the previous vowel: a, e, i, o, u become ai, ei, ai, oi, ui respectively. Long vowels behave the same as their corresponding short vowels (and œ becomes ei); diphthongs are unchanged.

As for verb stems ending in a long vowel or diphthong, the y of the infix is dropped after a front vowel (making the dubitative non-past identical to the indicative) but retained after a back vowel.

Some examples (using the first person singular throughout): ŋastê “I want”, dubitative ŋaschê; bâsê “I stay”, dubitative bâshê; baghê, “I read”, dubitative baiê. (Note that the resolution of the -y clusters is reckoned after stem vowel alterations in the third and fourth persons; thus the third person singular baugha has the dubitative form bauya, retaining the alteration to -au-.)

Voice

Arêndron uses prefixes to mark voice: ten- marks reflexive voice and zal- marks reciprocal. The “n” of the reflexive prefix assimilates to the following consonant (unless this is a nasal); that is, it becomes m before another labial (p, b, f or v) and ŋ before k or kh. It also becomes /ŋ/ in pronunciation before g or gh but is still written n.

The “n” is simply deleted before another nasal, except m. When this occurs, the vowel of the prefix is lengthened to ê (for example, nast- “to doubt”; reflexive tênast-). By contrast, the “l” of the reciprocal prefix is deleted before another l, but with no compensatory lengthening.

For example:

Tenzûlê
I love myself

Zalzûlû
We love each other

Where the verb without the prefix would stress the last syllable (as in the above examples), the prefix causes the stress to move to the penultimate, as Arêndron does not permit the last syllable to be stressed in words of more than two syllables.

Naturally, the reciprocal voice is only used on plural verbs.

Imperative and non-finite forms

The imperative is normally the same as the bare stem of the verb, with no ending; stem-changing verbs use the altered stem. Verbs whose stems end in an unacceptable cluster (see syllable constraints) add a final -a. The imperative makes no distinctions of person, number or tense; the exact same form is used to address one person or a group.

Imperatives may be given the habitual, protractive or completive aspects by suffixing the relevant morpheme with no person inflection. The imperative cannot be combined with past tense or with the dubitative or optative moods. (Or it can, but the result is not considered grammatical.)

Two-syllable imperatives stress the second syllable – whether this is the second syllable of the root or an aspect morpheme appended to a monosyllabic root – but the -a added after unacceptable clusters is never stressed.

The gerund or verbal noun is formed with the suffix -at; it does not take the altered stem, and can be combined with any of the tenses and aspects, though not with moods. The simple gerund stresses the last syllable of the stem, but when combined with a tense or aspect it follows the stress rules of those morphemes. Gerunds inflect like fourth-declension nouns.

There are four participles or verbal adjectives: active non-past -eis, active past -enx, passive non-past -eut and passive past -unt. These suffixes are added directly to the stem (they do not use the altered stem) and do not inflect for aspect or mood. Stress is on the last syllable of the stem.

Irregular verbs

Bar-

Bar- (to be), gerund bat

The dubitative past of bar- is formed by suffixing the person/number morphemes onto the stem banh- (thus, banhê, banhoŋ, etc.). The verb does not inflect for aspect.

Khar-

Khar- (to not be), gerund khart

Khar- is regular in the dubitative. The optative, which would regularly have -arar- from one -ar- in the stem and a second in the infix, simplifies these to one: kharê, kharoŋ, and so on. Only the third person singular is irregular: khareu. (Note that the first person plural and the fourth person of the optative are not distinguished from the corresponding persons of the indicative.)

Tar-

Tar- (to be able), gerund tart

Tar- is regular in the dubitative, and the optative is formed from the simple non-past with the regular -ar- infix (trarê, traroŋ, tarar etc.). Like bar-, it does not take aspect inflections.

Vai-, dwai-, mui-

Vai- (to become), dwai- (to take) and mui- (to seem) have similar paradigms. In all three verbs, the first person singular omits the -ê ending in the simple non-past, leaving it the same as the bare stem. However, the -ê ending is retained in the past tense and the other aspects and moods.

The third person singular of these verbs behaves as follows; the fourth person is the same in each case, with the -gh or -agh suffix and with the elision of -e- in the simple past:

The other aspects and moods are regular; note that, unlike other verbs in -ai- and -ui-, they are not identical in the dubitative non-past and simple non-past, because the simple non-past is irregular and the dubitative is regular (vaia, dwaia, muia in the third person singular).

Sau-

Sau- (to do that) operates like a stem-changing verb except that its two stems are different in more than just the vowel. The first and second persons and the third person plural are formed with the stem sav- (thus, savê, savoŋ, etc.); the third person singular and the fourth person are formed with the stem sau-. Indeed, the third person singular in the simple non-past drops the -a ending, leaving just sau as the form. The gerund is saut.

Contrary to the usual rule, the sau- stem is used for all person/number combinations in the dubitative non-past. The other aspects and moods are regular, but the -en-, -enh- and -ar- infixes all elide their vowels.

Til-, dis-, der-, kux-

Til- (to see) is another stem-changing verb with a consonant change: it has the altered stem teir-. In addition, it forms the non-simple aspects with the stem tir-, with the same consonant change but without the vowel change. The gerund is tilat.

Dis- (to make), der- (to come) and kux- (to intend) are also stem-changing verbs, with the altered stems deis-, dâr- and kûx-. These verbs, and til-, drop the -a ending in the third person singular of the simple non-past but have no further irregularities. (Note that, because the forms lacking -a are the only ones used, the dropping of -a should not be written with an apostrophe, as opposed to verbs where the -a is part of the word but is elided.)

Alt-, shalt-

Alt- (to need) and shalt- (ought) have an irregular third person singular, aut and shaut, and fourth person autagh, shautagh, but they are not stem-changing verbs; that is, they do not use these stems to form the past or the other aspects and moods, which are entirely regular.