Arêndron Syntax
2: Use of the verb

Person and number

Verbs in Arêndron always take person and number endings to agree with their subjects.

Arêndron's first two persons are the same as those of English: first person refers to the speaker or writer, second person to the listener or reader. However, the Arêndron third person is not the same as in English; it refers specifically to the person (or group or thing) from whose point of view an event or situation is related; the fourth person then refers to anyone who is not one of the first three persons. The fourth person does not have separate forms for singular and plural.

This idea of linguistic “point of view” needs spelling out in detail. In the sentence Tordena Veukar Zôra, “Veukar struck Zôra”, the sentence describes what Veukar does, so normally he would be the third person. But if the sentence occurs in a longer speech, the point of view may be Zôra's:

Bâsnê Zôrui. Tordenagh Veukar.
I was with Zôra. Veukar struck her.

Here, the first sentence, in which the speaker is describing having been with Zôra, fixes the point of view in the second sentence as hers, so now Veukar is referred to with the fourth person. This is what makes the second sentence mean “Veukar struck her” and not “she struck Veukar”. To make it mean “she struck Veukar”, the third person would be used on the verb: Tordena Veukar.

Note that Arêndron usually drops unnecessary pronouns: the full versions with the pronouns retained would be Tordenagh Veukar hal and Tordena hal Veukar. However, in the first sentence, precisely because Zôra has been established as the point of view, it is clear in context that it was she who was struck; in the second sentence, the third-person verb is enough to show that Zôra did the striking. Subject pronouns are always dropped, except sometimes when repeating a sentence slowly if the listener failed to hear the personal ending; object pronouns can be freely retained or dropped, and sometimes have to be retained to make a sentence clear, but retaining the pronoun too often sounds formal and can be a sign of a novice speaker.

Note also that Arêndron does not use gendered pronouns to distinguish the two sentences, as English does with “he struck her” and “she struck him”. Arêndron does have gender-specific pronouns, but their use is much more specialised, namely to give the gender of a single referent where this is unclear. Unlike English “it”, Arêndron's gender-neutral pronoun hal is used most of the time whether talking about persons or things.

An “anchor”, or repetition of a noun, can be used to shift the point of view to a noun that has previously been used in the fourth person. The anchor will either be the subject of the sentence, or, if the subject is the first or second person, the direct object:

Bâsnê Zôrui. Tordenagh Veukar. Au Veukar dôlat.
I was with Zôra. Veukar struck her. Veukar is tall.

This is a common device, since in long speeches it can be undesirable to keep the same “point of view” for too long. The linguistic point of view tends to keep pace with the pragmatic point of view, allowing nouns to be replaced by pronouns more freely without having to worry about confusion over who exactly is being referred to. (The third person is never ambiguous, since there can only be one third-person referent “in play” at any one time. This is why the third person tends to be used for (and stick with) the “focus of discussion”, since they will usually be the person mentioned most often apart from the speaker and listener themselves.)

The fourth person can also be used in a more general sense, to refer to someone or anyone, especially when there is no previous noun that it could be interpreted as referring back to:

Lêshagh Zôra
Zôra is liked (by someone or some people)

Tense

Arêndron's tense system simply distinguishes the past from the non-past. The non-past is used for all statements that are not specifically about past time, such as statements of future intent:

Ŋœrê sûxalu gendâshen
I am going to the shops tomorrow

and general statements that are true of all time:

Khau r’Atragam donsa
The world is not flat

Arêndron has one notable tense usage that is different from English. In past-tense statements with an intensional subclause (he said, he believed, etc.), English tends to use the past for both verbs; in Arêndron it is only correct to use the past for the second verb if you intend to imply that the belief or attitude expressed no longer holds:

Firken, banagh r’Atragam donsa
He believed the world was flat. (He now knows it isn't.)

Guilen, banagh ghaul cazêra shunha
He said that girl was beautiful. (Maybe she was, but she certainly isn't now.)

The future tense auxiliary kux- may be added to a non-past verb to make clear that it refers to a future event. This is, as the first example above shows, not done when a time adverbial specifying the future (such as gendâshen “tomorrow”) is already present in the clause.

Kuxê ŋœrat sûxalu
I will go to the shops

Kux- can be used with a past-tense verb to give a future perfect meaning, stating that something will have happened by a certain time:

Kuxê ŋœrenat sûxalu
I will have gone to the shops

Making kux- itself past tense instead suggests a future intent that no longer applies:

Kuxnê ŋœrat sûxalu
I was going to go to the shops. (I've changed my mind.)

Aspect

The unmarked or simple aspect is used to denote single actions or events. All the sentences in the above section are examples of this.

The habitual aspect denotes events that do not occur just once, but whose repeated occurrence is characteristic of a period of time, or accompanies every occurrence of a named event:

Ŋœrôlê sûxalu môr’ amâshnain
I go to the shops every day

Similarly, the past habitual is used to state that an event used to occur repeatedly over a period of time, with the implication that it no longer does:

Ŋœrûlnê sûxalu môr’ amâshnain
I used to go to the shops every day

The protractive aspect indicates that an action or state continued or is continuing beyond the point at which it would be expected to cease:

Glakêsnê venderatain
I continued to eat when he came in

The protractive need not refer to immediate continuation of an action; it can refer to continuation after a pause, or to continuation of habitual repetition of an action:

Ŋœrâsê sûxalu môr’ amâshnain
I continue to go to the shops every day

(Note that the habitual aspect morpheme is not used; the two are never combined.)

The protractive aspect has a couple of special uses. Firstly, in many cases where English expresses two related concepts with different verbs, Arêndron expresses them with the simple and protractive aspects of the same verb:

val- “to look at”; valâs- “to watch”
zad- “to sit down”; zadâs- “to relax”

Secondly, Arêndron uses the present protractive when stating how long something has continued for, where English uses the perfect:

Thevâsê klêchen têvat olnômni
I have lived here for eighteen years
(literally, “I continue to live here after eighteen years”)

The past protractive is used to state that something went on until a named occurrence:

Thevêsnê ghaulyen, deratu klêchen
I lived there until I came here

Finally, the completive aspect indicates completion of the process that it names:

Baghnê grœn proth
I was reading that book

Bagheithnê grœn proth
I read (and finished) that book

Baghaithê klet proth
I am now (in the process of) finishing this book

The past completive can often stand in for the English past perfect, showing that an action was complete by the time of a named occurrence – or indeed for the present perfect, showing that an action has been completed before the present:

Bagheithnê grœn proth, dreisatu ŋeuth
I had read that book before giving it to you

Bagheithnê grœn proth
I have read that book

Similarly, the non-past completive with the future auxiliary kux- can stand in for the future perfect, stating that an action will be complete by the time of a named occurrence:

Kuxê baghaithat klet proth, dreisatu ŋeuth
I will have read this book before giving it to you

However, do not extrapolate from these and think the non-past completive can stand in for the present perfect! The two express quite different things: the present perfect that an action is complete, the non-past completive that it is now in the process of being completed. As the examples above illustrate, the present perfect can often be translated by the past completive; in other cases it is more correct to translate it by the simple past.

Sleirenê grœn culta
I have opened that door

Note that the completive is not used because there is no useful distinction to be made between completing the action and performing only part of it. In other words, the action is thought of as a single thing without distinct “stages”; and that is shown by the use of the simple aspect.

Similar comments apply to the distinction between kux- + past tense and kux- + non-past completive, both mentioned above as possible ways to express future perfect meaning. The difference is that the former treats the action as a single thing that will have happened by a certain time; the latter treats it as a process that will have been completed. The distinction is subtle, and there are many cases where either of these two constructions would be acceptable.

Mood

All the sentences in the above two sections have been examples of the indicative mood, used to state that something is the case (or is not the case, in negative sentences).

The imperative mood is used to give a command or instruction. Arêndron has no word equivalent to “please” to soften an imperative; instead, an instruction can be turned into a polite request by using the optative:

Isŋœr!
Go away!

Isŋœraroŋ.
Please go away.

The optative also has the function of indicating a hope or desire for something to be the case, as opposed to stating that it is the case. The optative is usually future-directed, but does not require this to be made explicit with the future auxiliary kux-:

Kœlarû thûmel!
May we meet again!

In the first person, the optative can be a request for permission:

Isŋœrarê.
Please let me leave.

The optative is not used after verbs such as xail- “to hope”; since this already indicates hope, use of the morphological optative would be redundant. As there is no optative past, xail- or a synonym must be used to express hope about past events, such as “I hope he arrived safely”.

The dubitative mood expresses doubt about the truth of a statement:

Bâsa Vardi ven Slaudjain
Vardi is in Slaudja

Bâsha Vardi ven Slaudjain
(I think) Vardi may be in Slaudja

(For the use of the dubitative in counterfactual statements, see the linked page.)

Similarly to the optative, the dubitative is not used by default after verbs such as firk- “to believe” or nher- “to think”. The dubitative can, however, optionally be used with such verbs to indicate a greater degree of doubt on the part of the person referred to:

Firka, baiagh r’Atragam donsa. Nherê, yau xeun!
He believes the world may be flat. I think he may be mad!

(An exception is naly- “to doubt”, which, as one of the few verbs with a stem in -y, does not have a distinct dubitative in any case.)