Kirtumur verbs

Verbs in Kirtumur have grammatical properties which differ from those of the other word classes. They have a different inflection as well as a distinct syntactic function. A clause is a grammatical unit that consists of a predicate and the elements that accompany it. Kirtumur has nominal, copular and verbal clauses, the predicate of the latter is a verb. Verbs refer to a large variety of actions and states. The number and kinds of participants involved differ between different actions and states and thus between different verbs. Also Kirtumur verbal forms are either finite or non-finite. The non-finite verbal forms (or the participles) have a different inflection from the finite forms.

A verbal form can contain several prefixes and suffixes. In addition, one or more clitics can be attached to it. The prefixes and suffixes express a large variety of meanings, including several for which English uses pronouns, adverbs, or auxiliary verbs.

Finite verbs

As Kirtumur finite verbal forms can be quite complex, their structure takes up a major portion of its grammar. The make-up of the verbal stem itself is quite simple, the vital step is to determine the correct order of affixes in order to analyse the verb. A finite verbal form consists of a verbal stem preceded by one or more prefixes and followed by at least one suffix (though this suffix can be a zero morpheme).

A finite verbs has several forms depending on its aspectual category. There are five distinct verb forms in Kirtumur: imperfective, aorist, perfect, irrealis and imperative. The imperfective describes ongoing, continuous or repeated actions, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The imperfective contrasts with the aorist, which usually expresses perfective aspect and refers to past events and typically also has a resultative use. The perfect form indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration and is already completed. The irrealis describes events that are considered unlikely, depend upon a certain condition, or are expected or awaited. Finally, the imperative forms a command or request and only implies a second-person subject (you), while for a first- and third-persons the optative is used instead, which belongs to the irrealis form. All of these forms can be further divided into TAM categories. Each form receive a different marking, represented in a table below:

	Aorist	Imperfective	Perfect	Irrealis	Imperative
Future tense	—	Future	—	Optative	—
Present tense	Gnomic (obsolete)	Present	Perfect	Present Subjunctive	Imperative
Past tense	Aorist	Past	Pluperfect	Past Subjunctive	Hortative (obsolete)

The following table lists the obligatory parts of a finite verbal form, in the same order as they occur in actual forms (the root is marked with an underscore):

Forms	Aorist	Imperfective	Perfect	Irrealis	Imperative
Future	—	_-is	—	kur-_	—
Present	e-_-e	_-e	_-(e)t	pa-_	_-eya
Past	e-_	e-_-e	e-_-(e)t	he-pa-_	nu-_-(ey)a

Finite verbs are further divided into two major classes: intransitive and transitive, which differ in their conjugation for person. Intransitive verbs take person prefixes to mark the agent of a sentence, while all transitive verbs use person suffixes instead, which mark both the agent and patient (or the subject and the direct object). The category of number is also expressed differently in both classes.

Intransitive verbs

An intransitive clause is a construction with an intransitive subject and a predicate. Although it may contain one or more indirect objects, it is not as common as their use in transitive clauses. An intransitive verb takes one person prefix in order to indicate its agent. There are two sets of prefixes: one for affirmative (or positive) verbs and one for the negative ones.

	Affirmative	Negative
1st person	ha-	ŋi-
2nd person	ō-	ŋō-
3rd person animate	i-/Ø-	ki-
3rd person inanimate	sa-	nes-

In order to indicate the number of a person a number suffix is used: -u for dual and -it for plural. The singular remains unmarked and is viewed as the default, when there is no number marking on a verb, even when the nouns in the clause are marked.

Transitive verbs

A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects in addition to the subject in the ergative case. Technically, there is no limit to how many objects a transitive verb can accept, but there must be at least one. Every transitive verb contains a person suffix, which not only indicates the person of the arguments of a verb, but also their relation:

Affirmative				Negative
1→2	-ō	1←2	-(e)hō	1→2	-ōŋ	1←2	-kō
1→3	-i	1←3	-šu	1→3	-iki	1←3	-uška
2→3	-an	2←3	-(e)he	2→3	-ŋam	2←3	-ek
3An→4	-ē	3In→4An	-ra	3An→4	-ēki	3In→4An	-raka

A number suffix, used for dual is -k and for plural it is -tu.