Lifashian: Difference between revisions

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Certain verbs may have irregular or multiple participles, most notably ''frálmi, farhálm'' (I become, became, also used as passive auxiliary), which has the historically contracted participle ''frálit'' as an auxiliary, and uncontracted ''farhelit'' as a standalone verb. Certain meanings may be conveyed by different roots and it is possible for a different root from the past and present to be preferred in the perfect: while "I do" and "I did" is most commonly ''purémi'' and ''parm'', the preferred participle for "done" is ''deˤt'' (actually cognate with English "do"), and not ''parit''.
Certain verbs may have irregular or multiple participles, most notably ''frálmi, farhálm'' (I become, became, also used as passive auxiliary), which has the historically contracted participle ''frálit'' as an auxiliary, and uncontracted ''farhelit'' as a standalone verb. Certain meanings may be conveyed by different roots and it is possible for a different root from the past and present to be preferred in the perfect: while "I do" and "I did" is most commonly ''purémi'' and ''parm'', the preferred participle for "done" is ''deˤt'' (actually cognate with English "do"), and not ''parit''.


====Compound verbs====
====Past====
A large part of contemporary Lifashian verbs is made up of compound verbs, not unlike Iranian languages, formed by a lexical element (often, but not always, borrowed) and a conjugable verb which provides little to no meaning; Lifashian also has nominal compound verbs, which are actually fixed collocations as the nominal is regularly declined in the accusative; however, such nouns are never used with articles in these fixed collocations, which often look like sentences with two objects.
Much like the present and aorist, the formation of the past in Lifashian reflects the original PIE past classes. Lifashian also uses an augment in front of all past verbs, with two possible forms: ''e-'' if the stem vowel is '''e''' or '''i''', ''a-'' otherwise.
 
The most common verbs used to form compounds are ''purémi'' "I do", ''lelúmi'' "I give", ''eynemámi'' "I take", and ''berámi'' "I bring". Other verbs include ''sisyejámi'' "I hold", ''esyim'' (the copula), or ''benámi'' "I go".


The lexical element is often an invariable adverbial element which may correspond to the stem of an adjective (either a native adjective - cf. ''ulmarstás'' "forgotten" and ''ulmarst purémi'' "I forget" - or a borrowed one - cf. ''tamízás'' "clean" and ''tamíz purémi'' "I clean") or a borrowed stem (from nouns, participles, or verb stems), such as in ''emansip purémi'' "I emancipate" (ultimately from French, through Russian), ''ámóht berámi'' "I teach" (from Persian), or ''espéti lelúmi'' "I wait" (from Ligurian).
The four past classes are:
* class I (root athematic): more common than in other modern IE languages, it is simply formed by the root plus the suffixes. Forms other than the first person singular and third plural show extensive consonant assimilation. Plural forms often have different stems, reflecting PIE zero-grade. Examples: ''e-lersy-am, e-lors-me'' "I saw, we saw"; ''a-dúh-om, a-dú-me'' (underlying form ''a-duh-me'') "I, we created, made, prepared", ''é-ˤl-om, e-deˤ-me'' "I, we ate".
* class II (root thematic): overall the most common; class I and II together correspond to the vast majority of verbs in Lifashian. Root thematic past verbs generally have the same, regular forms in all persons. Examples: ''e-ber-am'' "I brought", ''e-denah-am'' "I ran".
* class III (''s-past'', sigmatic): corresponding to Greek sigmatic aorist. Overall not as common as in other IE languages, but still represented. The added '''s''' is often obscured by consonant assimilation. See ''a-lúw-s-om'' "I loved", ''e-gíj-om'' (underlying e-gil-s-om, from PIE *e-wéyd-s-ṃ) "I watched".
* class IV (reduplicated): very rare. The root is often quite obscured due to the stressed reduplication, zero-grade, and consonant assimilation. The few examples include ''e-lelag-om'' (more commonly ''e-lelá-m'', from the variant ''e-lelah-om'') "I had", or the literary ''a-gúk-om'' "I said" (cf. Gr. εἶπον).


====Future====
====Future====
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In colloquial Lifashian, the present alone is commonly used with a future meaning.
In colloquial Lifashian, the present alone is commonly used with a future meaning.


<!-- ====Regular verbs====
====Compound verbs====
The first conjugation in Lifashian is the most common, the one with the most regularized verbal formations, and (by means of the suffix ''-iy-'') the main productive one. Nearly all verbs ending in ''-ámi'' in the first person singular of the present (the citation form) belong to it.
A large part of contemporary Lifashian verbs is made up of compound verbs, not unlike Iranian languages, formed by a lexical element (often, but not always, borrowed) and a conjugable verb which provides little to no meaning; Lifashian also has nominal compound verbs, which are actually fixed collocations as the nominal is regularly declined in the accusative; however, such nouns are never used with articles in these fixed collocations, which often look like sentences with two objects.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ '''''syupámi'' (√syúp-) "I sleep"'''
|-
! !! Present !! Past
|-
! 1SG
| syúp'''ámi''' || '''a'''syúp'''am'''
|-
! 2SG
| syúp'''esi''' || '''a'''syúp'''es'''
|-
! 3SG
| syúp'''eti''' || '''a'''syúp'''et'''
|-
! 1PL
| syúp'''amas''' || '''a'''syúp'''ame'''
|-
! 2PL
| syúp'''ete''' || '''a'''syúp'''ete'''
|-
! 3PL
| syúp'''áti''' || '''a'''syúp'''át'''
|}
The past augment is '''e''' if the root vowel (or first vowel of the root) is a front vowel (e.g. ''berámi'' "I carry", ''eberam'' "I carried"), '''a''' otherwise.
====Nasal infix verbs====
{| class="wikitable"
|+ '''''pinesmi'' (√pisy-) "I mark"'''
|-
! !! Present !! Past
|-
! 1SG
| pines'''mi''' || '''e'''písy'''am'''
|-
! 2SG
| pines'''syi''' || '''e'''písy'''es'''
|-
! 3SG
| pines'''ti''' || '''e'''písy'''et'''
|-
! 1PL
| pins'''mas''' || '''e'''písy'''ame'''
|-
! 2PL
| pins'''te''' || '''e'''písy'''ete'''
|-
! 3PL
| pinsy'''éti''' || '''e'''písy'''át'''
|}
Note that the second person singular present ends in '''-si'''; in the example, it is ''-syi'' due to assimilation to the previous consonant.


The combination of ablaut and nasal infix may cause verbs to be synchronically irregular, such as ''purenesmi'' "I ask" (from *pre<ne>ḱ-mi), past ''aforsyam'' (augment + *pr̥ḱ-m).
The most common verbs used to form compounds are ''purémi'' "I do", ''lelúmi'' "I give", ''eynemámi'' "I take", and ''berámi'' "I bring". Other verbs include ''sisyejámi'' "I hold", ''esyim'' (the copula), or ''benámi'' "I go".


====Past====
The lexical element is often an invariable adverbial element which may correspond to the stem of an adjective (either a native adjective - cf. ''ulmarstás'' "forgotten" and ''ulmarst purémi'' "I forget" - or a borrowed one - cf. ''tamízás'' "clean" and ''tamíz purémi'' "I clean") or a borrowed stem (from nouns, participles, or verb stems), such as in ''emansip purémi'' "I emancipate" (ultimately from French, through Russian), ''ámóht berámi'' "I teach" (from Persian), or ''espéti lelúmi'' "I wait" (from Ligurian).
Three different forms of PIE perfective verbs may be used in forming the past. The most commonly used one is the root past, formed by augment, root, and past ending; the other two forms are the ''s-past'' (augment, root + ''-s'' and past ending) and the rarer reduplicated past (with no augment and its own set of endings).
 
Some roots may have different past formations, often with different meanings, or used with different present formations. For example, the root ''lub-'' (< PIE *lewbʰ-) forms ''alúwsom'' (s-past), past of ''luwnámi'' "I love", but also ''alubom'' (root past), formerly the past of ''lóbiyámi'' "I charm", nowadays used with the meaning of "to fall in love with" (while "I charmed" is formed as the synchronically regular ''alóbíyam''); the reduplicated past ''lelóba'', finally, is used as the past of both ''lúwámi'' (< *lewbʰ-oh₂-mi<ref>Changed from earlier *lúbámi through analogy from ''lúwti'' (< *lewbʰ-ti).</ref>) "I want" and ''luwsyémi'' (< *lubʰ-sy-emi) "I wish".


====Subjunctive====
<!-- ====Subjunctive====
The characteristic endings of the present subjunctive have a thematic ''-ya-'' sequence, as in e.g. ''beryáˤm, beryas, beryat, beryame, beryate, beryáˤt'' (subj. of ''berámi'' "to carry").
The characteristic endings of the present subjunctive have a thematic ''-ya-'' sequence, as in e.g. ''beryáˤm, beryas, beryat, beryame, beryate, beryáˤt'' (subj. of ''berámi'' "to carry").


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