Czecklish conjugation

Preverb

The Czecklish verb paradigm must always contain a preverb. A preverb is an obligatory prefix that carries certain elements, often directional or locative in nature. There are a few however, which are not. Preverbs are not the same as separable verbs; separable verbs have a particle that can be separated from the verb core, and appear with the core as one word. Unlike the separable verb, the preverb cannot be morphologically separated from the verb core, but this not obvious at first glance. The preverb is not directly attached to the verb root, as they are usually separated by a polypersonal prefix and a thematic vowel. When a preverb is added to a verb root, it can completely change the meaning of the verb. In this way, verb roots tend to form “families” based upon their preverb. There are are a total of 12 preverbs:

	Suffix
Ablative	bon-
Allative	ben-
Delative	bin-
Illative	bín-
Instrumental	vaik-
Juxtapositive	vak-
Locative	vek-
Perlative	ban-
Orientative	sol-
Revertive	sul-
Sublative	tív-
Temporal	jil-

Polypersonal Agreement

Polypersonal agreement is the agreement of a verb with more than one of its arguments (usually up to four). These are bound morphemes that are part of the verbal morphology and therefore cannot be found separated from the verb. These morphemes are not to be confused with pronominal clitics, like English 'em or the Spanish object clitics lo, le, etc. Polypersonal agreement is a significant morphological feature of the Czecklish language. This is because the usage of such an agreement acknowledges the presence of other members of a conversation, which is essential when being polite.

Thematic Circumfix

In Czecklish linguistics, a thematic circumfix consists of two vowels that are placed before and after a verb root or stem. This circumfix is placed so as to segregate the polypersonal prefix from the verb root, and from the non-finite or finite verb form succeeding it. The thematic circumfix also dictates which verb stem may follow the root, as certain stems can only carry a certain vowel. Below are the six thematic circumfixes:

	Prelative	Postlative
First	a-	-u
Second	a-	-i
Third	o-	-u
Fourth	u-	-e
Fifth	i-	-o
Sixth	e-	-i

Non-finite Verb Forms

Czecklish uses five different, but closely related non-finite verb forms. These verbs, when inflected in a non-finite verb form, cannot serve as the root of an independent clause. Non-finite verbs cannot be inflected for TAM or Voice, but can be inflected for Volition, Mirativity and Evidentiality. Of all the non-finite verb forms used, the Gerundive and Supine are the only two that have very specific uses. While the Gerundive is used to indicate that a verb’s action is necessary, the Supine indicates that a verb’s action is purposeful. The Supine can be loosely translated into the English phrase “for the purpose of...” Gerunds have an additional function, besides naming the action of the verb. The Gerund also functions as a verbal noun in independent clauses. This has proven to be a very useful way of deriving nouns from verbs in Czecklish. The grammatical non-finite verb forms listed below are ordered in alphabetical order.

Infinitive

Expresses that the verb is neither dynamic or static in its state. The Infinitive is the citation form of the verb, and is the form of the verb when compounded with another verb.

• E.g. to be beautiful
  

Gerund

Expresses that the verb is behaving as a noun in its current state. The Gerund is the form of the verb that names the action of the verb. It is also used to form verbal nouns, i.e., nouns that are formed from verbs.

• E.g. being beautiful
  

Gerundive

Expresses that the action of the verb is necessary in its state. The Gerundive is the form of the verb that obliges action on behalf of the verb. It is equivalent to the English auxiliary “must” in usage.

• E.g. have to be beautiful
  

Participle

Expresses that the verb is behaving as an adjective in its state. The Participle is used to modify nouns and turn verbs into adjectives.

• E.g. having beauty
  

Supine

Expresses that the action of the verb is purposeful in its state. The Supine is used to describe the purpose or cause of the verb. It is equivalent to the English phrase “for the purpose of...”

• E.g. going to be beautiful
  

Tense

Czecklish does not have a fine distinction between tense and aspect. Similarly to Indo-European languages, Czecklish conflates both tense and aspect. Therefore, it is not entirely appropriate to describe the inflections in Czecklish as “tenses” per se, but for the purposes of discussion they will be referred to as tenses. There are actually only three absolute tenses: Preterite, Present and Future. The Imperfect and Perfect tenses are simply Preterite or Future tenses that provide additional aspectual information. The grammatical tenses listed below are ordered in how they are related to each other. Past tenses are listed first, then the present tense, and then the future tenses.

Preterite Tense
Expresses that an action has occurred in the past time. The preterite tense is best described as a simple past tense, as it is not actually conflated with the perfective.

• E.g. I bought flowers
  

Imperfect Tense

Expresses that an ongoing action has occurred in the past time. The Imperfect is conflation of the imperfective aspect and the preterite tense.

• E.g. I have been buying flowers
  

Perfect Tense

Expresses that an integral action has occurred in the past time. The Perfect is a conflation of the perfective aspect and the preterite tense.

• E.g. I have bought flowers
  

Pluperfect Tense

Expresses that an already perfected action has occurred in the past time. The Pluperfect is a conflation of the perfect tense and the preterite tense.

• E.g. I had bought flowers
  

Present Tense

Expresses that an action occurs in the present time.

• E.g. I buy flowers
  

Future Tense

Expresses that an action will occur in the future time. The Future tense is best described as a near future tense, as it is not used to describe actions that take place in the far future.

• E.g. I will buy flowers
  

Future Imperfect Tense

Expresses that an ongoing action will occur in the future time. The Future Imperfect is a conflation of the imperfect and future tenses.

• E.g. I will have been buying flowers
  

Future Perfect Tense

Expresses that a completed action will occur in the future time. The Future Perfect is a conflation of the perfect and future tenses.

• E.g. I will have bought flowers
  

Mood

Czecklish is a mood-prominent language. Total, Czecklish verbs can be conjugated for thirteen different moods. There are three realis moods and eleven irrealis moods. The Irrealis moods are divided into Deontic, Epistemic and Dependent. There is only one Dependent mood, the Conditional. It is called a Dependent mood because usage of the Conditional is dependent upon the circumstances of the event as perceived by the speaker. The three realis moods are the Indicative, Aggressive and Energetic. The Aggressive and Energetic are very similar in usage, but the Aggressive is used to make the action seem intimidating or menacing. The differences between spoken men and women’s Czecklish is obvious when looking at the number of Deontic and Epistemic Moods. The Imperative and Subjunctive are used primarily by men, while the Jussive and Optative are used mostly by women. The grammatical moods listed below are ordered in how they are related to each other. Realis moods are listed first, then the irrealis moods. Irrealis moods are further collated into Deontic, Epistemic or Dependent moods.

Indicative Mood

Expresses that an action is realized as factual in the speaker’s attitude.

• E.g. I buy flowers
  

Aggressive Mood

Expresses that an action is realized as militantly forward or menacing in the speaker’s attitude.

• E.g. I (expletive) bought flowers!
  

Energetic Mood

Expresses that an action is realized as strongly believed in the speaker’s attitude. The Energetic can also be used to emphasize a statement made by the speaker.

• E.g. I did buy flowers!
  

Deliberative Mood

Expresses that an action is considered to be obligatory or determined to occur by the speaker’s attitude. The Deliberative is equivalent to the English auxiliary “shall/should”, in terms of usage.

• E.g. I should buy flowers
  

Imperative Mood

Expresses that an action is ordered or commanded to occur. The Imperative and the Jussive have essentially the same meaning and usage, but whom it is used by determines which mood is preferred. The Imperative is generally used more often by men to appear “tough” or “serious”.

• E.g. Buy flowers!
  

Jussive Mood

Expresses that an action is ordered or commanded to occur. Women use the Jussive more often than men to appear “comely” or “delicate”.

• E.g. Buy flowers!
  

Permissive Mood

Expresses that an action is permitted or allowed to occur. The Permissive is equivalent to the English verb “let” in terms of usage.

• E.g. I let her buy flowers
  

Prohibitive Mood

Expresses that an action is prohibited or banned from occurring. The Prohibitive is the opposite of the Permissive, in that the action is not allowed to happen by the speaker.

• E.g. Don’t let her buy flowers
  

Optative Mood

Expresses that an action is wished or hoped to occur. The Optative is also used to express ability or possibility. It is equivalent to the defective English verb “may/might” in terms of usage. The Optative is used mostly by women to be more polite and less disrespectful.

• E.g. I hope the flowers are red
  

Interrogative Mood

Expresses that an action is requested or inquired to occur. As Czecklish does not use particles frequently, and does not have relative pronouns, there is no true equivalent in English. However, the Interrogative performs the same roles that the English wh- pronouns “who/what/where/when/why/which” do in context.

• E.g. Did I buy flowers?
  

Speculative Mood

Expresses that an action is considered to have the possibility to happen. The Speculative is equivalent to the English auxiliary verb “can/could” in usage.

• E.g. I could buy flowers
  

Subjunctive Mood

Expresses that an action is wished, feared or hoped to occur. The Subjunctive is also used to express emotion, judgement, opinion or necessity. The Subjunctive is used mostly by men to appear assertive and confident. The Speculative is unconcerned with indicating the degree of truth of a given statement; that is determined by the Evidential used.

• E.g. I like red flowers
  

Conditional Mood

Expresses that an action is dependent upon the possible action of another verb. In other words, a verb in the conditional relies upon the possibility of another verb’s action to occur. The Conditional is equivalent to the English auxiliary “will/would” in terms of usage.

• E.g. I would buy flowers
  

Voice

Czecklish uses the Antipassive instead of the Passive. The Antipassive is commonly used in Ergative-Absolutive languages, of which Czecklish is one of them. Instead of having separate reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, Czecklish uses inflectional Voice to indicate reflexive or reciprocal actions. This not only reduces the number of pronouns, but also allows for greater word order flexibility. The grammatical voices listed below are ordered in how they are related to each other. The active voice is listed first, then valency-decreasing voices, and finally agent-patient voices are listed last. Morphologically, Valency is always marked regardless of Voice. The suffix for Valency does not change, even if the verb is marked for Antipassive Voice. This is because the Valency marker informs of all the arguments of verb, but not the actual arguments that are present. This makes marking Voice largely redundant, as even though the Valency is marked, one is still subtracting an argument if the Antipassive Voice is used. However, it does perform an important syntactic function: it conveys clearly and precisely how many arguments a verb has, and whether or not any arguments have been subtracted.

Active Voice

Expresses that the subject is the agent or cause of an action.

• E.g. I buy
  

Antipassive Voice

Expresses that a divalent verb is reduced to a monovalent verb. The object is deleted, and the subject is declined in the absolutive case. The Antipassive decreases the valency of the verb by one.

• E.g. I-SUBJ bought (the flowers-DO)
  

Reflexive Voice

Expresses that the subject is both the agent and patient of an action.

• E.g. I-AGEN bought the flowers myself-PAT
  

Reciprocal Voice

Expresses that the two arguments of an action are both agent and patient in respect to the other.

• E.g. I bought the flowers (for each other)
  

Valency

Czecklish has a clear distinction of Valency and Voice. In Czecklish grammar, Voice is used to grammatically reduce the Valency of the verb; the Valency itself is the grammatical category that indicates how many arguments a verb can take. By default, a monovalent verb is unmarked, as it is obvious that there is only one argument and no others.

Avalent

Expresses that a verb has no subject or object. An avalent verb is an impersonal verb because it has no subject.

• E.g. It buys
  

Monovalent

Expresses that a verb has one subject and no objects. A monovalent verb is intransitive because it has one “object” or subject.

• E.g. I₁ buy
  

Divalent

Expresses that a verb has one subject and one object. A divalent verb is transitive because it has two objects.

• E.g. I₁ buy flowers₂
  

Trivalent

Expresses that a verb has one subject and two objects, a direct one and an indirect one. A trivalent verb is ditransitive because it has three objects.

• E.g. I₁ buy flowers₂ for Sally₃
  

Volition

Czecklish morphologically marks Volition. Volition is a concept that distinguishes whether the subject or agent of a particular sentence intended an action or not. Simply, it is the intentional or unintentional nature of an action. Volition concerns the idea of control and is considered the same as intention in linguistics.

Volitional

Expresses that an action was intended to occur by an agent. The Volitional indicates that the agent caused an action to occur on purpose.

• E.g. I broke the vase (on purpose)
  

Ambivolitional

Expresses that an action was neither intended nor unintended to occur by an agent. The Ambivolitional indicates that the agent was not involved in the action.

• E.g. I broke the vase (but I didn’t do it)
  

Nonvolitional

Expresses that an action was unintended to occur by an agent. The Nonvolitional indicates that the agent caused an action to occur due to accident.

• E.g. I broke the vase (on accident)
  

Mirativity

Czecklish morphologically marks Mirativity. Mirativity is a grammatical category independent of Evidentiality, which indicates the speaker's surprise or the unpreparedness of their mind. Evidentiality is used separately to indicate the speaker’s evidence for a given statement. There are three degrees of Mirativity, as with Volition: a positive degree, a neutral degree, and a negative degree.

Mirative

Expresses that an action was unexpected by the subject. The Mirative is used to indicate surprise or unpreparedness of the speaker.

• E.g. She brought flowers!
  

Ambimirative

Expresses that an action was neither expected nor unexpected by the subject. The Ambimirative is used to indicate that the speaker views the event as gnomic or static in nature. It is equivalent to the English interjection “meh”.

• E.g. She brought flowers.
  

Nonmirative

Expresses that an action was expected by the subject. The Nonmirative is used to indicate indifference or preparedness of the speaker.

• E.g. She brought flowers (expectedly)
  

Evidentiality

In Czecklish, Evidentiality is the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. An evidential is the particular grammatical element (affix, clitic, or particle) that indicates evidentiality. Czecklish uses suffixes to indicate both Direct and Indirect Evidentiality. Indirect Evidentiality can be divided into four separate degrees of Evidentiality: First Reportative, Second Reportative, Inferential, and Assumed. The unmarked Evidential is the Direct Evidential, as most evidence is likely to have been witnessed firsthand.

Direct Evidentiality

Expresses that an action was witnessed by the speaker. The Direct form of Evidentiality is used to indicate that the action has eyewitness evidence for its occurrence.

• E.g. I know she has flowers
  

Indirect Evidentiality

Expresses that an action was not witnessed by the speaker. The Indirect form of Evidentiality is used to indicate that the action has indirect evidence for its occurrence. Indirect Evidentiality is not concerned whether or not the source of knowledge is valid or not. It is only concerned where the source of knowledge came from.

• E.g. I heard that she bought flowers
  

First Reportative

Expresses that the action was reported directly by the speaker. The knowledge is likely gained from another individual who witnessed the event. In a sense, it is similar to the Quotative Evidential, which is used to indicate that the evidence is accurate.The First Reportative is equivalent to the English phrase “It is said that...”.

• E.g. It is said that she bought flowers
  

Second Reportative

Expresses that the action was reported indirectly by the speaker. The knowledge is likely gained from another individual who originally reported the event. It is similar to the Hearsay Evidential, which is used to indicate that the evidence is likely invalid. The Second Reportative is equivalent to the English phrase “I learned from...that __ happened”.

• E.g. I learned from her mother that she bought flowers”
  

Inferential

Expresses that the action is inferred to occur by the speaker. The knowledge is likely to have not been observed by the speaker. The Inferential is used to indicate that the action is unconfirmed to have occurred. It is equivalent to the English phrase “It is is guessed that...”

• E.g. It is guessed that she bought flowers
  

Assumptive

Expresses that the action is assumed to occur by the speaker. The knowledge is assumed to have occurred, because it usually does under similar circumstances. There is a certain degree of confidence when the Assumptive is used. The Assumptive is equivalent to the English modal verb “must” in regards to usage.

• E.g. She must have bought flowers
  

Comparison

Czecklish only has one degree of comparison, and as such does not make a distinction between -er and -est. In other words, the superlative form of a noun is indistinguishable from the comparative form in both meaning and affixation.

Positive

Expresses no comparison between two or more nouns in quality, quantity or degree.

• E.g. Red flowers
  

Comparative

Expresses comparison between two or more nouns in quality, quantity or degree.

• E.g. Those flowers are redder