Proto-Rathmosian: Difference between revisions

Proto-Rathmosian (view source)

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→‎Verbs

Psammead

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 ==Verbs==
-The primary division in verbal morphology is made between dynamic or '''Class I''' verbs and stative or '''Class II''' verbs. Dynamic verbs denote actions and verbs of motion while stative verbs refer to states of being and include the large class of adjectival verbs, such as ''dreg-'' "to be red". Semantics govern the class to which a given verb belongs.
+Verbal conjugation is agglutinative and verbs may be marked for aspect (imperfective, perfective), valency (transitive, intransitive, antipassive, causative), and argument (absolutive, ergative).
-Class I verbs have two conjugations: the '''imperfect''', denoting incompleted or continuous action often understood as non-past, and the '''perfect''' denoting completed action, usually referring to the past. Class I verbs may also be '''active''', in which the subject is focussed, or '''passive''' in which the patient is promoted to the subject of the verb. Passive forms are created by lengthening the vowel of the root, e.g. ''ker-'' "rule" (active), ''keer-'' "ruled" (passive). As Class II verbs are stative they are understood to be imperfect and have only one conjugation, and as they are always intransitive they have no passive. However Class II verbs may be taken over into Class I with an inchoative sense.
+The primary division in verbal morphology is made between '''dynamic''' ('''Class I''') verbs and '''stative''' ('''Class II''') verbs. Dynamic verbs denote actions and verbs of motion while stative verbs refer to states of being and include the large class of adjectival verbs, such as ''dreh-'' "to be red", ''mlak-'' "to be dead". A verbal stem belongs primarily to one or other class, depending on its semantics but the boundaries are not inflexible.
+Class I verbs are marked for aspect. The '''imperfective''', denoting incompleted or continuous action and often understood as non-past, is marked with the infix ''-n-''. The '''perfective''', denoting completed action and usually referring to the past, takes ''-t-''. For example ''yur-'' "run" → ''yurn-'' "runs, running", ''yurt-'' "ran". Class II verbs are not marked for tense. As stative verbs they are understood to be imperfective and general in time. Because of the way aspect marking occurs, verbs are able to pass between classes. Class I verbs may be treated as Class II (i.e. unmarked) in order to give a gnomic sense, though this is generally restricted to poetic and proverbial usage ''hedər hedus'' "birds fly". Far more common is the use of Class II roots with Class I aspect markers to give an inchoative sense, e.g. ''mlak-'' "be dead" → ''mlakn-'' "become dead die", ''mlakt-'' "became dead, died".
+The aspect markers, or the root directly in Class II verbs, are followed by valency markers: ''-a-'' for intransitive verbs, ''-i-'' for antipassive verbs and ''-u-'' for transitive verbs. The antipassive promotes the ergative agent of a transitive verb to the absolutive subject with no direct object, e.g. ''reykusem'' "I love him" → ''reykip'' "I love"
 Conjugation is agglutinative, formed mostly with suffixes though there are several prefixes and changes to the stem of the verb.