Volapűük nulíik: Difference between revisions

The category of person is included in every verb, independently if it is the subject, direct or indirect object. Only participles and infinitives can be used without personal suffixes but this happens rarely, e. g. as entrances in dictionaries. The following table gives an overview of the personal suffixes in the standard language. In colloquial speech this endings might change a bit, but the suffixes are the same as the possessive suffixes used for nouns. Therefore, this table will be sufficient for an overview.   

This slot is soley used to indicated passive voice. All verbal structures in passive will start with the suffixe ''p-'' + a tense vowel that equals the vowel in slot V. This structure is inherited from the proto-language. Without the ''p''-prefix it indicated time back then. However this vowel was moved to Slot V and thus created a "double tense marking" in the passive.  

This slot is reserved for modal prefixes. All modal prefixes lenite the following consonant.

This slot is reserved for motional prefixes. This prefixes indicate a type of movement that is done in order to fulfill the action of the main verb. In English and other languages this is done via a construction like "I go shopping.", "she went dancing." or "He went to fetch him from the station." In Volapȕük nulíik this task is done by motional prefixes. Those prefixes are:

This category contains the main verb. The slot can be filled with simple verb stems, such as ''fitön'' 'to eat', ''golön'' 'to go', ''penön'' 'to write' or derived verb stems, such as ''nüdugön'' 'to introduce', ''ledanön'' 'to thank very much'. The stem may be followed by a suffix that indicates which object a noun will have. These suffixes apply only to verb stems who may appear on their own, with a dative or with an accusative object or with both. Nouns that are suffixed with a co-verb suffix will not receive the accusative case suffix as the noun is automatically the accusative object. They may however receive a accusative and dative marking suffix. The [e] is inserted if there is a consonant cluster before the suffix. There are three suffixes:

This slot is reserved for the tense marker and the habitual marker. The vowel in this slot receives the main stress of the verb and is therfore and important unit in every verbal structure. Since this slot has to be filled always, there is actuall no real tenseless verbal structure. However, the present habitual / generic marker serves as an aorist which is also used in laws and other time independent texts and rules.

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Subordinated clause

This slot is reserved for question marker. These include the question marker -li and suffixes based on the stem ''-ky-/-ki-'' < *ki- for persons, ''-ks-'' < *ks- for objects and abstract ideas, ''-ly-/-li-'' < *li- for quality and ''-kl-'' < *kel- for relative clauses. This last suffix is used manly in written language. In spoken language, the marker for subordinated clauses ''-da-'' is combined with the personal, objectional or qualitive suffix to create a relative clause. This slot may receive a second stress if there is no other slot that can take the stress before.

   

Supposedly upon Inuktitut influence there has been a development of suffixes which were derived from basic verbs and attached to nouns. When attached to nouns, they lengthen the last consonant of the noun / noun phase and by this are seperated from similar derivational suffixes. These new suffixes turned the whole structure into verbs which can be conjugated the same any other verb can be. These verbs encompass verbs of perception (logön, lilön, smelön), basic human activities (drinön, fidön. Most of the nouns they are attached to function as the object of the action and thus are considered accusative objects. In contrast to accusative objects which are used independently, they do not change the case to genitive in a negated sentence nor do they receive any pronominal conjuncture after the subject phrase.

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||-Civ || *givön || to give || Bukkivbábel. Buk-KIV-á-b-e-l. 'I give you the book.'

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||-Civ || *rivön || to reach || Nisulliváb. nisul-LIV-á-b 'I reach the island.'