Verb Morphology in the Old Tongue: Difference between revisions
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Verbs in the Old Tongue do not display a rich | Verbs in the Old Tongue do not display a rich [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation conjugation] system marking person and number like that of some Indo-European languages — a single form serves all subjects — however it does employ some level of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection morphological inflection] for grammatical purposes. The Old Tongue makes use of 6 grammatical functions across 5 distinct inflected forms which are fairly consistent across most verbs where the forms are attested: | ||
# Present: the form which is used to construct sentences like "I walk", "you run", "we sleep", "they fight", "it grows", etc. | # Present: the form which is used to construct sentences like "I walk", "you run", "we sleep", "they fight", "it grows", etc. | ||
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# Future: indicating an intent or possibility of a future action. e.g. "I will travel to the place", "I can go tomorrow", "they will learn". | # Future: indicating an intent or possibility of a future action. e.g. "I will travel to the place", "I can go tomorrow", "they will learn". | ||
In practice, Old Tongue realizes the Perfective Participle and the Past forms as the same form | In practice, Old Tongue realizes the Perfective Participle and the Past forms as the same form — the same syncretism English shows in "-ed" — so there are a total of 5 forms. | ||
== Verb Forms == | == Verb Forms == | ||
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=== Present === | === Present === | ||
The present form of a verb does not have any consistent morphology. It often a bare stem, but not always, and sometimes it carries sounds which disappear from the stem for constructing other forms. For example, [[vakar]] inflects to [[vakat]] for constructing the Present Participle, and derived words use the stem vaka- or vak-. | The present form of a verb does not have any consistent morphology. It is often a bare stem, but not always, and sometimes it carries sounds which disappear from the stem for constructing other forms. For example, [[vakar]] inflects to [[vakat]] for constructing the Present Participle, and derived words use the stem vaka- or vak-. | ||
=== Present Participle === | === Present Participle === | ||
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=== Future === | === Future === | ||
The future form is also more regular and always ends in -anu or -nu. The -nu ending only occurs when the vowel a combines with some other vowel that reduces to another vowel; e.g. [[zavilat]]/[[zavilar]] | The future form is also more regular and always ends in -anu or -nu. The -nu ending only occurs when the vowel a combines with some other vowel that reduces to another vowel; e.g. [[zavilat]]/[[zavilar]], with the truncated stem zavi-, gives [[zavinu]]. The future (and past) forms sometimes take simplified or truncated stems, as in zavinu, or combine with a stem-final vowel, e.g. [[jalou]] to [[jalanu]]. | ||
[[Category:Old Tongue Linguistics]] | [[Category:Old Tongue Linguistics]] | ||
Latest revision as of 20:44, 2 August 2026
Verbs in the Old Tongue do not display a rich conjugation system marking person and number like that of some Indo-European languages — a single form serves all subjects — however it does employ some level of morphological inflection for grammatical purposes. The Old Tongue makes use of 6 grammatical functions across 5 distinct inflected forms which are fairly consistent across most verbs where the forms are attested:
- Present: the form which is used to construct sentences like "I walk", "you run", "we sleep", "they fight", "it grows", etc.
- Present Participle: the form which indicates the ongoing act or state of doing something, like "running", "covering", "blowing", etc.
- Resultative Participle: the form which indicates the resulting state after an action has started. e.g. "bound", "sworn", "having run", "having begun attacking".
- Perfective Participle/Past:
- Perfective Participle: the form which indicates a completed action, that is now finished and no longer occurring: "attacked", "ran", "walked", "ate", etc.
- Past: indicating a specific, finite action or event that happened in the past. e.g. "I ate the bread earlier", "she channeled Saidar".
- Future: indicating an intent or possibility of a future action. e.g. "I will travel to the place", "I can go tomorrow", "they will learn".
In practice, Old Tongue realizes the Perfective Participle and the Past forms as the same form — the same syncretism English shows in "-ed" — so there are a total of 5 forms.
Verb Forms
Present
The present form of a verb does not have any consistent morphology. It is often a bare stem, but not always, and sometimes it carries sounds which disappear from the stem for constructing other forms. For example, vakar inflects to vakat for constructing the Present Participle, and derived words use the stem vaka- or vak-.
Present Participle
The present participle form is not uniform, but usually terminates in -at, -in, or -en. There are patterns to which verbs appear to take which forms.
Resultative Participle
The resultative participle form either terminates in -ae or in -ien, and almost always -ae. -ien verbs are verbs that seem to be related to some kind of location, place, or a sense of direction or going to or coming from.
Perfective Participle/Past
The perfective participle/past form always ends in -ane or very occasionally -ne. It is more regular than the prior forms.
Future
The future form is also more regular and always ends in -anu or -nu. The -nu ending only occurs when the vowel a combines with some other vowel that reduces to another vowel; e.g. zavilat/zavilar, with the truncated stem zavi-, gives zavinu. The future (and past) forms sometimes take simplified or truncated stems, as in zavinu, or combine with a stem-final vowel, e.g. jalou to jalanu.