Re: # of possible verb declensions (was gotten, boughten)

Jake X wrote:
> Assuming you made up that number (there can't be THAT many), I'm starting to
> wonder what number of verb forms there ARE for any English verb. Has anyone
> actually studied this?
There's not really a single number.  It depends on how you count it.
For example, is "He used to go" a separate form?  What about "He wants
to go"?  "He tried to go"?  "He will have been wanting to try to go"?
:-)

Like English, Uatakassi is fairly ambiguous in numbers of verb forms.
There are auxiliary verbs that could be analyzed as verb forms, and the
class is an open one.  Not to mention the clitics that can complicate
matters.

A rough estimate of the minimal number of forms (i.e., excluding
auxiliary verbs and clitics):
Imperative: Bare stem
Person and aspect (suffixes): 13 persons times 7 aspects = 91 (28
singular)
Prefixes
Voice: 5 (one marked by null)
Tenses: 3 (one marked by null)
If/Then: 4 (if, if-contrafactual, then, null)

Reciprocative voice can only be used with non-singular numbers.  Thus,
ignoring that for a moment:
91*4*3*4 = 4368
Reciprocative:
28*3*4 = 336
Imperative forms: 4 (only voice prefixes can be added to imperative, and
antipassive isn't used)
Total: 4708

Altho, some of these verb forms would be extremely rare (how often would
you need to say "If I will be going to go"?)

Hmm ... if-contrafactual is probably illegal with future tense, in which
case:
Person and aspect: 91
Prefixes
Voice: 5
Tense+If/Then: 11 (3*4-1)
Non-reciprocative = 91*4*11 = 4004
Reciprocative: 28*11 = 308
Imperative Forms: 4
Total: 4316

So, 4316 verb forms.  Good thing it's agglutinating.  :-)  You need only
learn 4 voice prefixes, 3 if/then, 2 tense, 6 aspect, and 13 personal
suffixes, that is 4+3+2+6+13 = 28 affixes.

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