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Roumán Part III - Verbs

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Friday, November 24, 2000, 4:46
Verbs have three tenses, present, past, and perfect.  All tenses have
"Exalted" forms (used when speaking to inferiors) and "normal" forms
(used when speaking to equals).  Present tense also has special "humble"
forms, which only exist in third person, since the humble pronouns take
3rd person agreement.  In past and perfect, the "normal" forms are used
with the humble pronouns.  There are four sets of verbs, Class I (-áu <
-are), Class II (-éi < -êre), Class III (*-le < -ere; sometimes
different), Class IV (-í < -ire)

Here is the verbal paradigm of a class I verb
Perfect participle: -atous

Present tense
  Exalted     Normal      Humble
  S     P     S     P     S     P
1 ou    ánç   en    éinç
2 as    áç    eis   éis
3 (a)ç  an    eç    en    áss   áun

Past tense
  Exalted      Normal
  S     P      S     P
1 éi    amos   áin   aléinç
2 ést'  ásteis áis   aléiç
3 óuç   aron   áiç   áin

Perfect tense
  Exalted     Normal
  S     P     S     P
1 án    alánç asen  asénç
2 ás    aláç  aseis aséç
3 áç    án    aseç  asen

There is also an antipassive voice:
Present Tense
  Exalted        Normal        Humble
  S     P        S     P       S      P
1 açoun tousmous acein tusinç
2 atles tóus     éç    tusiç
3 atleç tousoun  aceiç tousein atleis tóesoun

Past Tense
  Exalted        Normal
  S       P        S        P
1 épf     toefeinç átlesen  toeseinç
2 apfist' toefeiç  átleseis toeseiç
3 apfeiç  toefein  átleseiç toesen

Perfect Tense
  Exalted         Normal
  S      P        S        P
1 apfean toefeanç ápfesen  tóefeiseinç
2 apfeas toefeaç  ápfeseis tóefeiseiç
3 ápfeaç tóefean  ápfeseç  tóefeisen

Other perfect tenses are formed by abéi + perfect participle.
The Present Exalted is derived from the Present Indicative
The Present Normal is derived from the Present Subjunctive
The Present Humble is derived from the Future Indicative
The Past Exalted is derived from the Perfect Indicative
The Past Normal is derived from the Imperfect Subjunctive
The Perfect Exalted is derived from Pluperfect Indicative
The Perfect Normal is derived from Pluperfect Subjunctive

Originally, the Exalted forms were the normal forms, and the Normal
forms were defferential forms, the subjunctive having a softening
effect.  The Present Humble was originally a "Present Doubtful"

Antipassive forms are derived from the agentive noun (e.g., amâtor) +
esse, thus amâtor sum -> amaçoun, the former absolutive is then placed
in the genetive.  For example:
Active:
Go Yui   ameç
I  Julia love-3rdSingPresNormal
[GO Zwi 'AmEts]

Antipassive
(Go) Yuiei     amacein
(I)  Julia-gen love-1stSingPresNormalAntipassive
[GO 'Zuje A'mAtsen]

I've yet to work out the other declensional classes inflections, other
than that antipassive is identical for -áu, -éi, and -í verbs in the
plural, and in the singular only differs in that {a/e} is replaced by
{ei/i} for -éi verbs and {i} for -í verbs

To be is çáu, a regular verb derived from _stâre_, _esse_ survives only
in inflections and in the question particle _eipf_ < epfi < efpi < espi
< es pi < est qui.  Questions may also be formed simply by intonation,
or by placing _noun_ at the beginning of the sentence (represents a
collapse of Latin _nonne_ and _num_).

Normal word order is SOV or SVO, but all orders possible.  Modifiers
generally follow their head.