Vaiysi grammar revised: verbs

Hi!

Onto verbs:

The Verb
Verbs are inflected by tense, person, number and voice. Vaiysi verb
conjugation has five tenses: present, past, future, anterior and posterior.
There is also an imperative, which is not properly an independent mood, but
is directly derived from Suimeni volitional future. There are three persons
(I - thou - he/she/it) and two numbers (singular and plural). Anterior and
posterior are not properly tenses, but aspects which are used to express a
perfective or an imminent action related to a principal verb. Vaiysi has an
antipassive voice, that allows to put the subject of a transitive verb in
the absolutive case, and its object, if required, in the dative case.
Verbs are listed in dictionaries in their third singular person of the
present tense, which is unmarked by personal endings, and usually ends in -o
or -eo.

As we did for noun morphology paradigms, in these examples we will use words
with long radical vowel (yego 'to go' and vyankeo 'to kill'), to let you see
when the desinence contains a long vowel that can reduce it.

Present: -o / -eo
The present tense is used to talk about things that happen right now or for
habitual actions that happen all the time. It translates both English simple
present and present continuous forms.
      S           P         S                 P
1          yegave         vyank(e)ave**
2 yegar yegarse vyankear vyank(e)arse**
3 yego* yegazi vyankeo* vyank(e)azi**

* Actually the third singular person can end in -a or -ea as well,
especially in archaic or archaic-sounding texts (Suiméni desinence was -a).
** The -e of the ending can be dropped in everyday speech or for metric
reasons, but is generally retained in prose.

Past: -yevi
The past is used almost the same as in English.
      S         P         S           P
1      egyevi         vankyevi
2 egyer egyersi vankyer vankyersi
3 egiyi egyezi    vankiyi vankyezi

Notice that here the -eo verbs have regularly lost the -e before the new
desinences. Hence both the verbs will have a common conjugation.

Future: -ounive
The future tense is used almost the same as English 'will' and 'be going to'
constructions.
       S             P             S             P
1          egounive             vankounive
2 egounir egounirse vankounir vankounirse
3 egoun(i)* egounizi vankoun(i)* vankounizi

* -i is usually dropped, especially in folk's speech.

Anterior: -eram
The anterior tense refers to things that happened before other certain
events which can take place in the present, in the past or in the future. It
is an aspect used to express perfective actions related to a principal verb.
         S         P                 S         P
1        yegerave              vyankerave
2 yegerar yegerarse vyankerar vyankerarse
3 yegero* yegerazi vyankero* vyankerazi

* As in the present tense, the third singular person can end in -a as well.

Posterior: -iymme
The anterior tense refers to things that happened after other certain events
which can take place in the present, in the past or in the future. It works
as an aspect, as the anterior tense does, but it is used to express imminent
actions related to a principal verb.
         S     P         S         P
1         egiyve         vankiyvve
2 egiyr egiyrse vankiyr vankiyrse
3 egiye egiyze vankiye vankiyze

Imperative: -yauve
Vaiysi imperative is not a properly independent mood, since it is derived
from Suimeni volitional future.
        S         P         S             P
1     egyauve              vankyauve
2 egyaur egyaurse vankyaur vankyaurse
3 egyau egyauzi vankyau vankyauzi

Antipassive
Antipassive is a construction that allows to put the subject of a transitive
verb in the absolutive case, and its object, if required, in the dative
case. It is marked by the morpheme -yark- attached to the verbal root and
followed by personal endings (that now must agree with the absolutive). It
is used in these circumstances:

1- Unknown or unstated object, for instance:
Ho ozarkiye.
he.ABS eat.AP.PST
He ate.

Ho ozarkiye mouram.
he.ABS eat.AP.PST apple.DAT
He ate the apple.


2- Focus:
Ho ozarkiye mouram.
he.ABS eat.AP.PST apple.DAT
He ate the apple. but with the focus being on the eater rather than to the
apple.


3- Agreement:
Ho pistiye i ozarkiye mouram
he.ABS sitdown.PST and eat.AP.PST apple.DAT
He sat down and ate the apple

Notice the way, in the last exemple, we have to change the case of the
subject from an absolutive to an ergative.

The verb 'to be'
The verb 'to be' has a rather particular construction: the copula -yeo is
directly fixed after the noun or the adjective it is related to. In Suiméni
it was a completely independent verb, éa, but time over time its position in
the sentence became fixed after the nominal argument, until it became a part
of it. It is important to notice that adjectives are not treated as verbs,
as many languages do: they are an independent part of the speech, which
carries a verbal particle if in predicative function. Indeed this particle
is not a feature only of adjectives, but even of nouns.

Talo salyeo.
house little.be.3s
The house is little.
Iyva gaunta velki i angiyi.
me.GEN friend tall and agile.be.PST.3s
My friend was tall and agile.

Liranounir
singer.be.FUT.2s
You'll become a singer

Sile terbero finouve loivou, revye oile miyre velkiyi.
sky dark.be.ANT.3s before day.LOC, but now sun high.be.PST.3s
The sky had been dark the day before, but now the sun was shining

Gezarkounive i ourlaskiye.
eat.AP.FUT.1s and AUG.good.POST.3s
I'll eat and, later, It'll be better.


Luca