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Yivrian

Grammar

Verbal Morphology

Aspect

Nearly all verbs in Yivrian are formed from noun stems by the addition of one of several aspectual suffixes. The aspectual suffixes, with breif descriptions of their use, are listed here. Not all nouns or verbs can form all aspects. A much more detailed discussion of the meanings and uses of the verbal aspects is found in the Syntax section:

Form	Name	Description
-ya	Immediate direct	A specific instance of an action where the subject acts directly on the object
-nya	Immediate causative	A specific instance of an action where the subject causes the object to act on something else.
-vva	Habitual direct	Repeated action or general action where the subject acts directly on the object
-kya	Habitual causative	Repeated action or general action where the subject causes the object to act on something else.
-(i)nya	Copular direct	Indicates that the subject is equivalent to or similar to the noun incorporated into the verb
-hya	Copular causative	Indicates that the subject causes the object to assume the qualities of the noun incorporated into the verb

All of these are simple suffixes except for the copular direct suffix, which include a vowel-lengthening infix like the pronominal suffixes. The ending -nya must be added to a form of the root that contains a long (diphthongized) vowel and a possible epenthetic vowel.

The rules for the formation of the immediate direct verb form are different from those for the other verb forms, and are as follows:

The ending -ya is added directly to the end of the nominative form of words ending in a consonant. This includes both C-class and U-class words. If the final consonant is /l/, then the /l/ and /j/ of the ending coalesce into [j\] spelled {yy}, as indicated in the Phonology section. If the final consonant is /r/, then the ending -atya is used instead. Ex: míth ~ míthya, thol ~ thoyya, per ~ peratya
If the word ends in -a, then the -a is dropped and the ending -ya is added after the last consonant. If the word ends in -ra, then the -a is preserved. Ex: kenda ~ kendya, hara ~ haraya
If the stem ends in any other vowel, the ending -ya is merely added following the final vowel. Ex: essu ~ essuya

The other five verb-forming suffixes that occur in Yivrian (-nya, -vva, -kya, -(i)nya, and -hya) follow simpler rules:

After words ending in a consonant, an epinthetic -a- is added between the stem and the verbal suffix. With the ending -(i)nya, the vowel -e- is used, as with the pronominal suffixes. Ex: lav ~ lavanya, laivenya.
After words ending in a vowel (including a), the verbal suffixes simply are added following the vowel. Ex: essu ~ essunya.

Voice, Tense, Negation, Phase

The Yivrian verb is generally agglutinative, which is to say that affixes indicating the various verbal properties are added one after another in a series. There are three morphological slots for affixes following the aspectual suffixes, which occur in the order Voice > Tense/Negation > Phase. Each of these categories will be discusses in turn below.

Voice

The category of voice indicates the relationship between the subject and the object and the nature of their thematic roles. See the syntax section for a discussion of the use of the voices. Yivrian distinguishes three voices:

Active	Indicates that the semantic role of the subject is higher than that of the object, if there is one. This is the unmarked voice for all classes of verbs.
Passive	Reverses the thematic roles of subject and object, and makes the active subject argument of an active sentence optional. This is semantically the same as the passive in familiar European languages, although the syntax is rather different.
Reflexive	Indicates that the subject acts upon itself. Does not occur for intransitive verbs. This is not the same as the middle voice found in ancient Greek and Sanskrit, but rather is a true reflexive.

Voice is indicated by a gradation of the vowel that is part of the aspectual suffix. The reference form (and the form given above in the list of aspectual suffixes) is Active. The full set of forms is:

Name	Ending	Example
Active	-a	kendya, to rule
Passive	-o	kendyo, to be ruled
Reflexive	-u	kendyu, to rule oneself

Tense and Negation

Tense and negation are always indicated together in Yivrian. Yivrian has three tenses, past, present, and future (which should not need to be explained). There are also three degrees of negation, affirmative, negative and dubitive. The affirmative and negative indicate strong belief on the part of the speaker about the truth or falsehood of the statement, while the dubitive indicates hesitation, uncertainty, or unreliability with respect to the statement.

The suffixes for tense and negation follow those for voice, and are as follows:

	Affirmative	Negative	Dubitive
Present	--	-t	-th
Past	-l	-r	-v
Future	-n	-nt	-nth

The present affirmative, as this table shows, is the unmarked form and does not have any over morphological exponent. These affixes are illustrated below:

	Affirmative	Negative	Dubitive
Present	kendya rules	kendyat does not rule	kendyath might rule
Past	kendyal ruled	kendyar did not rule	kendyav might have ruled
Future	kendyan will rule	kendyant will not rule	kendyanth perhaps will rule

Phase

"Phase" in Yivrian represents a category morphologically distinct from aspect (which is indicated by the aspectual suffixes), which indicates the degree of completeness of an action. The phase suffixes come last in the verb's morphology, following the tense/negation suffixes. Not all verbs take all phases. There are four phases in Yivrian:

Inchoative	--	Indicates the beginning or start of an action, or the action's simple occurrence. This is the unmarked form and is used as the reference form.
Continuous	-a	Indicates an action in progress or an action that has already been started.
Cessative	-am	Indicates an action at its termination, an action which is ceasing to take place.
Perfect	-as	Indicates an action after it has completed, viewed from a later point.

The following table shows the verb kendya in the present active, illustrating all three negation grades with all of the phases for illustration:

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	kendya	kendyaa	kendyaam	kendyaas
Negative	kendyat	kendyata	kendyatam	kendyatas
Dubitive	kendyath	kendyatha	kendyatham	kendyathas

Mood

Mood in Yivrian is indicated by a set of modal prefixes. These prefixes are not exclusive of each other--more than one of them may be used at a time, although their order is fixed. The following chart shows the modal prefixes with their meanings in the order which they must occur:

Interrogative	ko-	Indicates yes/no questions
Imperative	to-	Indication a command, order, or logical necessity for the action to occur
Debitive	so-	Indicates a suggestion, a moral obligation or strong tendency for the action to occur
Conditional	ro-	Indicates a contrafactual or suppositional quality about the action
Volitive	do-	Indicates desire on the part of the subject to do the action
Potential	mo-	Indicates ability on the part of the subject to perform the action
Intensive	vo-	Strengthens the quality of the action, indicates that the action occurs often or to a great degree

The forms given above all contain the vowel -o-, which is the vowel that all of the modal prefixes use when they are the first or the only prefix. However, the vowel used in the prefixes changes when more than one prefix is used, according to the following rules:

The first prefix or the only prefix takes the vowel o. Ex: to + anya > toanya; to + kendya > tokendya.
The prefix nearest to the root takes the vowel e if the root begins with a consonant, or no vowel at all if the root begins with a vowel. Ex: to + vo + anya > tovanya; to + vo + kendya > tovekendya.
Any prefixes between the first and the last take the vowel e. Ex: to + ro + vo + anya > torevanya; to + ro + vo + kendya > torevekendya.

Although there are no theoretical restrictions on the number of modal prefixes that may be used at one time, in practice series of more than three prefixes are extremely rare.

Infinitives

The Yivrian infinitive, in contrast with the infinitive in most Indo-European languages, is a rather specialized form that is never used as a reference form. The infinitive is generally used as another way to form clauses behaving as nouns, and as a way to form purpose clauses. These uses of the infinitive are discussed in the syntax section. Morphologically, the infinitive shows aspect, voice, and negation, but not tense, phase, or mood. The endings are as follows, illustrated with the immediate direct aspect of the verb, though the infinitive can freely occur with any other form of the verb. Some of the categories have alternate forms:

	Affirmative	Negative	Dubitive
Active	-yé	-yélat/-yét	-yélath/-yéth
Passive	-yélo	-yélot	-yéloth
Reflexive	-yélu	-yélut	-yéluth

Irregular Verbs

The vast majority of verbs in Yivrian are regular in every way. However, there are a small number of verbs that are irregular in the formation of their aspects. These verbs either have no noun stem or do not follow the rules given above for the aspectual suffixes. Most of these follow the pattern of peyya "to say," which forms its immediate direct form as if from the stem pel-, but which truncates the final consonant of its stem to pe- in the other aspects:

Immediate direct	peyya
Immediate causative	penya
Habitual direct	pevva
Habitual causative	pekya
Copular direct	pénya
Copular causative	pehya

Verbs following this pattern are ditya, keyya, kuyya, peyya, seyya, tayya, meaning "to carry, to hear, to do what?, to say, to put, to have", respectively. There is one verb sudya "to take" which follows this pattern except in the copular forms, which are regular with respect to the root sud-: sudya, sunya, suvva, sukya, suidenya, sudahya. Note that even the copular forms are not perfectly regular, since sudya is considered to be formed from suda (not sud).

There are four verbs form their aspects by truncating a final consonant, as peyya, except in the immediate causative. These verbs all have unique immediate causative forms:

Immediate direct	Immediate causative
manya	maya
nayya	naya
onya	oanya
renya	reya

The other forms of these verbs follow peyya. For example, all of the aspects of manya "to want" are manya, maya, mavva, makya, mainya, mahya.

There is one verb, fayya "to go" which is suppleted by fasya "to leave" in all of its aspects except the immediate direct and the copular direct. Thus, the aspects of fayya are:

Immediate direct	fayya
Immediate causative	fasanya
Habitual direct	fasavva
Habitual causative	fasakya
Copular direct	failenya
Copular causative	fasahya

Note that fasya is a regular verb that has its own forms in those aspects where it does not supplete fayya.

The verbs eya and atya

Eya means "to be," and atya means "to do," and they are both known as pro-verbs because of their unique syntactic properties. They are the only verbs in Yivrian that are entirely irregular, although their conjugations are somewhat similar. Eya only occurs in the active and passive voices, and it only has two aspects: the immediate direct eya, and the immediate causative enya. (However, eya is a stative verb, and so terming these forms as immediate direct/causative may be somewhat misleading. The direct forms, however, are listed here in full:

Present Active

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	eya	eyi	eyim	eyis
Negative	ét	éta	étam	étas
Dubitive	éth	étha	étham	éthas

Past Active

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	eal	eala	ealam	ealas
Negative	ér	éra	éram	éras
Dubitive	év	éva	évam	évas

Future Active

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	ean	eana	eanam	eanas
Negative	ént	énta	éntam	éntas
Dubitive	énth	éntha	éntham	énthas

Present Passive

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	eo	eo	eom	eos
Negative	eot	eota	eotam	eotas
Dubitive	eoth	eotha	eotham	eothas

Past Passive

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	eol	eola	eolam	eolas
Negative	eor	eora	eoram	eoras
Dubitive	eov	eova	eovam	eovas

Future Passive

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	eon	eona	eonam	eonas
Negative	eont	eonta	eontam	eontas
Dubitive	eonth	eontha	eontham	eonthas

Infinitives

	Affirmative	Negative	Dubitive
Active	yé	yélat	yélath
Passive	yélo	yélot	yéloth

The moods of eya are also formed differently from other verbs. Whatever the nearest prefix is to the stem, it has no vowel even if it is the only one present. The other prefixes are formed regularly. Thus:
to + eya > teya
to + ro + eya > toreya
to + ro + vo + eya > toreveya

Atya exists in active, passive, and reflexive forms and in all aspects except the copular direct and copular causative. The stems for the aspects are respectively atya, anya, avva, akya. In the conjugation of atya, the initial a- irregularly drops out in certain forms; however, the forms which lose the initial a- are consistent across all of the aspects. Therefore, the conjugation of the direct immediate will serve to illustrate for all of the aspects:

Present Active

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	atya	atyi	atyim	atyis
Negative	atyat	tyata	tyatam	tyatas
Dubitive	atyath	tyatha	tyatham	tyathas

Past Active

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	atyal	tyala	tyalam	tyalas
Negative	atyar	tyara	tyaram	tyaras
Dubitive	atyav	tyava	tyavam	tyavas

Future Active

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	atyan	tyana	tyanam	tyanas
Negative	atyant	tyanta	tyantam	tyantas
Dubitive	atyanth	tyantha	tyantham	tyanthas

The passive and reflexive are formed regularly by replacing -ya with -yo or -yu. In the present passive/reflexive, the sequences -oa- and -ua- are reduced to -o- and -u- (just as the sequence -aa- reduces to -i- in the active). Thus, the present passive of atya is:

Present Passive

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	atyo	atyo	atyom	atyos
Negative	atyot	tyota	tyotam	tyotas
Dubitive	atyoth	tyotha	tyotham	tyothas

The reflexive is the same, with -u- in the place of -o-.

The other aspects are also the same, but with a different consonant or cluster in place of -ty-. The only complication is in the habitual, because medial -vv- alternates with initial w-. Thus present active habitual of atya thus is:

	Inchoative	Continuous	Cessative	Perfect
Affirmative	avva	avvi	avvim	avvis
Negative	avvat	wata	watam	watas
Dubitive	avvath	watha	watham	wathas

Likewise in the other voices and tenses.

The moods of atya are formed similar to those of eya Whatever the nearest prefix is to the stem, it has no vowel even if it is the only one present. If the form that the modal prefix is attatched to would not normally have an initial a-, that a- is restored in the presence of the modal prefix. The other prefixes are formed regularly. Thus:
ro + atya > ratya
ro + tyata > ratyata
to + ro + tyata > toratyata
to + ro + vo + tyata > torevatyata

Last Updated ( Thursday, 07 April 2005 )