There are just three affixes that can be attached to the start of
verbs. Their meanings are dealt with in the following
sections, but here for convenience is a summary of their forms:
me· is “negative” (see negation)
on· is “imperfective” (see aspect)
man· is “negative imperfective”, fusing me· and
on·
Like the more common suffixes, these prefixes have no effect on
the verb's stress pattern (IIb);
me·numa·uk “not to see” is stressed regularly on the second
vowel of the verb numa itself: menumáuk,
“men‐oo‐MOWK”.
The form me· becomes mi· before an e,
a, or o; on· becomes n· before any
vowel, and the n in both on· and man· changes
to r before an r, l before an l, and
m before an m, p, b, or f:
ortothi·uk “to order” → mi·ortothi·uk “not to
order”
fáru·ok “to give” → om·fáru·ok “to be giving”
ana·uk “to go” → n·ana·uk “to be going”
VIIb – Negation
English negation is needlessly complicated, and involves adding a
“not” (or suffixing form “·n't”) either to the verb itself
(“is·n't”) or to an extra helper verb “do/did” (“I do·n't
understand”). In this language things are simpler; negation
is just a matter of a prefix me· on the verb
itself –
Things can also be confusingly straightforward when it comes to
verbs like “must”: desen·uk odoim·ap means “I must speak”
(it is necessary), but desen·uk mi·odoim·apnever
means “I must not speak” – it means “I needn't speak”
(it is not necessary). To say “I must not‐speak”, negate the
verb “speak”: me·desen·uk odoim·ap.
VIIc – Aspect
As a very rough guide, I could say that Aspect is like Tense; but
the Perfective/Imperfective distinction is not really equivalent
to any simple feature of the English verb system. A prefixed
on· doesn't specify when something happened, or how long it
took, or whether it was repeated (though it might well hint at any
or all of these). In essence it's just a question of the
narrator's attitude; compare the difference between English “I did
something” and “I have done something”.
If you're wondering how to tell past from present or future in
un‐tense‐marked sentences, the answer is that sometimes it doesn't
matter, sometimes it's clear from context, and sometimes words
like tuker “already” anchor the sequence of events.
There are also verbs like serau “plan to” or moek
“want to”, which can stand in quite adequately for the English
so‐called future tense.
PERFECTIVE
desen without a prefix is Perfective, which implies that
the verb describes a single, complete event, forming part of a
series of incidents narrated in sequence, and probably (by
default) in the past. Possible English translations include
“he spoke”, “she has spoken”, “they did speak”, “(and then) he
speaks”, etc.
IMPERFECTIVE
on·desen with the on· prefix is Imperfective; that
is, it refers to an unbounded, ongoing process (often repetitive
or longlasting) forming a background or setting to the main
narrative; it also commonly implies present or future
tense. English translations include “he is speaking”, “she
used to speak”, “they always speak”, and so on.
BEING
The linking verb (VIIIc) “be” is
exceptional in that rather than having a basic perfective form
and a prefixed imperfective form it has two separate basic forms:
khoi (inherently perfective) used to describe
incidental/transitory properties; and re (inherently
imperfective) for essential/permanent properties. Thus
gutho khoi·s tearik·a means “the beer is (currently)
cheap”, while gutho re·s tearik·a means “beer is (always)
cheap”. The distinction is often lost by the tendency of
both versions of “to be” to vanish (see Va):
gutho — tearik·a would be a grammatically acceptable
substitute for either of the above sentences.
VIId – Verb‐Suffixes
A verb's basic form given in the dictionary (e.g. sifulu,
“die”) is what's called the “verbal stem”. Note that when
the verbal stem itself ends in u, each of the suffixes
listed below as containing a u is instead formed with an
o – thus it's sifulu·ok “to die” (not
sifulu·uk), sifulu·okh·ap “if I were to die”,
and so on.
SUBJUNCTIVE
The suffix ·ukh (sandwiched between the stem and any other
suffixes) signals the subjunctive “mood”, a rather subtle form
used to establish an attitude of tentativeness or subjectivity:
thus “if I spoke”, duo desen·ukh·ap. The subjunctive
is often required in particular constructions such as after
lemmo: “so that they would begin”, lemmo
daimpi·ukh.
INFINITIVE
The form used for a verb demoted to a subordinate function ends
in ·uk; this is often equivalent to an English verb
preceded by “to”, but don't translate that as
u – use the suffix instead. Thus
niamo·uk means “(to) eat” as in “begin to eat” or “must
eat” – see also IXa on
word‐order. The ·uk suffix is never combined with a
subjunctive or pronoun‐suffix ending, but it is perfectly common
for it to be accompanied by a reflexive: niamo·uk·or, “to
eat oneself”. Infinitives can also (to a limited extent)
behave as neuter nouns: raman·uk — jammares·a “to fly is
difficult”.
PRONOUN‐SUFFIXES
See the pronouns section, VIa. Just
as ·(a)p, ·(o)m, ·(a)n etc. can be attached
to nouns and prepositions, they can also serve as “subject
agreement”: desen·om “we spoke”. Orders and
entreaties take a special alternative set of pronoun‐suffixes, as
detailed in VIIIa.
REFLEXIVES
The very last kind of suffix that can be tagged on is
·(o)r (·r after a vowel), which turns a transitive
verb into a reflexive (VIIId):
niamo·r “he ate himself”.