User Tools

Site Tools


conjugation

Verb forms

Infinitive

Proposal 1
  • formed by appending the suffix -e to the stem
  • like in Danish and Norwegian
  • references: wor02:2, roe04:15, par06:10, par11:16, sch12:8
Proposal 2
  • formed by appending the suffix -en to the stem (sko03: and in cases where needed prepended by tu similar to the Englisch to)
  • like in German and Dutch
  • references: sko03:5, cha07, goe09:11
Proposal 3
  • formed by appending the suffix -a to the stem
  • like in Swedish and Icelandic
  • references: mor20
Open questions

Should a special infinitive marker be used like the English to (to run), German zu, Norwegian å, Swedish att, …?

Active/present participle

Can this participle be pluralized? Presumably yes, in which case this must be borne in mind when designing it.

Proposal 1
Proposal 2
  • add the suffix -end to the stem
  • references: par06:10, par11:17-18, sch12:8
The -ive suffix

Does this participle cover meanings corresponding to English “-ive” words (“-ema” in Esperanto)? Examples include: creative, assertive, interrogative.

Passive/past participle

Can this participle be pluralized? Presumably yes, in which case this must be borne in mind when designing it. And we should also bear in mind the morphology of the similar past/preterite form.

Proposal 1
  • add the suffix -t to the stem if it doesn't end on d or t; otherwise use -et
  • references: wor02:2, sko03:5, goe09:11
Proposal 2
  • add the suffix -d (par11: -'d) to the stem if it doesn't end on d or t; otherwise use -ed
  • references: par06:10, par11:17-18, sch12:8
Proposal 3
  • add the suffix -te to the stem
  • references: cha07

Tempus (for indicative)

Present

Proposal 1
Proposal 2
  • the indicative in present is formed by appending the suffix -e to the stem
  • references: roe04:15, cha07

Past

Proposal 1
  • the suffix -de is added to the stem in order to form the preterite (e.g. ik skrivde (i wrote)); if the stem already ends with d or t, use -ede instead
  • one uses the word for to have as auxiliary verb in the present form and the 2nd participle of the actual verb to form the perfect (e.g. ik hav skrivt (i have written))
  • references: wor02:2, roe04:15, sko03:5, goe09:12
Proposal 2
  • the suffix -(e)d is added to the stem in order to form the preterite
  • one uses the word for to have as auxiliary verb in the present form and the 2nd participle of the actual verb to form the perfect
  • [if the perfect form of to have is used as the auxiliary verb, the past perfect tense is formed (e.g. Ik hadd stelld (i had placed))]
  • references: par06:11-12, sch12:8
Proposal 3
  • the suffix -te is added to the stem to form the preterite
  • if the root ends with T or D, this suffix “flips” to -et
  • if the root ends with a voiced consonant (i.e. B,V,G), the suffix is pronounced, and perhaps also written, -de
  • the perfect tenses are formed using the verb have with the passive participle
  • references: mor20
The de-de bounce

I, User_ob, might be making a mountain out of a molehill here, but I wanted to say something about repetition of the “duh” syllable. If the past ending is -de or -ede, then if the next word is the definite article, there will be 2 or 3 de's in a row, e.g. hi ledede de grup (he led the group). I think it's okay without the final E (i.e. hi leded de grup) and of course there's no “problem” if T is used in the suffix.

Future

Proposal 1
  • formed with the the auxiliary verb for to will / to shall and the infinitive
  • example: ik vil lope / ik skal lope
  • advantage: very common in (all?) Germanic language
  • disadvantage: implicite, therefore likely to collide with the form it is based on
  • references: wor02:2, sko03:5, cha07, par11:19
Proposal 2
  • formed with the verb for to become and the active participle
  • example: ik verd lopend (i will run; literally i become running)
  • advantage: explicite and doesn't collide with existing forms
  • disadvantage: after having tested it on some people, it seems like it's not intuitively understandable
Proposal 3
  • formed with the verb for to come and/or to go and the infinitive (maybe with the preposition “to”/“til” inbetween)
  • example: ik kom lope / ik go lope
  • advantage: quite intuitively understandable and barely collides with other forms
  • (dis)advantage: semi-implicite

Modus

Imperative

Proposal 1

Volative

Non-second-person imperatives need to be considered, especially the first-person plural. The obvious solution is a let-like auxiliary, which could in principle be used for all persons and numbers. Example: lat os spisa (let us eat).

Subjunctive

Proposal 1
  • no explicit form for subjunctive
  • use Tempus-shift instead
  • references: sko03:6, par06:13
Proposal 2
  • flect the the auxiliary verb for to shall and let it follow the infinitive of the full verb
  • references: cha07

Persona and Numerus

(No proposals i've seen so far have conjugation for personae and numeri)

Inchoative and Causative Verbs and the Middle Voice

We should consider the issues of inchoative (becoming) versus causative (making) verbs, and very similarly, the middle voice. If you know Esperanto, this corresponds to igxi and igi. The big question is: do we copy (mostly) the natlangs and just use the same verb-forms (i.e. they are “ergative” verbs) or do we make the distinction?

I think it's dodgy to use adjectives directly as verbs. The provisional causative suffix is -en, so an example causative-verb phrase is: ik troken de plat (I'm drying the plate). For the inchoative version, the options are:

  • simply use that, i.e. de plat troken
  • use an inchoative suffix
  • use a reflexive pronoun, i.e. de plat troken sig
  • use the verb “become”, i.e. de plat verd trok

Regarding the middle voice, this relates to verbs in general. An example verb is “burn” and an example phrase is “the coal is burning”, which can be interpreted as reflexive or causative. For this, and the unambiguous example of “we're burning the coal”, the simple scenario of not making a distinction yields these translations: de kol bren (ambiguous) and vi bren de kol. How should we handle these verbs?

Additional remarks

  • mostly it is proposed to make all verbs regular, except for the one for to be. A possibility for this one special verb (from User_ob) is the following, using ver as the root: infinitive vera or vere (depending on the suffix), imperative ver, participle 1 verend, participle 2 varet, present tense er, preterite var. Note that the first three forms are regular, and the second three irregular.
conjugation.txt · Last modified: 2020/04/26 22:51 by ob