Gevey verbs

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The language of Gevey is composed of objects, actions, and the complex interactions between the two. Verbs are the words that describe actions and states. Every clause in Gevey will contain at least one principal verb demonstrating the main action, or state, of the clause.

Verbs are affected by a range of factors, both intrinsic to the verb itself (such as tense and emphasis) and by the subject noun or pronoun which controls the verb's action or state.

A principal verb needs to take into account nine factors:

factor controlled by demonstrated by
voice subject causation and verb mode verb construction
conjugation conjunction dependence verb infix
tense action timescale verb infix
status subject status verb suffix
number subject number verb suffix
completion action completion completion particle
emphasis action emphasis emphasis particle
condition action condition condition particle
transitivity verb transitivity verb preposition

Verb voice

There are three voices available in Gevey: active voice; incidental voice; and stative voice. A fuller description of the use of voice in Gevey is given in the voice of Gevey verbs webpage. To summarise:

More details about causative and applicative subjects can be found on the Gevey objects webpage.

Verb voice is demonstrated through the verb's construction:

voice construction template
active simple action-verb
incidental compound auxillary-sen action-participle
stative compound auxillary-ben action-participle

Further details on auxillary verbs can be found on the auxiliary and irregular verbs webpage. Information on verb designs, including verb participles, is given in the section on secondary verbs near the end of this webpage.

While the use of the active and incidental voices is fairly straightforward (once the concept of causative and applicative subjects is understood), the use of the stative voice is dependent on a wide range of social and dialectal rules. More information on the various uses of the stative voice can be found on the voice of Gevey verbs and Gevey dialects webpages.

The structure of a Gevey verb

Before proceeding with the discussion of the other factors, it is important to understand the structure of a Gevey verb.

Principal verbs are the words that show the action in a clause, or describe the state of the objects within a clause. For principal verbs in the simple construction, and the auxillary verbs 'sen' and 'ben' in the compound constructions, the structure is as follows:

seg led distrjimatee êlhs
[particle list  |  preposition  stem    +infix  +suffix  ]
[seg led        |  di           strjim  at      ee       ]  êlhs
they may have been running away

Secondary verbs (verb designs and verb participles) have a much simpler structure:

deefsu casyu rjoub bu rjibendou
                      [auxillary | stem   +secondary suffix]
deefsu  casyu  rjoub  [bu        | rjib   +endou]
The field is next to the house

Verb conjugation

Conjugation in Gevey is the act of altering a verb so that it can carry extra information about the timescale in which the action takes place, or state being described exists, subject status and subject number. There are three models of verb conjugation in Gevey, which determine how the verb will be altered depending on the type of clause in which the action or description takes place. These are: primary (or A type) conjugation, secondary (or O type) conjugation, and tertiary (or I type) conjugation.

Clause type is controlled by the conjunction that introduces the clause:

conjunction clause type conjugation
coordinating free primary
dependent qualified primary
temporal qualified primary
switch mutual primary
subjective tethered secondary
predicate interrogative tertiary

Further details on conjunctions can be found on the Gevey conjunctions webpage. Additional information on clauses can be found on the guide to Gevey clauses webpage.

The verb's conjugation type will directly affect which infix the verb will use - this is discussed in the section on verb tense below. Conjugation type has no effect on the verb's suffix, which will be changed in line with the verb's subject using a common set of rules independent of which conjugation model is being followed. An example of regular verb conjugation can be found in the regular verb conjugation tables webpage.

Principle verb tenses

Principle verbs and auxiliary verbs use four tenses to demonstrate the time in which their action, or their description, occurs:

It is believed that the original Balhan language encoded into its grammatical structure a basic philosophy that an action in the past will directly affect actions in the present and future. The historic tense was used for unalterable, unavoidable or unchangable actions - in effect destiny, while the past tense was used for actions whose repercussions, whilst unavoidable (depending upon the clause's voice), can be altered by later actions.

This application of the historic tense has survived into modern day Gevey. However, the main purpose of this tense nowadays is to demonstrate the key verb in a sentence, paragraph or discussion. As a result of this, the Gevey hiostoric tense has lost much of its temporal meaning - an action rendered in the historical tense can take place in the past, present or future, or even be timeless, with only the context of the words surrounding this key verb giving an indication of when the action happens.

Verb tense is demonstrated through the verb's infix. As mentioned earlier, the infix to be used is controlled both by the verb's tense, and the verb's conjugation model (see above).

Verb infixes for tense and conjugation:

Tense Conjugation type
  primary (A type) secondary (O type) tertiary (I type)
Future -an- -on- -in-
Present -as- -os- -is-
Past -at- -ot- -it-
Historic -atj- -otj- -itj-

Subject status and number

Every principal and auxiliary verb will agree with its subject's status and number by amending its suffix to agree with the subject (more information on object status and number can be found on the Gevey noun webpage).

Verb suffixes

Subject status Subject number
  singular paucal plural
Inanimate -u -yu -uu
Animate simple -e -ye -ee
Animate internal -a -ya -ae
Animate external -o -yo -oe

Note that when the paucal suffix is combined with the future and past infixes, letter changes will occur to ease the pronunciation of the words. The combination of n+y changes to nj, and the combination of t+y changes to tc. A complete example of verb conjugation showing these letter changes can be found on the regular verb conjugation tables webpage.

Verb completion, emphasis, interrogation and condition

Gevey uses a series of verb particles to show verb completion, emphasis, interrogation and condition aspects. A verb will normally have no more than one completion or emphasis particle, but can carry a short list of condition particles (joined together by coordinating conjunctions if necessary).

There are eight completion aspect particles

les demonstrating a continuous (possibly never ending) action
li demonstrating a regularly repeated (but discrete) action
let demonstrating a single, uncompleted action
lja demonstrating an irregular, or occasional action
bao demonstrating the start of an action
glaa demonstrating the halting, cessation of an action
glou demonstrating the resumption of an action
âs A generic form of the verb, often used to indicate a generic subject

A verb without a completion aspect adverb is assumed to demonstrate a single, completed action (with past and historic tenses) or a single, completable action (with future tense). Note that 'let' is rarely used in the present tense, but present tense verbs without a completion aspect adverbs are assumed to demonstrate a single, uncompleted action.

The generic form of the verb is used when talking about stereotypical actions or states of an object. For example:

There are five emphatic aspect particles

nana corresponding to no, never, not
na corresponding to no, not very
pae corresponding to uncertainty, quite, perhaps, maybe
ce giving a positive emphasis to the action of the verb, yes, very
cise giving an emphatic emphasis to the action of the verb, yes cerainly, completely

Emphasis aspects are also used for one word responses to questions - never, no, perhaps (or maybe), yes and always respectively.

The interrogation aspect

A simple way of turning a clause into an interrogative clause is to place the interrogation aspect 'î' in front of the verb. This aspect will always go at the start of any aspect cluster.

There are a large number of conditional aspect adverbs. The modality of a Gevey verb can encompass:

Each of these modes can be divided into high, medium and low likelihoods.

The more commonly used modal aspects include:

Mode High likelihood Reasonable likelihood Low likelihood
Obligation sadx gaz tum
Necessity matc trjev civ
Inevitability stav nex tog
Probability haz klov seg
Acceptability hont goudj byav

Deciding which conditional aspect to use can be a bit of a dark art, as there is no simple correlation between Ramajal conditional words and Gevey conditional verbal aspects. The following examples are offered as guidance:

An alternative method of indicating probable, acceptable and permissable modes is to use the verb in the imparative design with a third person subject; this is more common in less formal registers of speech.

The word order of verb particles

The word order of verb particles is to a large extent determined by dialect - some dialects prefer a particular word order, while others vary the pattern according to the relative importance of each particle. One dialect (that of the Egos Valley) prefers word orders determined by sound patterns, and will concatenate the verb particles into a single word. The Valley Dialect of Gevile (the reference dialect for this grammar) prefers its verb particles to be set out in a specific order when they are present:

î ce trjev li fosase de
[ interrogation | emphatic | modal  | completion | verb    ]
[ î             | ce       | trjev  | li         | fosase  ]  de
should you regularly eat cheese?

Verb transitivity

Transitivity is concerned with the action described by the verb; and it is particularly important for determining how objects are controlled within a clause. Verb transitivity and verb valency are dealt with in more detail in the transitivity and valency webpage. What follows is a more practical summary on the role transitivity plays in the Gevey clause.

Actions come in a number of different flavours, including:

Verb transitivity is important because it determines whether the verb requires a preposition to moderate its action: intransitive verbs will always use a preposition, while transitive and copula verbs do not. More information on using prepositions with intransitive verbs can be found in the Gevey prepositions webpage.

The transitivity of a verb will also determine the verb's case, which becomes important when using secondary verbs (see below):

Secondary verbs

Compound construction verbs come in two parts: an auxiliary verb ('sen', 'ben', 'ën') which is conjugated for tense and agreement with its subject, and a participle which conveys the action or description. Additionally, there are a number of secondary verb designs which can be used with a principal verb or auxiliary verb. The complete list of secondary verb types is:

Secondary verbs are formed by adding the appropriate secondary suffix to the verb's stem. There are two suffixes available for each participle and design - the A case secondary suffix and the E case secondary suffix.

Secondary verb conjugation

Secondary verb A case conjugation E case conjugation
Primary participle -anti -endou
Secondary participle -onti -ondou
Tertiary participle -inti -indou
Infinitive design -an -en
Subsidiary design -al -el
Anominate design -alta -elde
Imperative design stem only, with appropriate coda changes; or -k for stems whose final syllables have no coda

Using participals

Verb participles are used with the auxiliary verbs 'sen' and 'ben' to form the incidental and stative voices respectively. Because the auxiliary verbs only have one conjugation model, it is left to the participle to demonstrate which conjugation the verb is undertaking - hence the reason for three different participles: the primary participle is used for the primary conjugation, secondary with secondary conjugation, and tertiary with tertiary conjugation.

Using designs

The following is a brief overview of the uses of verb designs in Gevey. Note that while the subsidiary and anominate designs are always used as part of a compound verb, the infinitive and imperative designs can be used without an auxiliary verb.

The infinitive design is used for a number of purposes: it can be used on its own with no objects just to indicate an action, in particular for answering questions. It is also used (with the equative verb auxiliary for non-present tenses) in cases where the subject is unknown or undescribable, and there are no need to demonstrate an object receiving the action. It can be used in response to questions formed with the verb 'nuewjan' - do, make. And it is used for a verb which is qualifying the action in the clause (such procedural verbs include tokan, vidxan, kotjan - to like, to prefer, to help). For example:

Gevey treats desiderative (and causative) verbs as verbal modifiers - the desiderative verb follows the main verb, and takes the infinitive form. A maximum of one modal aspect word can go between the main verb and the desiderative (or causative) verb. Desiderative verbs can also act as a main verb. Causative verbs can suffix a pronoun to indicate that the subject of the causative differs from the subject of the main verb. Main verbs: yu yiesrul cokrase te I take a biscuit yu yiesrul fosase te I eat the biscuit Desiderative verbs acting as main verbs: ya yiesrul tokase te I like biscuits yu yiesrul grjugase te I want a biscuit Main verbs in sequence: yu yiesrul cokrase pits fosase te I take and eat the biscuit Desiderative verbs acting on main verbs: ya yiesrul fosase tokan te I like eating biscuits yu yiesrul fosase grjugan te I want to eat the biscuit yu yiesrul cokrase grjugan te I want to take the biscuit Desiderative and causative verbs acting on a main verb, different subjects: yu yiesrul cokraso grjugante do I want you to take a biscuit yu yiesrul cokrate gizrjante ke I told her to take the biscuit ... and finally with added aspect: yu yiesrul tum cokrate gizrjante ke I should have told her to take the biscuit yu yiesrul cokrate tum gizrjante ke I told her that she should take a biscuit

The imperative design, which is generally the verb stem without a suffix, has a number of uses. Most commonly it is used to issue direct commands - in such cases the subject (which is usually a second person pronoun) can be dropped:

Some verb stems need to amend the codas of their final syllable to meet the phonological constraints of the language - these changes are similar to those for noun stem alteration, though with fewer irregularities:

A few verbs add the suffix '-k, -ak' to the stem to form the imperative:

When used with a first person subject, the verb becomes hortative ('let me', 'let us'):

When used with a third person subject, the verb can either be hortative, or it can carry modal overtones (probable, acceptable, permissable) - where more clarity is required, or in more formal situations, the modal particles will generally be used in preference to the imperative design. Note also that the imperative design carries no tense information: for past and future actions it is normal to add the appropriate form of the copula ën after the verb

The anominate design is used for forming a nominalised form of the verb, particularly with tcat|tet constructions. As a noun, the design will always be rendered in the internal status (for transitive verbs) or the simple status (for intransitive verbs) and will also undergo normal noun declensions:

The commonest use of the subsidiary design is to form the stem for the modifier form of the verb: buetsan (build, make, fabricate) becomes buetsalixe (productive).

This page was last updated on Tecufintuu-25, 530: Yaezluu-21 Gevile