Ákat actions: shaping the hearthstone

Just as the Nakap philosophers used the metaphor of rocks, stones and gems to describe the grammar of objects, they employed a similar metaphorical structure to investigate the grammar of actions. The metaphor they chose is that of holding a feast.

The essential component of any feast is the preparation of the food, and no feast is successful unless the food is cooked to perfection. For this reason, the philosophers chose to associate action roots and action classes with the hearthstone, as no action can exist or operate without an action root.

The Ákat action

Ákat actions are tricky things to learn, yet they are also very regular things to use. Unlike in Ramajal where several words can be used to build up an action phrase, Ákat action phrases are single words built up of several particles surrounding the action root and, in many instances, the agent object root as well.

The structure of the Ákat action phrase is as follows. This model will be used in subsequent pages to introduce the various components that make up the complete action word:

C	g	M	G	v	V	a	D	p	E
tense+ conjunctions	agentive class	modality	agentive root	action class +aspect	action root	agent marker	agentive determiner	patient marker	evidentiality marker

Be aware that most action roots are derived from object roots. Ákat has very few 'actions' as such, and the language is quite inventive when it comes to deriving actions from objects. Because of the way most actions are derived, all actions can be divided into the same types of classes as objects, thus actions pertaining to people, to nature, to made things, to thought things and to dangerous things. Just as for objects, these classifications may sometimes seem to be confusing or nonsensical.

Deriving the action root

C	g	M	G	v	V	a	D	p	E
tense+ conjunctions	agentive class	modality	agentive root	action class +aspect	action root	agent marker	agentive determiner	patient marker	evidentiality marker

There are two main methods for turning an object root into an action root.

• The first method is known as voicing. This involves changing all the voiceless consonants in the object root and class marker into their voiced counterparts.
• The second method is to use derivation. Certain derivation models produce roots that are intrinsically active - they can only be used as part of the action. These derivation models often involve the insertion of one or more voiced consonants into the object root, though this is not a universal rule.

The voiceless consonants and their voiced counterparts are clearly shown on the Ákat scripts webpage, and are also summarised below. As can be seen from the common and monumental scripts, the only difference between the voiceless and voiced consonants is the addition of a voicing mark above the voiceless letter. This has the effect of helping the reader quickly identify the action words in a sentence, due to the cluster of voicing marks above the core concept part of the action.

Voiceless:	P	T	K	Q	F	S	X	C
Voiced:	B	D	G	HQ	V	Z	HX	HC

The following examples demonstrate how voicing works, with the affected letters highlighted. Note that voicing affects some class markers (specifically 's' and 't') as well as the root:

Object	translated as	Action	translated as
ákus	meal	ýguz	to eat
ýcof	likeability, lovability, enjoyability	ýhcov	to like, love, enjoy
áqap	cooking fire	ýhqab	to cook
ỳqap	fire	ỳhqab	to burn
tapuf	valued (owned) object	dyhnbuv	to buy, purchase, aquire
ákoxkát	word	ýgohxgád	to speak, say
nyqapsỳs	electricity	nyhqabzỳz	to spark
tyhncofkát	laughter	dyhnhcovgád	to laugh (at)
taqaphmpyp	steam engine	dyhnhqabhmbyb	to operate machinery, drive

Action aspect

C	g	M	G	v	V	a	D	p	E
tense+ conjunctions	agentive class	modality	agentive root	action class +aspect	action root	agent marker	agentive determiner	patient marker	evidentiality marker

Action aspect deals with the duration and completeness of an action. In Ákat, an action can be a single act (which may be quick or, alternatively, take a long time to complete), or it can be a repeated act, or a continuous act. It can also be the start or end of an act. Note that the aspect of an action has nothing to do with action tense, which is the time (relative to now) when the action takes place.

The Ákat language is richly endowed with action aspects:

• The perfective aspect shows a single, completed action or (in the non-past tense) a single, completable action - the key point being that the action is not repeated or quickly repeatable.
• The repetitive aspect demonstrates a regular, discretely repeated action.
• The continuous aspect informs us that the action is continuous, without clear start or end points.
• The inceptive aspect, which demonstrates the start of an action, comes in two flavours - one to show the start of a single action, the other to show the start of a repetitive or continuous action.
• The cessive aspect is used to show that an action is ending, or has ended.
• The resumptive aspect is used for the resumption of a previously halted repetitive or continuous action.
• The indefinite aspect (analagous to the realis general mood) handles actions whose duration and/or completeness is not known, or not important.
• The negative aspect is the normal form used to negate an action

The action aspect is shown through the action root's class marker, using similar particles to those that show an object's number:

• á, à, na, da and za mark the perfective aspect
• é, èi, nei, del and zei mark the repetitive aspect
• ó, òi, noi, dol and zoi mark the continuous aspect
• úa, ùa, nua, dua and zua mark the inceptive aspect for single actions
• úo, ùo, nuo, duol and zuo mark the inceptive aspect for repeated or continuous actions
• ú, ù, nu, du and zu mark the cessive aspect
• úe, ùe, nue, due and zue mark the resumptive aspect
• ý, ỳ, ny, dyhn and zyhn mark the indefinite aspect (and is the form usually shown in dictionaries and lexicons)
• úy, ùy, nuy, duyl and zuy mark the negative aspect