The adjective form of the verb

Tonight we're going to look at another verb form, the adjective form, used to make an verb describe a noun. We'll start with a verb that is reasonable in this form, pare, to be red

pare	Animate		Inanimate
Transitive This is a comparison  sub is <adjectivier> than obj	bapapare	Add an be- to the front of the normal form, change for vowel harmony	bapare	Add an be- to the front of the normal form, change for vowel harmony
Intransitive	bäpachare	Add an bë- to the front of the normal form change for vowel harmony	bapäre	Add an be- to the front of the normal form change for vowel harmony

Not so tough, it's the normal form, plus a prefix, with some vowel harmony changes. Let's try some examples.


'agwi'o 'akibepare'
 'agwi-'o 'aki-bepare-'
dog.this cont-be red-3rd animate

This dog is red.

The transitive form of the verb is used for comparison

'agwi'o rägwi'ka 'akirebapapare'
 'agwi-'o ra-agwi-'ka 'aki-re-bapapare-'
dog-this obj-dog-that cont-4th animate-be red-3rd animate

This dog is redder than that dog

A quick note about the ra- prefix on rägwi'ka, It marks the obviate, or 4th person. In a conversation, one noun is designated as the proximate, and all other nouns are obviate. I'll do a complete post about obviation soon. I'm done for tonight, if something isn't clear, let me know and I'll clarify it...

Some info about aspects

Tonight's exciting feature is aspect. There are 4 aspects in Nashtuku, progressive, perfect, imperfect, and habitual. 

Aspect	‘aki-	‘unta-	‘e-	Re-
	Progressive, in motion, continuous	Imperfect	Perfect	Habitually
A verbs	‘aki-	‘unta-	‘a-	Ra-
i/e verbs	‘aki-	‘inta-	‘e-	Re-
o/u verbs	‘ako-	‘unta-	‘u-	Ru-

As you can see from the chart, the form of the prefix depends on the first vowel in the word.Let's look at these a bit more closely

'aki is used for actions that are in progress, actions that are moving around, or are taking place in the background

'akibechesoj

I am speaking (right now)

'unta- and 'e- are direct opposites. 'e- is used for actions that are being looked at as a complete event. 'unta- is used for actions that are still ongoing.

'intabechesoj

I am in the midst of speaking

'ebechesoj
I spoke

re- is used for things that are done habitually, or over and over.

rebechesoj
I speak (all the time)


I hope this all makes sense... I hope there will be more tomorrow

Person Marking on verbs

Ok... let's put some subjects and objects onto our verb. We'll use  bese again

bechese This is the animate subject, intransitive form

bechesuj I talk
bechesüj we talk

bechesith you talk
bechesïth you (pl) talk

bechese' he/she/it talks
bechesë' they talk

So what's happening here, is that the last vowel of the verb is changing based on the subject, plus adding a consonant.


1^st person: final vowel is back i->u o and a are unaffected, add a j
2^nd person: final vowel is high a->e, o->u i is unaffected add a th
3^rd person final vowel is fronted, o->e, a and I are unaffected add an ‘

For the plural forms, change the vowel, then lengthen it. 

How about adding an object to a verb... how about

I talk to you

thebabasuj

the- babasu(u)-j
you speak(animate, transitive) I

The object affix is added to the beginning of the verb... here's the entire table

Object
1(s) (I)	je-
1(p)(we)	tsë-
2(s)(you)	the-
2(p)(you)	në-
3(a, s) (he/she/it)	'e-
3(a,p) (he/she/it)	'ë-
3(I, s) (he/she/it)	ge-
3(I, p) (he/she/it)	gë-
4(a,s) (he/she/it)	re-
4(a,p) (he/she/it)	rë-
4(I, s) (he/she/it)	le-
4(I,p) (he/she/it)	lë-

All pretty simple, yes? Leave a question or comment below so I can tell I'm explaining this in a reasonable way :)

Verbs part I transativity and animacy

Nashtuku verbs are sensative to the animacy of the subject and object, as well as the transitivity of the sentence. We'll use the verb bese- to talk, and we'll start with the normal verb form, which is what's used for verbs in simple sentences.

Normal form

Bese	Animate		Inanimate
Transitive	bebese	Duplicate 1st syllable	bese	Dictionary form
Intransitive	bechese	Duplicate syllable, change second syllable onset  to ‘ch’	bëse	Double length vowel

Little bit of duplication, some fun phonetics... Here's the conjunct form, used to make relative and subordinate clauses

Bese	Animate		Inanimate
Transative	ebebese	Add an e- to the front of the normal form, change for vowel harmony	ebese	Add an e- to the front of the normal form, change for vowel harmony
Intransative	bëchesi	Lengthen the vowel in the first syllable of the normal form	ebëse	Add an e- to the front of the normal form change for vowel harmony

That's all for now, I'll cover the other forms soon, but first I should explain how subjects and objects are marked on verbs. That'll be tomorrow! 

Ok... I've not done this in a while- Nashtuku is in transition. I wasn't happy with what I had once I went back and looked at it, so I'm changing it. I'm going to try to update here a bit more often, and we'll start with updates about what I've done so far.

The first thing I've added.is a vowel harmony system. There are 5 vowels in Nashtuku, a, e, i, o, and u, both long and short variations.  There are two overlapping systems going on, there's a front/back harmony system, which involves i, e (front) and o, u (back). There is also a height harmony system involving only a (low) and e (high). a is transparent to the front harmony system, and i, o, and u are transparent to the height system. The controlling vowel is the first vowel in the word (noun or verb) Here's some examples:

bëri to talk

hada to understand, to know why, to understand the reason something happened

koti to go towards something

gumu to be in emotional pain

tsïlu to fall from the sky

I'll use some stripped down examples, using just an aspect marker 'e, which is the perfect marker

'ebëri nothing fun here...
'etsïlu this is the same, nothing fun, the 'e is front, and is not effected

'ahada  'e->'a for the height harmony

'ukoti 'e->'u for front harmony
'ugumu front harmony again

That's all for tonight, I've got a bunch more I've been working on, I'll try and update tomorrow...

The return of the gnomes

I woke up this morning, to the entire herd of gnomes standing on my bed. They were debating what the best way to wake me up was. Apparantly, the choices were either poking me with a sharp stick, bouncing on my head, or releasing some sort of beast to howl at me. I  was very glad to have woken up before the plot started, but they were talking in their strange language. 'erunutano walked up to me and said "Now we will start learning Nashtuku. Ready?" "I suppose," I said. "Excellent... now we'll start with a simple word, sali. It means 'to see'." He said several sentences

'ejasambali I see
'e'etijasambachali I see it

I asked what the difference between the words was. He broke them down a bit for me. "'e means the action has already finished. ja is the word for I. sali means see, but because the ja is next to it, it changes to sambali. In the second sentence, we add an 'eti, which means it. Sali becomes sachali because you've added an object. Sachali becomes sambachali because the ja is still the closest to the verb. Make sense?"

"I think so... so the closest prefix changes the shape of the verb stem, how does that work?"

"The verb changes based on the first vowel of the verb, as well as the last vowel in the closest prefix" 'erunutano grabbed a piece of paper and sketched out a quick chart...

prefix   \/     stem->	e	A	u
e	e->i	a->amba	u->abu
a	e->ishe	a->achi	u->igu
u	e->uke	a->aro	u->o
i	e->icha	a->ina	u->uje
o	e-uku	a->a’i	u->uka

"Study this, and I'll be back later to keep going!!!"

The gnomes appear...

I must have fallen asleep with the paper in my hands. When I woke up, there was a herd of gnomes crowded around my desk and computer. They were about 9 inches tall, and wearing a strange splatter of clothing-all mismatched and different colors. They were speaking a strange language I didn't recognize. When they saw I was watching them, some of them squeaked in panic. The largest one, with a shock of blue and orange hair on his head, and what looked like a mini potato sack as a shirt turned to me and said "Hello... my name is 'erunutano, the leader of these gnomes. That paper you have is in a language known as Nashtuku. We saw that you were confused, and wanted to help. We translated it as best as we could here..." He handed me a piece of paper This is what was on there...


telijicha'itsijandu 'aki'etithanaskarutsichali'osi
teli-jicha'itsi-jandu 'aki-'eti-thana-skaru-tsichali-'osi
in heart mine cont-it-water-weather-falls-like

dagakeli 'aki'etithanaskarutsichali'osi
da-gakeli 'aki-'eti-thana-skaru-tsichali'osi
on town cont it water weather falls like

keje'itsijandumeshu ontapenane'ina'u
ke- je'itsi- jandu meshu
nom heart my pain

'ontapenane'ina'u
'onta pena ne'ina 'u
it what ?-cop(inanimate) imp

Ka thanawesa!
Voc soft sound of rain

'erekokada'ogethachi'ina 'eguskoda'ogethachi'ina
'e-rekoka-da-'oge-thachi'ina 'e-gusko-da-'oge-thachi'ina
prog-earth-on-and-falls prog-roof-on-and-falls

ke'eji'itsi'ambachaskagume
ke 'e -ji'itsi- 'askagume+-ch-(intrans)+-amba-(mutation)= 'ambachaskagume
nom.prog heart howl in emotional pain

Ka thanawesa!

'aki'etibetsithanaskarutsechali
'aki-'eti-betsi-thana-skaru-tsechali
cont-it-neg .enrg-water-weather-fall

telike'eji'itsi'ambachaskagume
teli ke 'e -ji'itsi- 'askagume+-ch-(intrans)+-amba-(mutation)= 'ambachaskagume
in nom.prog heart howl in emotional pain

pena'e!? kebaki'eb'iwe 'ebesha'e?
pena-'e kebaki -'e- b- 'iwe 'e-behsa-'e?
what-this(i) treason-this-not-visible/apparant there not there

bamishabetsi'e
bamisha-betsi-'e
grief-not this

meshaska'e
mesha-ska-'e
pain aug- this

kesina'akijabechakishesha
kesina-'aki-ja-becha-kishesha
reason cont-i-not-know

wupegaskabecha'e'ont webegaskabecha'e'ont
wu-pegaska-becha-'e-'ont wu-begaska-becha-'e- 'ont
nom love not this and nom hate not this and

'i'untaje'itsijandu'achiskagume
'i-'unta-je'itsi-jandu-'achiskagume
it imperfect heart mine howl in pain

'erunutano told me that I should study this, because they were coming back to teach me more of this language "Once you know some of this, boy,  we have to teach you the rest" he said to me. So I guess I'm learning a language on sentence at a time...