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...