Thursday, January 3, 2013

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.


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






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