User:Elector Dark/Mestian/2

Verbs
All native Mestian verbs are derived from abstract, lexically theoretical roots, whereas loaned verbs are generally reanalysed as native stems. All Mestian verbs have a root from which they are derived, and a stem — the derived extension of the verb's root that takes inflectional affixes.

In Mestian terms, roots are the smallest carriers of semantic information in the language; they are theoretical and only roughly inferrable from properly formed verbs. Since roots cannot be directly inflected, they take on stem-forming affixes, generally derivational in nature, and form inflectable stems. These stems then further take on inflectional affixes, which then form fully conjugated verbs. Only properly inflected stems are considered properly grammatical and may be used in clauses. For the sake of coherence, all such situations where the stem looks identical to the root are treated as derivation through the means of a zero suffix.

Mestian verbs show the categories of aspect, tense, evidentiality and modality, as well as the person, gender and number of their arguments, and they are reflected through a combination of inflectional and derivational means. A clear gradient in feature expression can be seen:


 * Derivational: root-internal (radical) aspect, lexical (derived) aspect
 * Mixed derivational-inflectional: radical and derived tense, combined tense-aspect inflection
 * Mostly inflectional: inflected tense, argument number, aspect
 * Exclusively inflectional: argument person, gender, mood, evidentiality

Tense and aspect are frequently coordinated in the Mestian verb system, where certain affixes (primarily derivational ones) mark for both tense and aspect simultaneously, and even sometimes redundantly. Furthermore, the person, gender and number of the verb's arguments are also generally marked using the same affix that is poorly separatable.

The primary temporal categories distinguished by Mestian verbs are the present and generic (also called the timeless), and several further categories may be indicated, such as the past, future, historic and narrative (or, rather, renarrative) tenses. While some verbal formations may in fact merge the past and future into a common non-present tense, as well as lack the historic and narrative categories, they always have a way of expressing the basic distinction between the present and generic, even if through suppletion.

In short, the tense of the Mestian verb may be summed up as:


 * Present
 * Generic
 * non-future
 * Preterite
 * Past
 * Historic
 * Narrative
 * Future
 * Simplex
 * Imminent

The main aspectual divide in Mestian, expressed most frequently through lexical (or mixed lexical-morphological) means, is the distinction between dynamic (or active) and stative verbs. Furthermore, Mestian verbs exhibit a secondary aspectual axis: it additionally classifies inflected aspects according to telicity.

Some of the aspects further encoded by the Mestian verb system are:


 * Inchoative
 * Momentane
 * Delimitative
 * Terminative
 * Iterative
 * Defective
 * Progressive
 * Frequentative

Mestian verbs do not inflect for voice: all transitivity modifications are expressed periphrastically or through particular person inflection patterns, and, as such, aren't treated as part of verb morphology.

Mood in Mestian verbs is exclusively inflectional and among the categories expressed are:


 * Realis
 * Indicative
 * Gnomic
 * Irrealis
 * Volitive
 * Potential
 * Subjunctive
 * Interrogative*
 * Deontic
 * Imperative
 * Hortative
 * Permissive
 * Prohibitive

Mestian inflectional modality is closely related to polarity: negation in Mestian verbs is shown almost exclusively through negation of modal suffixes. Thus, modality and polarity are fusionally merged into a single morpheme. Of the modal suffixes, only the interrogative may stack with other modals (though it cannot stack with itself, and with the imperative and hortative).

Stem Formation
Mestian verb stem formation is a complex issue, as many roots give several viable stems that can be synonymous, slightly nuanced or even sometimes wholly different in meaning. As the barest Mestian stem shows the category of tense, the core formations are the present stem and generic stem, and some verbs have otherwise uncommon stems that indicate specific temporal categories not part of the two. As temporal stems may be derived from other stems, as well as from roots, the stem from which another stem is derived is the verb's radical stem. Less frequently used are the concepts of aspect stem, which is the verb's radical stem with an aspectual suffix, and demodal stem, which is the total inflected verb to which modal suffixes are attached.

In describing stem formations, several terms come up a number of times:


 * Primary — said of formations that do not involve root vowel ablaut
 * Secondary — said of formations that use ablaut as a productive mechanism
 * Suffixation — said either of a tense or a suffix, indicating that its stem is formed through adding a suffix to the radical stem
 * Prefixation — said either of a tense or a suffix, indicating that its stem is formed through adding a prefix to the radical stem
 * Circumfixation — said either of a tense or a suffix, indicating that its stem is formed through adding both a suffix and a prefix to the radical stem
 * Infixation — said either of a tense or a suffix, indicating that its stem is formed through adding an infix into the radical stem
 * Extension — said either of a tense or a suffix, extensions are temporal affixes added after the aspepct-encoding morphemes, but before all other modal, personal and pragmatic suffixes
 * Augmentation — said usually of a tense, denoting a suffix added either onto a suffixation or an extension, denoting temporal information and usually used to make non-core formations
 * Stem Formation — a specific temporal formation that indicates tense through a bare radical stem
 * Denominal — said of stems, indicating that a radical stem has been backformed through stripping a noun of its suffixes
 * Kinetic — said of formations, indicating that specific affix combinations motivate accent relocation
 * Static — said of formations, indicating that specific affix combinations motivate accent retention

Only native and native-looking verbs can have secondary formations.

Present Stem Formation
There are five overarching types of present stems, grouped by formation mechanism:


 * 1) Morphosemantic presents
 * 2) Doubly-kinetic presents
 * 3) Doubly-static presents
 * 4) Circumfixed presents
 * 5) Irregular presents

The first category, of morphosemantic presents, is made up of verbs whose roots are inherently predisposed to forming present-tense stems (i.e. those that form the simplest present tense stems) and are grouped into four categories:


 * 1A) Infixations
 * 1B) Primary formations
 * 1C) Secondary formations
 * 1D) Extensions

Morphosemantic infixations (being class 1a) are the simplest category of morphosemantic present, and generally many simple verbs tend to prefer this method of forming the present stem. All such verbs infix a single nasal segment into a consonantally simple root. Simple infixations feature no further alteration of the root, while complex infixations also alter the consonantal makeup of that root. Examples:

The primary and secondary formations are completely parallel one to another: there are three symmetric primary and secondary formations, that transform the verb identically, save for secondary ablaut not being applied to the primary formation. The three formation types, referred to using the established verb categorisation scheme, are:


 * 1bp & 1bs types: -ešte- augmentations
 * 1cp & 1cs types: -ŋ- stems
 * 1dp & 1ds types: -ŋ- augmentations

A table of examples of primary and secondary morphosemantic presents:

It is not uncommon for primary stem formations to give secondary augmentations. The pragmatics of these alternatives are variable, but these secondary formations tend to be perceived as more formal, legalistic or bureaucratic. The primary formation is the one most frequently employed in colloquial Mestian. The verbs -kíla:ŋ-, -kálal:ešte- and -kálali:ŋ- derive from the same verb root ‹-KÍLA-› meaning "sitting, seating; sit". These morphosemantic augmentations technically function like generic extensions (as they are augmented onto a null morpheme, as in ‹-kála-li-Ø-ŋ-›) but are treated independently. The aspect and augmentation may be separated by a single person-number agreement affix, which differentiates them from extensions.

Morphosemantic extensions are much alike augmentations, except the extension itself is assumed to be present suffix. The extensions come immediately after the aspectual suffix, and nothing may come between the two. The two morphosemantic extensions are both primary, and have devoiced allomorphs for roots with a dipping accent or glottal consonant. Verbs typically allow formations with either extension interchangeably. More irregular and semantically bleached verbs may prefer one of the suffixes, or always take just one.

The two formations are:


 * 1e — -l/lh- primary extensions
 * 1f — -r/rh- primary extensions

An example, from the root ‹-ĨJ-› meaning "achieve, accomplish; achievement":

Both formations, -ĩjli:lh- and -ĩjli:rh-, are synonymous and generally itnterchangeable. This formation is most frequent with verbs with a dipping accent (showing an underlying lost |*ẖ|). There seems to be no change in preference based on choice of aspectual morpheme, though verbs tend to avoid chaining rhotics or laterals together in sequence, and even verbs with a preference for one suffix will, for dissimilation, choose the other.

Several old verbs, as well as newer innovations, also feature an additional extension class for morphosemantic presents. This class is somewhat limited, and tends to occur most frequently with verbs of motion. This extension can be both primary and secondary:


 * 1gp — -w- ~ -j- alternating extensions
 * 1gs — -u- ~ -i- ablauting extensions

An example, from the root ‹-PSÁR-› meaning "engage in wordplay; compose poetry; poetry, wordplay, clever use of words":

Both the formation -psálli:w- and the formation -psíll:u- have free alternants in -psálli:j- and -psíll:i- respectively, though the choice of alternant depends on ambiguity, phonaesthetics and personal speaker choice. Unlike with formations 1e and 1f, the choice of alternant isn't conditioned by verb. As with all other morphosemantic formations, the choice between primary and secondary is occasionally that of pragmatics and sociolinguistic pressure.

The second category, of doubly-kinetic presents, is made up of verb roots without present tense tendencies, who all have accent protraction (i.e. project their accent onto following segments), and are grouped into two categories:


 * 2A) Infixations
 * 2B) Augmentations

The class of doubly kinetic infixations includes one regular infixation class (class 2an), and two irregular and obsolescent relict classes (class 2ak† and class 2as†). Class 2an presents are regular, doubly kinetic presents that prefix a nasal — typically ‹n-›, but may vary due to place-of-articulation assimilation — onto the root, and infix another nasal into the root itself (much like 1a verbs). Class 2ak presents are a rare alternant category of 2an presents, where the prefixed element is a velar obstruent that matches the root's onset in voicing; many of these 2ak presents have been reanalysed as 1a presents (such as the verb -ghnyr-+, which has its origin in a class 2ak formation). Class 2as presents are a fixed, closed category of fientive (verbalised adjective) verbs that prefix a sibilant, most typically ‹s-›, onto the root. The complexity of the infixation (i.e. whether there is an alternation of the root) is seldom considered, as the primary carrier of the sense of 'presentness' is in the prefix, and not the obligatory infixation. Examples: