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| ==Verb== | | ==Verb== |
| As an Indo-European language, Verat has a fairly complicated verb system with an ablaut. Conjugational and inflectional patterns of the so-called tenses are grouped into three systems by aspect: Imperfective in the Present, Perfective in the Aorist, and Perfect in the Perfect.
| | Unusual among early IE languages, Verat is best classified as a Split-S language. Verbs are split into two categories by morphosyntactic behavior, the Active and Middle. All transitive verbs are Active, but not all intransitive verbs are Middle. Most, such as those where the experiencer has no control, such as ''gābo'' ‹to float› or ''mergă'' ‹to rot› are Middle and mark the experiencer in the absolutive case, but those where the experience has volition, statives such as ''dagī'' ‹to be silent›, or ''xarpo'' ‹to toil› are Active, and the experiencer here is marked in the nominative, rather than the absolutive. |
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| ===Ergativity===
| | As an Indo-European language, Verat has a fairly complicated verb system displaying an ablaut. Conjugational and inflectional patterns of the tenses are grouped into three systems by aspect: Imperfective in the Present, Perfective in the Aorist, and Perfect in the Perfect. |
| Verat, unlike its contemporaries in the Indo-European family, demonstrates a different variety of verb behavior. Like many languages of the Caucasus and possibly early Proto-Indo-European itself, Verat is an Active-Stative language. At the very least, this means that the theta-roles are marked so that the Agent was marked with its own case, while the Patient and Experiencer are marked with the same case.
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| ====Split-S====
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| Thus, the sole argument of an intransitive verb (with the theta-role Experiencer) is marked in the ''absolutive'' case: '''dām ésrēsado ''' ‹she.abs slept.› The agent of a transitive verb is marked with the ''nominative'' and the patient with ''absolutive'', as in '''sā mákom élovasad''' ‹she.nom washed the-child.abs.›
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| However, Verát is not strictly Ergative, but a Split-S Active language. This is because the case used to mark nouns is defined lexically, i.e. for many intransitive verbs, the experiencer is marked as an Agent, as with '''sāi kúbani ɕō ératin''' ‹they.nom rode to-Kuban.loc›, even though the verb is intransitive.
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| ====Active vs. Middle====
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| Verbs are lexically defined as active or middle. Middle verbs are effectively in the mediopassive voice, which comprises the meanings of both the Passive and Middle voices. An active verb, conjugated as though it were middle effectively forms the passive voice, as in '''gorjóns épensandro''' ‹the warriors were killed,› contrasted with '''vē gorjóns épensan''' ‹we killed the warriors.› Note that the personal inflection of the verb agrees with '''górjons''' (3.Pl) in the Passive sentence and with '''vē''' (1.Pl) in the active example. For this reason, we can see that Verat is still not syntactically Ergative.
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| The personal ending for verbs, and their inflection and ablaut patterns, differ between active and middle verbs, as we shall later see.
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| ===Morphology===
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| Maximally, a verb can have the structure Aug-Prev-'''Red-Root-Suffix'''-Mood-End, where the [Red-Root-Suffix] complex is called the Stem. The nature of the stem specifies which System, and therefore which Aspect, is in play. Voice is defined by the personal endings; there are three sets of Active endings, known as Present, Past, and Perfect. The Present endings appear only in the Present Tense, while the Past endings appear in the Imperfect and Aorist Tenses, and the Perfect endings appear in the Perfect and Pluperfect.
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| ====Augment====
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| The augment, very simply, is the prefix '''é-''' on a verb stem, indicating that the verb has the Past-time. Historically, the augment is derived from PIE ''*h₁é-''.
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| ====Reduplication====
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| This phenomenon repeats the first consonant or consonants of a root: C(é)RC- > Cé-C(e)RC. Were the accent to shift away from the reduplicated vowel, it would become '''-i-''': Cé-CoRC- > jé-Ci-CoRC, as we might see in the Perfect and Pluperfect tenses.
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| Because of Grassmann's Law, reduplication occurs as *Cʰé(R)Cʰ > Cé(R)Cʰ, which has the consequence of the reflex of ''*gʰóur-o'' > ''*gé-gʰour-o'' becoming '''kōr-o-''' > '''ɣé-kōr-o''' «to fear». Therefore, we see, in reduplicant morphemes the following occur: '''k''' > '''ɣ''', '''t''' > '''ð''', '''p''' > '''v''', and in some cases '''ɕ''' > '''j'''. This final change occurs only 'in some cases' becuse '''ɕ''' is the reflex of both ''*ḱ'' and ''*ǵʰ'', of which only the latter will change because of Grassmann's Law.
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| ====Preverb====
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| Verbs can take a directional preverb, which is prefixed onto the stem, such that it will lie between any augment and any full stem. These preverbs are the identical with many adverbs, such as '''ɕō''' ‹towards›, '''en''' ‹in›, '''bel''' ‹beyond›, and '''ubo''' ‹from under›.
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| ===Present System===
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| Verbs in the Present System are characterized by the Imperfective aspect, representing actions which are ongoing. There are five possible non-productive stem formations:
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| =====Stem Formation=====
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| '''Root Stems'''
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| These are, of course, bare roots with no suffix, and make up the vast majority of verbs. These can either be Thematic, such as '''veme-''' ‹to vomit›, or Athematic, like '''jes-''' ‹to be›.
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| '''Reduplicated Stems'''
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| These stems utilize the reduplication of the first consonant(s) of a root. These are rare and athematic, as only the front of the stem is altered; no suffix is present to thematize the stem. For examples of this we have '''si-se-''' < se ‹to sow›, and '''jé-ɕev-''' < ɕev ‹to pour›. The latter of these is one of the so-called irregular ɕ-reduplications.
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| '''Suffix -(e)i-'''
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| These stems are generally athematic, and exist as both primary and secondary derivations. Among the primary verbs, we see '''mun-ei'''‹to think› and '''speɕ-je''' ‹to see›, the latter of which is actually thematic.
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| '''Suffix -(e)s-'''
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| This is an athematic suffix found in a number of stems, such as: '''ɕlōs'''- ‹be obedient›, '''ajes-''' ‹to carry›, and '''aveks-''' ‹to grow›.
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| '''Nasal Stems'''
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| There are a number of present stems which actually have an infixed '''-n-''' before the final consonant. In ablaut, the full-grade vowel is actually shifted from the center of the root to after the infix. For example, we see: '''lineb-''' < '''lēb-''' ‹to let, allow›, '''gunes-''' < gus- ‹to kiss›, ðunā < ðuma ‹to subdue› (ðuma is clearly irregular, due to assimilation: *dṃh₂- > *dṃ-n-eh₂ > *dum-nā > '''ðunā''').
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| ====Present Tense====
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| The Verat Present Tense is roughly equivalent to the English Present Progressive, which is to say, it tells of something which is in progress at the time of the utterance.
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| ====Imperfect Tense====
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| The Imperfect Tense is roughly equivalent to the Imperfect of Spanish, describing an event which was ongoing at some time in the past.
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| ===Aorist System===
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| This system is characterized by the Perfective aspect, referring to a single, complete event.
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| ====Stem Formation====
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| ====Aorist Tense====
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| ===Perfect System===
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| This system is characterized by the Perfect aspect, referring to an event which is complete and relevant.
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| ====Stem Formation====
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| ====Perfect Tense====
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| ====Pluperfect Tense====
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History
Commonly known as Verat, this was the language spoken by the southern Khelivega tribes, those who's clans entered union at Terek, in particular. Old Verat is the langauge spoken by Undun and his compatriots, as opposed to the slightly younger and only slightly changed Terek Verat. These can be considered dialects of the same language, only differing slightly. Genetically, Verat is an old Indo-European language, an early branching-off, indicated by some archaic and otherwise unusual features. It shares many traits with the Indo-Iranian languages in particular, but is very clearly not a member of that family.
Old Verat was spoken in the south and east, especially at Terek, presumably as far north as Kuban. So-called Terek Verat, on the other hand, became the lingua-franca of most of the cis-Caucasian territory, incorporating a large number of loans from its North-Caucasian counterparts.
Orthography and Phonology
The Phonology of Verat is somewhat simpler than that of Proto-Indo-European. It shows 15 phonemic consonants and 5 vowels with phonemic length contrasts. Traditionally, the consonants are divided into three main series.
Consonants
Vowels
For vowels, we have a rather typical five-vowel system. The short vowels are somewhat more lax than the long vowels, and the language shows a distinctively lowered /uː/. Long vowels are denoted in the standard orthography by a macron; accented short vowels have a high or rising tone, denoted by the acute accent á, while accented long vowels have a rising-falling tone, denoted by the circumflex â. Some orthographies use the an acute-with-macron ā́, as is done in Sanskrit; this is avoided due to the lack of standard Unicode support for these characters, and poor integration of Opentype into most software.
Short Vowels
| i [ɪ̝] |
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u [ʊ]
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e [ɛ̝] |
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o [ɔ]
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a [ɐ] |
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Long Vowels
| ī [iː] |
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ū [u̞ː]
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ē [eː] |
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ō [oː]
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ā [aː] |
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Noun
There are eight noun cases: Nominative, Absolutive, Genetive, Dative, Instrumental, Ablative, Locative, and Vocative. This is alongside two noun classes: Animate and Neuter, and three numbers: Singular, Dual, Plural.
There are sixteen declensions, in total, split among three inflectional patters.
Class
Text
Number
Text
Case
Text
Verb
Unusual among early IE languages, Verat is best classified as a Split-S language. Verbs are split into two categories by morphosyntactic behavior, the Active and Middle. All transitive verbs are Active, but not all intransitive verbs are Middle. Most, such as those where the experiencer has no control, such as gābo ‹to float› or mergă ‹to rot› are Middle and mark the experiencer in the absolutive case, but those where the experience has volition, statives such as dagī ‹to be silent›, or xarpo ‹to toil› are Active, and the experiencer here is marked in the nominative, rather than the absolutive.
As an Indo-European language, Verat has a fairly complicated verb system displaying an ablaut. Conjugational and inflectional patterns of the tenses are grouped into three systems by aspect: Imperfective in the Present, Perfective in the Aorist, and Perfect in the Perfect.
