VERBS of ABCL

BASIC/ROOT VERBS

Verbs consist basically of three letters as CVC. They are also classified in schemes similar to the nouns. Fifteen “main headings” (with the first denoting letter of the group following) are “PHYSICAL ACTS -K**”, “AKTIVE ACTIONS –Y, R and G**”, “PEOPLE – S and Ş**”, “SOCIAL RELATION –F and P**”, “MENTAL ACTIVITIES –B and M**”, “HOUSEHOLD, … DAILY LIFE -D**”, “PASTTIME, SPOR, HEALTH -T**”, “UTTARANCE, NONPERSON ACTS-Ç**”, “BUSINESS, PUBLIC -H**”, “TECHNIC / SCIENCE / NATURE-V**”. In PHYSICAL ACTS, “K**” is initial consonant for the heading, ** indicates varying 8 vowels (“a” to “ü”) in the second place and alternating 20 consonants in the third place. This way 4600 verbs can be created theoretically, but for the same reason as for the nouns, only half of them will be taken in to the consideration.

For the Level 1, ABCL has about one thousand six hundreds of them, which seems to be adequate. The main heading could be subdivided in subheading such as KA* for a certain type of “physical acting” and KE* for another where appropriate (not in this example).

As example, some verbs in the category “K-physical acting” are shown below:

kaf

set up

kef

set down

kıf

kif

fasten

kah

dig

keh

fill

kıh

kih

excavate

kak

walk

kek

preserve

kık

kik

fit

kal

open

kel

close

kıl

kil

shut down

kam

pull

kem

push

kım

kim

twist

kan

take

ken

give

kın

take away

kin

bring

kap

throw/fling

kep

dart

kıp

kip

kick

kar

hit

ker

crush/bump

kır

bust

kir

catch

kas

cut

kes

separate

kıs

kis

divide

Verbs will be flexed for the first level beside tenses also for ergative, causative, imperative, passive, subjunctive and negative. Suffixes for further tenses and moods have been defined also for Level 2 such as inferential, optative, subjunctive conditional etc. additionally. Those moods of the second level can be replaced in the first level by the prepositions as in English.

Verbs are transitive, intransitive and also both even though identical in writing (and speaking as in English). A transitive verb in one language may be intransitive in another language. Because English includes many such verbs, for the translation from English to ABCL, ABCL needed two different verbs for each type of the meaning in order to overcome the ambiguity.

Thus, the ergative mood has been introduced with the suffix “_t” after the intransitive verb to make it “transitive”. Accordingly, a verb defined in ABCL lexicon is intrinsically intransitive, if it is not clearly transitive by its own inherent sense. Therefore the lexicon does not contain transitive verbs which can be flexed with the suffix “_t” from the intransitive verb except those used very frequently. With other words, if one search the lexicon for the ABCL translation of an English verb, the counterpart verb will be the one with the intransitive meaning.

This is however not a big issue, because a verb in a clause accompanied by an object will be understood as transitive in any way.

DERIVED VERBS

Verbs will be derived from nouns and adjectives by adding suffixes according to a fixed scheme. They will typically end also on a consonant as the root verbs.

For the derivation of verbs from the nouns the suffixes “_k” (for transitive) and “_l” (for intransitive) will be added (thus we will have a four and five (for negation with _x) letter verb. For the adjectives also the suffix “_l” is chosen (these type of verbs are always intransitive). The number of letters may be increased up to seven letters.

Derived Verbs from Nouns (Denominal Verbs)- (first noun of the rows translated only)

ABCL Suffix		ABCL verb	English Suffix	English verb (examples)
(noun)_k		çanko.k, dengo.k	_, _en, _ize	fire, salt, frighten(vt), vocalize(vt), terrorize, idolise
(noun)_k		pesçi.k	_ate	liberate, hyphenate, concentrate, oscillate
(noun)_l		vesne.l/posbo.l	_en, get …	sun/sunbathe, get angry, lighten, get old, prink up
(noun)_l		vönni.l	_ize/ise	vaporize, get icy, materialize(vi),
(noun)_lx		tanrı.lx	get …	get no fever

Derived Verbs from Adjectives

ABCL Suffix		ABCL verb	English verb (examples)
_l, _lx		efi.l- efil.x	be new-become old
_l, _lx		ene.l- enel.x	greaten/biggen-become small/diminish
_l, _lx		emi.l- emi.lx	shine-become dull/tarnish/dim
_l, _lx		egi.l- egix.l	be fresh/freshen-be stale (wither)
_l, _lx		ebi.l- ebix.l	become beautiful-be ugly

The negation suffix “x” is normally placed at the end of the word which it negates. If “x” follows or followed by a consonant, a short sounded “ı or i” introduced in between (in accordance with the vowel harmony) in speaking, but not in writing.

Verbal Forms in ABCL

Many verbs in English are ambitransitive (transitive and intransitive, depending on the context) such as burn, sink, read, break etc. where the separation is provided either by their context (receiving an object) or by the special prepositions/particles. ABCL tries to minimize and to simplify this duality. The verbs defined in lexicon are either inherently intransitive (among others linking verbs like appear, be, become, feel, get, grow, keep, look, seem, sound, smell, stay, turn etc.) i.e. they cannot take object or inherently transitive, i.e. they take object. Equivalent of any ambitransitive English verb is defined in ABCL always as transitive too (e.g. the verb “sink=yus” is in ABCL transitive only even though in English it may have the meanings such as: the boat sank (intransitive) and the storm has sunk the bot (transitive)). Intransitive includes also reflexive and reciprocal. Because there are too many transitive verbs which can be transformed by reflexion in to (semi-)intransitive verbs, ABCL introduced the suffix “_t” for this purpose. Similar approach has been chosen also for the reciprocal verbs with the suffix “_k”. With this approach the problem of the ambitransitive verbs would be overcome in ABCL. Other way around to make out of an intransitive verb a transitive one (ergative) ABCL defined the suffix “_t”. English uses also different word or auxiliary to make out of an inherently intransitive verb a transitive verb (like “die-kill”, “sleep- get/make… sleep”) or opposite. Contrary to ABCL, it creates from transitive verb intransitive reflexive verbs by using reflexive pronouns (protect-protect oneself). Other suffixes for further verbal forms are listed in the table under the title: Modal Verbs, Inflexions and Modus in ABCL further below.