Pabappa verbs

Pabappa verb conjugation is much like a radically simplified version of that of Poswa. Only tense is marked on the verb, and there are only 3 tenses, since aspect is not marked either. Neither agent nor patient person markers are present on the verb, and there is no distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs, or between active and passive verbs.

There are separate conjugation classes in Pabappa, but these differ only in which consonant the ending begins with, not in any vowels.

Tense

The basic Pabappa suffixes are -pi, -pa, and -pu for the past, present, and imperative respectively. They appear as if they are related to Poswa's monosyllabic intransitive suffixes (-bel, -ba, -bob), perhaps through analogy with the respective subjunctive forms, but are in fact heavily analogized descendants of the disyllabic transitive suffixes. Early on, the "extra" vowel remained, but a later sound change pushed the last vowel of the stem into the suffix. Later, these were analogized in such a way that it appeared the initial vowel had never existed.

However, the consonant stems take forms that are indeed originally from the intransitives, since the above vowel shift did not take place in consonant stems.

Past tense

The past tense refers to action occurring in the past, without regard to whether the action was completed or simply ongoing at the time. The past tense is marked by the suffix -pi on the verb; the consonant in this suffix may change depending on the shape of the verb stem, but the final vowel is always -i. Thus, all verbs ending in -i are past tense verbs.

Upur patiblip mimpibi.

The boy talked to his teacher.

Because aspect is not incorporated into the tense marker, sentences using the past tense can be translated into English in more than one way:

Pom pesapupidip puptumubi.

I reviewed your book.

I have reviewed your book.

I was reviewing your book.

A past tense verb can also indicate a habitual meaning:

Pom puparabap pibumpi.

I ate a salamander. (It was delicious!)

I have eaten a salamander. (It's been a while though.)

I was eating a salamander. (Why did you interrupt me in the middle of my meal?)

I used to eat salamanders. (For years! But then I started getting warts all over my belly.)

The habitual sense generally implies a plural object, as it does not generally take a man several years to eat just one salamander.

Although, in the proper context, the sentence above is correct, Pabaps generally use additional words to clarify the aspect of the verb when it would be otherwise unclear. See below under #Aspect for detailed information on how these meanings are distinguished from each other.

Present tense

The present tense refers to actions taking place as the speaker and listener are communicating; that is, in the present. It takes the form -pa, with the consonant changing when placed with certain verb stems. The vowel always remains -a, however, so all verbs ending in -a are in the present tense. In other words, the present tense is the same as the past tense except that it ends in -a rather than the past tense's -i.

Pabappa does not distinguish between a simple present tense and a habitual present tense. Thus the same sentence may be translated in more than one way. As with the past tense, habitual meanings generally imply plural objects, even if no plural marker is used:

Putar puppabup surabuba.

The man is selling a car. (Right now.)

The man sells cars. (For a living.)

Imperatives and the future tense

Where one might expect to see a future tense, Pabappa instead has an imperative. This is used for commands and strong wishes. For example, one might say

Blidip mamabu!

Drink your milk!

Assertive mood

A verbal mood corresponding closely to the future tense in many languages is in Pabappa known as the assertive mood. It refers to future situations which the speaker is certain will happen, regardless of the beliefs or intents of the subject of the sentence. It is introduced by the particle nubes.

Nubes, mas bluridap mamabu.

You will drink your milk.

Note that the word nubes does not properly correspond to the English auxiliary "will" but rather to a null morpheme indicating the speaker's confidence that the statement is true.

Aspect

Pabappa uses both suffixes and standalone words to mark aspect.

The suffixes are placed after the stem of the verb and before the tense markers. Some of them are descended from infixes, and are cognate to infixes in Poswa. In Pabappa they became suffixes because sound changes split each one into three depending on the final vowel of the stem, and then these were mostly merged into one form for each aspect marker.

Other aspect suffixes are descended from morphemes that were originally independent words, and some of these can still be used as such.

Verbal aspect expressed with infixes and suffixes

Iterative aspect

The iterative aspect denotes a repeated action, often involving physical motion.

Resumptive aspect

The resumptive aspect is used to show that someone is resuming an activity. It can be expressed with either a serial verb construction or a suffix on the main verb.

In the serial verb setup, the morpheme involved is blim, which is generally used as an intransitive and conjugates with the same tense as the verb it modifies:

Pom blimpi pasesi.

I began to bathe myself again.

When marking the resumptive aspect by using a suffix on the main verb, the same morpheme is used, and may cause sound changes depending on the verb it follows. For example, the sentence above could be rewritten:

Pom paseplimpi.

I began to bathe myself again.

Where the combination of -p + bl- contracts into -pl-.

Verbal aspect expressed with serial verbs

For other aspects, Pabappa uses only serial verbs. These are similar to some English expressions like "keep running", but unlike English, Pabappa conjugates both verbs. A partial list of these aspects, conjugated in the present tense, is below.

Continuative aspect

The verb babo- is used to mean "keep, maintain, remain; to be still doing something":

Pom baboba publipisa.

I'm still lathering myself up.

Inchoative aspect

The inchoative aspect denotes someone beginning an action, whether for the first time or as a resumption of previous activity (but see #Resumptive_aspect above). The word to use here is sublam, a serial verb expressed as follows:

Pom sublampi publipisi.

I started scrubbing myself.

When a resumptive sense is intended, some speakers will double up the verb marking by using sublam before the verb and the infix -plim- within it, producing sentences such as

Blalola sublampi watsaplimpi.

The girl started to dry herself off.

Cessative aspect

The cessative aspect denotes someone stopping an action, whether gradually or immediately. It is expressed with the serial verb blep-. Generally, this implies a telic verb. In the present tense, it often corresponds to English sentences such as "I just stopped..." because English speakers do not generally say "I'm stopping now!" and the like unless they are responding to a command:

Pom publipip blesa bubarnuba.

I just stopped rubbing the soap between my hands.

Use of the cessative imperative

The cessative is commonly used in the imperative tense.

Waba, mas publipibap blesu pumpubu!

Please stop grabbing my soap!

Frequentative aspect

The frequentative aspect is often used to specify careers and habits without using a noun such as "nurse", "caretaker", and so on. It often corresponds to the English simple present, as opposed to the present progressive. It can also be called a habitual construction, as it replaces the habitual tense, long since obsolete, of the parent language Babakiam. It is expressed with a serial verb construction fronted by pusom:

Pom wares pusompa pibibibap pasesa, pi pum wampopibap.

I wash my body before my hair.

Note that there is no italicized word in the English sentence because this construction corresponds to an English null morpheme.

When used in the past tense, it implies that there has been a change in habits, even without the use of an additional particle such as the cessative blep-:

Pom pusompi pasesi postibas parpisi, pibinamibas mospubi.

I used to scrub myself from my bottom to my top.

The copula verb pip

Unlike Poswa, Pabappa has a copula verb, pip. It is historically the same word as Poswa's pys- "to find".

Pom porpulidi pisa.

I am your friend.

Pip is conjugated like a regular -p verb, meaning its basic indicative forms are pisi, pisa, and pisu, with the subjunctives being pisep, pisap, and pisop.

pip	Past	Present	Imperative
(Indicative)	pisi	pisa	pisu
(Subjunctive)	pisep	pisap	pisop

Uses of the copula

Pip can be used for both short-term states and long-term identities and statements of equivalence. For example, at mealtime one might say

Sometiba lurpi pisi.

My plate was full.

Pur, papubes risama pisa.

But now it is empty.

Pansa, blubelmimiba plummupam pisa.

Because my vegetable salad is in the trash.

Pom bapamas baboba pisa.

I am still hungry.

Use as a conjunction

See Pabappa particles and minor parts of speech.

Pip is also the source of a conjunction, pipes, with a meaning similar to English "if". This pairs with the subjunctive form of the verb, and its dependent clause is introduced by the etymologically unrelated rhyming word nipes:

Pipes pom pepusop, nipes pepuposu.

If I sleep, (I) will dream.

This construction brings to mind the similar pubes ... nubes construction which means "when ... then" rather than "if ... then". See #pubes.

Person marking

Infinitive

Pabappa does not have an infinitive verb form such as English "to work" and Spanish trabajar. Instead, functions that are in other languages given to infinitives are in Pabappa taken up by serial verbs and by nouns.

Serial verbs

Generally, the tense marker will match between the two members of a serial verb construction. For example, one can say

Pom panampi parpabompibap blabusi.

I enjoyed cleaning my apartment.

Papubes, pom topuba pepusa.

Now, I want to sleep.

Archaic use of possessives to mark person on verbs

In archaic Pabappa, the possessive person markers -ba and -di were sometimes used to mark 1st and 2nd person verbs. This was for emphatic use only, since they were derived from the same words as the pronouns themselves, but they remained in certain verbs in which the personal pronoun was commonly omitted, and some of these have survived to the modern day:

Examples of modern Pabappa verbs with archaic person marking

Most verbs that have person markers are interjections, such as

Pepebadi!

You're right!

Pipubaba!

I'm back!

Pabaps living in the northern reaches of their empire may be commonly heard to say

Wibusaba.

I'm sorry.

However, productive use of this affix declined when Pabappa developed the compound personal pronouns, which marked both the subject and the object in a single word, and were usually more efficient.

Pabappa once marked number on its verbs, a feature which Poswa lacked. These affixes corresponded to the personal pronouns such as pap "we" and so on. However, this, too, has, since, faded.

Negative verbs

Verbal negation is accomplished in several ways.

The affix -pida

Most verbs can be negated by adding the affix -pida, which also functions as a standalone noun meaning "decoy" and as a verb meaning "fake; to be false".

Poma paplompi.

I whistled at you.

Poma paplompidabi.

I didn't whistle at you.

Like other affixes beginning with -p-, it changes to beginning with -b- after a verb ending in a vowel:

Poma pipsibi.

I spied on you.

Poma pipsibidabi.

I didn't spy on you.

Verbs ending with the reflexive coda -p (which becomes -s-) take the negative affix as an infix instead, splitting the -p off from the rest of the verb. Thus, for example, the negative of pepup- "to sleep" is not *pepupida or *pepusida but pepubidap. Thus one could say

Pom pepubidasa.

I'm not sleeping.

However, verbs that end in -p but are not reflexive (which means that they can take objects) conjugate without breaking in two:

Putar ponapap posapidabi.

The man didn't hug the peach tree.

Auxiliary negative verbs

In many cases, a Pabappa speaker will want to emphasize before the verb is spoken that the meaning of the sentence is negative instead of using an infix in the middle. After all, Pabappa sentences often place the verb at the end of the sentence, and some sentences can be quite long. Generally, the auxiliary verb will be placed after the personal pronouns and before the verb. The different auxiliaries have different shades of meaning:

Poma pubi pipsibi.

No, I didn't spy on you.

Poma pabubi pipsibi.

I didn't spy on you. (It was someone else!)

Poma pubebi pipsibi.

I didn't spy on you. (I did something worse!)

Poma puppibi pipsibi.

I avoided spying on you.

Also, since they are grammatically considered intransitive verbs, the auxiliaries change to accomodate different tense markers:

Poma puba pipsiba.

I'm not spying on you.

Double negatives

It is possible, for emphasis, to use both the infix -pida- and a fronted auxiliary, but it is not nearly as common as it is in Poswa. People who overuse double negatives are often assumed to be Poswobs who haven't learned fully the differences between the two languages.

Pida as a standalone verb

The infix -pida- used above can function as a standalone verb, and is considered to be a suppletive negative form of the verb pu "to do", because it replaces the stem of that verb instead of attaching to it:

Pom pidabi!

I didn't do it!

Puba as a standalone verb

Likewise, puba can also function as a standalone verb, and is considered to be a suppletive negative form of the copula verb pip:

Pom pinididi puba.

I am not your girlfriend.

Verbs with suppletive negatives

A small number of verbs have suppletive negative forms. Their use is optional. For example, one can say

Pom idiba.

I don't know.

Or build the same meaning in pieces using a construction such as

Pom mibebidaba.

I don't know.

Or use a serial verb setup such as

Pom puba mibeba.

I don't know.

Using a serial verb with an already negative verb adds emphasis, as in

Pom puba idiba.

No, I really don't know.

Although still grammatical, it is less common to see a serial verb used with a traditional, suffix-based negative formation, such as

Pom puba mibebidaba.

No, I really don't know.

Causative verbs

Pabappa has an instrumental case which often describes the action of using an object to accomplish a goal. In a few words, there exists a "hard causative" formation which is not a true noun case, but is built from a historical compounding of the accusative ending on top of a word inflected with the instrumental case. These words generally end in -up, which is the reflex of the historical form -w[V]p, where [V] can represent any vowel.

However, this setup only produces nouns, not verbs. Although these nouns can be used as verbs, they have specific, narrowly defined meanings rather than the dynamic meanings that verbs need to have. For example, pipup, a type of knife, is historically the causative form of a now-obsolete verb meaning "to cut", but one cannot say

Pom taspip pipusi.

I cut the apple.

If they cut it using an apple corer. Rather, pipup has long been an independent word with a specific meaning referring to only that one type of knife. Instead, Pabappa uses several different auxiliary verbs ("helper verbs") in serial constructions to indicate causation, as well as a few optional verb suffixes derived from previously existing infixes.

Causatives indicating permission and allowance

Imagine a boy (pobur) and a bowl of candy (pobap). The boy's mother will not let him eat any of the candy, but when she goes out for the evening and leaves her son in the care of a babysitter (wampada), the babysitter decides to let the boy have all the candy he wants. Thus, the babysitter caused the boy to eat the candy, but did not force him to. The commonest serial verb setup here involves the use of the auxiliary verb pop before the primary verb. Note that the agent of the verb in this sentence is the boy, not the babysitter.

The order of the arguments in the sentence seems unusual to learners of Pabappa because it seems that the boy is doing the causation rather than the babysitter. It could perhaps, thus, be imagined that the verb pop means "to do under permission" and that the first noun mentioned in the sentence, the babysitter, is inflected with a possessive ending standing in for the now-lost "becausative" case of the parent language. The most narrow translation of sentences like this into English would use a passive verb, such as:

Wampadis, pobur pobapap posi pobumpi.

By his babysitter, the boy was allowed to eat the candy. (And he did so.)

Note that wampada "babysitter" is inflected with the 3rd person possessive morpheme -i indicating that the girl is the boy's babysitter, but that on top of this inflection is added the genitive morpheme -s indicating that the boy is acting under her permission.

Because of the way the word wampadis is set off from the rest of the sentence, there is no change of meaning to the sentence if it is omitted entirely other than that the agent of the enabling of the boy is not named. Thus,

Pobur pobapap posi pobumpi.

The boy was allowed to eat the candy.

Is still a valid sentence.

Causatives indicating forced action

A similar setup is used to show that an action was forced by an outside power. In this case, the verb is nida.

When the boy's parents got home and found their son passed out on the floor next to an empty candy bowl, they fired their babysitter and told their son they would be taking him with them on their work errands from that time on. Moreover, on their next such trip, they forced the boy to carry some of the crates of eggs (blibip) that they were delivering to the local supermarkets.

Wempabopis, pobur blibipum pambapupup nidabi pirinibi.

By his parents, the boy was made to carry a crate of eggs.

The boy's parents made him carry a crate of eggs.

Causatives indicating provoked action

Note to self: there is no verb free for this function right now, although either punu or pussap could work.

Causatives indicating help and assistance

For this shade of meaning, the helper verb is papa. This is a fairly polysemic word root, but in this narrow context it is never ambiguous. Thus one would say

Wempabopis, pobur blibipumup papaba pirinibi.

By his parents, the boy was helped to carry the eggs.

The boy's parents helped him carry the eggs.

Used in other contexts, papa as a verb means "to push, bump, move an object with one's body" and as a noun can mean medicine although this meaning is more commonly expressed by longer words such as bobola and sasatsur.

Pobur pambapupup papabi bobidil.

The boy bumped the crate with his hip.

Expressing tense and duration

Pabappa uses the possessive -s rather than the locative -m to indicate that an action happened at a specific time.

Pubes

The word pubes means "while; during"; it is the possessive form of pobum "(period of) time". This is cognate to the Poswa suffix -pies; both come from Babakiam pebuŋis. However, unlike Poswa's cognate, Pabappa pubes is usually found as a separate word, after the entity whose time is being described.

Pom pepusi pubes, pom pepuposi.

While I slept, I dreamt.

Pubes is found in its attached form only in a few common words such as papubes "now" and expressions such as

Pelpubes, papubes, porpubes.

In the past, in the present, (and) in the future.

Poppis

Pabappa can also use a doublet of the same word, poppis, with the same meaning, but this is less common because it conflicts with unrelated words such as poppis "of his clam".

Verbal suffixes indicating aspect and mood

Suffixes expressing "to try, attempt"

The suffix -misi-

The verb misi "to try, attempt; to be hungry" is most commonly seen as a compound-forming verb suffix rather than a standalone verb.

In some old established verbs, misi has contracted into a monosyllabic suffix -nsi or -nse.

Lexical derivations involving fusional suffixed -misi-

Below is a table of verbs with various permutations of the affix -misi-. Verb roots marked with an asterisk are those that are no longer commonly seen in isolation. Note that the meanings of some of these verbs are significantly different than what one would expect if they were newly created compounds:

Verb	meaning	Derivation	meaning
pip	to be, to exist	pinsi-	to search for
*sip	to sleep	sinsi-	to try to sleep
*waba	to push down	wabanse-	to compete, try to win
palta	to hide	paltanse-	to try to hide
mi	to see	minsi	to try to see, look carefully

These verbs are parsed as a single unit, meaning that when inflections such as the reflexive -p (which changes to -s in most conjugations) are added, they go after the -nsi/-nse affix rather than dividing it from its verb:

Pom paltansebi.

I tried to hide (it).

Pom paltansesi.

I tried to hide myself.

Habilitative constructions

The Pabappa verb top indicates that one has the ability to do something.

The nominal stem cognate to top is tos. It is found in some compounds that form nouns, such as pododos "rich", which literally means "able to share". This is a reduced form of earlier phrases such as nappododos and pidi pododos, both meaning "able to share money". But, knowing that money could be traded for lots of other things, people soon began to omit the word meaning "money", and this practice entered the realm of general speech. Thus today, the word for someone who has money to share is simply pododos unless the listener is unclear what the person being spoken of is eager to share.

Padded verbs

Many verbs in Pabappa have historically acquired padding to shield them from the wear and tear associated with sound change.

Verbal padding with the emphatic infix -ep-

The most common padding used is the emphatic infix -ep-, which has mostly become obsolete in this sense in the modern language.

Verbal padding with the iterative aspect marker -ad-

Early Pabappa used an iterative aspect marker, an infix usually reflected as -at- or -ad-, to specify that an action was performed repeatedly or continuously. However, for some verbs, the bare stem already implied such an action, and this infix was added, either for emphasis, or for the sake of protecting the verb from sound changes eroding its unstressed syllables. The iterative aspect marker in modern Pabappa is now a suffix, which is historically related to the infix, so there is no contradiction in a verb which historically swallowed this infix taking on the modern iterative aspect suffix in addition.

Because the consonant -d- is fairly uncommon in Pabappa, words using this padding rarely collide with other words. However, sound changes have molded the infix into many possible shapes; both the vowel and the consonant can assume other forms.

Examples of padded verbs

Below is a table of some common padded verbs. Verbs whose stems end in -p were historically irregular, but most are now treated as ordinary -p-stem verbs. Verbs whose original bare form is no longer in use with its original sense are marked with an asterisk:

Original verb	meaning	Padded verb	meaning	Padding used	Notes
*pani	to grow (up)	panida	to grow (up)	-at-	Originally applied to plants only; when applied to animals and humans, often reflexive.
pesto	to rot	pipi	to kill	-ep-	Originally pipip, but this was mistaken for a reflexive verb and therefore analogized into pipi, where, in recent times, it came to collide with a preexisting and unrelated pipi which already meant "to divide". Note that even the original form pipip was already unusual because the infix was placed on the first morpheme in the word rather than the last. It is cognate to Poswa's pippit.
*pampu	to sing	pampup	to sing	-at-	Now believed by Pabaps to be a reflexive infection; i.e. "to sing (by) oneself".
pampa	to hunt an animal for food	pampepa	to hunt and kill an animal for food	-ep-	Mostly used as a verb of motion rather than to describe a career. Often corresponds to English "track", "stalk", or "prey upon".
*sip	to worship	sipap	to worship	-at-
*punsa	to pull	punsada	to pull (on)	-at-	Old sense preserved in punsap "marble"

Sample sentences illustrating the use of padded verbs

Below are some sentences containing padded verbs accompanied by broad translations:

Pom papeppip pipibi.

I killed the rhinoceros.

Putar pombimip punsadaba.

The man is pulling on the branch.

Punuparapta wa pom Taborpap pampepabi.

The president and I were hunting for the Taborpans.

Other frequently used verbs

Verbs of possession

Pol

A general purpose verb is pol, which is cognate to Poswa's bul. Like other -l-stem verbs, the -l disappears, leaving a vowel hiatus. The rarely used imperative form loses its final -u as well and thus becomes po. Thus one can say

Pom narmip poi.

I had a ponytail.

Pasuler

Another verb implying physical contact is pasuler, which is cognate to the word for banana, pasur. Thus one can say

Pom patamap pasuleba.

I'm holding onto a whip.

Papap

A verb describing the act of carrying someone or something is papap. It originally referred specifically to carrying babies, but soon came to be applied to anyone carrying an object in a similar manner to the way in which one would carry a baby. Thus one can say

Pom waplemibap papasa.

I'm carrying my water bottle.

Abla

For the act of wearing clothes, the commonest verb is abla.

Blalola taplip ablaba.

The girl is wearing her hat.

Tipim

To say that one owns something, the most common verb is tipim. Thus one could say

Pom pippabibap tipimpa.

I own my house.

Pom puppabup puba tipimpa.

I don't have a car.

Pupupam

A verb implying passive possession is pupupam. This is originally a derivation from pupupa "to sit on" with the passivizing marker -m. This is used in situations where the speaker may want to get rid of what they have.

Pom wimbabumup pabiapo blepibam pupupampa.

I have ants in my underwear drawer.

Note also that the nominal suffixes -b and -ap can be used as standalone verbs, but are not commonly found in modern Pabappa. Both are disjoint verbs, which conjugate as follows:

Pe-

The verbal counterpart of the nominal suffix -b is pe-. It is a regular verb despite bearing little resemblance to the nominal affix to which it is related. It generally denotes inherent possession, of a type that the possessor cannot control. For example one might say

Blalola wampopap pirisi peba.

The girl has blonde hair.

Ap-

The verbal counterpart of the nominal suffix -ap is ap-, but is an irregular verb which conjugates by adding an -o- to its stem (the reflection of the lost -y of the Old Pabappa form of the nominal stem). It implies purposeful possession:

Upur pospalerbip apoba.

The boy has his soap bubble wand.

NOTE, THESE IREGGULAR VERBS NEVER OCCUR IN BARE FORM, SO MAY AS WELL BE REANALYZED AS APO- ETC AND THEREFORE REGULAR.

Processes of verb formation

Most verbs are carried down from the parent language, although sound changes have forced the creation of many new words. For example, the parent language verbs for "to kill" and "to lick" coalesced as pi around 3200 years ago. This coincides roughly with the decline of Paba as a major military power. Eventually the problem was solved by turning to other words inherited from the parent language. Soon, miptar became the common word for "to kill". Previously it had carried the narrower sense of murder of a fellow human being. With miptar losing this meaning, a new word was created: uradi, a compound meaning "to hurt weak people". lat ER still, pipi became the dominant word.

Polysynthetic compounds

Subject-object-verb compounds

Some nouns are actually complete sentences with just the verb endings removed. This could be classified as a type of polysynthesis. Unlike the subject-verb compounds above, SOV compounds generally show transitive action, and are commonly used as verbs. However, because all verbs have a stem which behaves grammatically as a noun, they are nonetheless grouped with the other compounds as nouns.

Polysynthetic compounds are generally used metaphorically, since the subject is generally present in the sentence. Many of these words are very old, and make use of short, sometimes even subsyllabic, morphemes that no longer have any independent use in Poswa as standalone words. For example, the early Pabappa verb pi "to kill" has disappeared from the language as a standalone verb because it coalesced with a verb meaning "to lick". However, it is still found in SOV compounds of this type.

Examples of tripartite SOV compounds

Active element	meaning	Passive element	meaning	Verbal element	meaning	New word	meaning
pop	sharp object	wul	fish	pi	to kill	poppi	to go fishing
wul	fish	si	ice	ti	to break open	isti	to behave as a fish breaking through ice
po	hand	lara	legs	pana	to create pleasure	blana	to masturbate
—	—	lara	legs	pana	to create pleasure	lana	to have sex
pul	baby	—	—	isi	to guess	pulisi	children guessing naively; to guess
ta	toddler	—		musa	to play with each other	tansa	children playing with each other; as on a playground
po	hand	tim	soap	i	bubbles; lather	pommi	to lather someone up with soap; to bathe
pip	man	so	man	pana	to create pleasure	pitsuna	gay man
su	sun	sap	snow	im	to make disappear	sussem	to melt
uma	woman	oma	woman	pana	to create pleasure	utana	lesbian
pup	penis	—	—	wupu	bloodshed; pain	puppupu	to rape
pup	penis	ma	womb	su	penetrate	punsa	to impregnate someone; become a father
ma	womb	pul	baby	pi	kill	mappi	to have a miscarriage; spontaneous abortion
pampor	weapon	as	human	api	to repeat	pamporapi	war; when weapons hurt humans
uma	woman	so	man	pana	to create pleasure	unsuna	heterosexual female
pip	man	oma	woman	pana	to create pleasure	piptana	heterosexual male
tipa	flea	lara	legs	pua	to jump, leap	tiblaba	flea
pus	ring	sop	both hands	poba	to trap; restrain	pusoppoba	handcuffs
po	palm of the hand	pap	cheek	pe	to strike, hit	popepe	to slap someone in the face
po	palm of the hand	p(t)ap	buttocks (dual)	pe	to strike, hit	poptape	to spank; to humiliate
pep	hand	piri	skin, body	pe	to strike, hit	pepripe	to punch someone
pup	penis	pip	vagina	pana	to create pleasure	pupipuna	to have (penile-vaginal) sexual intercourse
po	hand	pup	penis	pana	to create pleasure	popupana	a man masturbating
po	hand	pip	vagina	pana	to create pleasure	popuna	a woman masturbating

Choice of morphemes in SOV compounds

While some of the words in the table above may seem uncharacteristically graphic for a language such as Pabappa, their use is perpetuated by the fact that many of them have died out as standalone morphemes in the modern language. For example, although the compound puppupu "to rape" is made up of pup "penis" and wupu "bloodshed, pain", the shortest modern word for penis is pumapi and the word for pain is just one of many such words.

Likewise, if punsa "to impregnate" were re-created using modern morphemes, it would look something like

Pumapi rompa pussap.

Penis penetrates womb.

(Spaces have been inserted to make the word boundaries clearer.)

Likewise, mappi "abortion, miscarriage" would have to be expressed as

Rompa pampap pipi.

Womb kills baby.

Even poppi "to go fishing" would appear as something such as

Papiba ibip pipi.

Sharp object kills fish.

Lastly, some SOV morphemes have become generalized as metaphors such that their S component has effectively lost its meaning. Although pulisi means "to guess", it previously carried the more specific sense "to guess in a childlike way", where pul was a word for baby that came to mean a word for children in general before dying out. If a new compound in this style were created today it could be either

Pampa pulisi.

Baby's guess.

Or

Tambor pulisi.

Child's guess.

Deliberate polysemy

Elements in SOV compounds could be said to be immune from being pushed out of the language due to sound changes and their resulting collisions. That is, many SOV elements are homophonous with many others, and this is not seen as a problem by the speakers because, when combined with the other elements of the compound, the meaning is usually clear. Nevertheless, sometimes elements remain ambiguous even when they are compounded, and the Pabaps use this to create new words with deliberately broad ranges of meaning.

Pup

For example, in the table above, pup shows up as a morpheme meaning "penis", but it can have many other meanings:

• pup "penis", from Babakiam nubap
• pup "buttocks; to bend", from Babakiam tuap
• pup "backside, antipode, polar opposite", from Babakiam pupi
• pup "belly, fat, blubber", from Babakiam ŋuŋe
• pup "to bounce", from Babakiam fūp
• pup "to lie down", from Babakiam kuap
• pup "textbook, learning materials", from Babakiam kupi
• pup "coast, land's end", from Babakiam ŋep
• pup "trail, path", from Babakiam pube
• pup "cup, glass, bottle; drinking container", from Babakiam pupi and puši
• pup "green plants (of any kind)", from Babakiam pubi
• pup "to stand in one place", from Babakiam šubup

The first four of these words have given rise to a new merged word meaning "genitals, midsection, private parts", and therefore expanded the range of meanings of words that use it. These words are not etymologically related to each other, but their meanings are close enough that modern speakers often think of them as a single morpheme with a new meaning merging all of the meanings of the older words. Thus, words such as puppo "diaper" can be analyzed with any of the four possible "old word" etymologies or simply declared to be derived from the new merged word.

One could imagine a Pabappa-speaking poet writing a sentence such as

Pom pupum pupum pupil pusi, panimpi pupum pupim pusi pi pupip pibi pusi.

I bounced along the coastal trail on my backside, then I lay down on my belly in the plants and propped my textbook up."

But aside from the fact that the mandatory verb and noun inflections make the sentence much less homophonous than one might expect from looking at the word roots, the sentence would be very difficult to understand even with all these added inflections. It could just as well be translated:

Pom pupum pupum pupil pusi, panimpi pupum pupim pusi pi pupip pibi pusi.

I laid on the trail's coast on my textbook, then I stood on the plants in my belly and bounced my backside up."

Pip

Another example of a highly polysemic root is pip. Aside from being the copula "to be" and serving as a conjunction meaning "if", pip can also mean:

• pip "adult male", from Babakiam pibu
• pip "unit of measure", from Babakiam bibu
• pip "baby, cute baby" (a term of endearment), from Babakiam bibu
• pip "evergreen tree", from Babakiam kiamabu
• pip "here, in this place", from Babakiam pipu
• pip "dot, spot, small stain; animal droppings", from Babakiam pitu
• pip "beak, bill, peninsula", from Babakiam pipu
• pip "straight, direct; not bent or curved", from Babakiam pižažep

None of these meanings, not even "here, in this place", are used in modern Pabappa outside of compounds whose other elements would make clear the intended meaning of pip in that word. However, use in place names is common. For example, one says wipombi for "pine tree" but there is a land feature named (with the expected sound changes) Pibrola "Pine Ridge".

Monosyllabic words whose vowel is -i- or -u- are especially likely to be polysemic because of sound changes that occurred several thousand years ago turning all diphthongs beginning with a /j/ or /w/ sound into the monophthongs /i/ and /u/ respectively.

Pap

Nevertheless, words with central /a/ are also common, since /a/ is the commonest vowel in the language and has been so for a long time:

• pap "violence, war; to bump an object with one's body", from Babakiam baka and pabu
• pap "wolf, dog, predator", from Babakiam pap
• pap "pincers, claws of a crab", from Babakiam pap
• pap "worker, one who gathers power", from Babakiam baku
• pap "to bounce", from Babakiam bažap
• pap "dandelion", from Babakiam papi
• pap "bird", from Babakiam papi
• pap "ten (cardinal)", from Babakiam bap
• pap "sand, small rocks", from Babakiam fap

Note that since Babakiam was spoken 4500 years ago, some words have been homophonous for thousands of years. In the early language, these were distinguished by context. For example, papi "bird" was animate and papi "dandelion" was inanimate. Thus the word for dandelion could never be the subject of a sentence, and confusion was possible only when they appeared as the object. The same was true of pap "wolf" and pap "claw". However, as above, none of these words occurs in any context in modern Pabappa except as part of a compound.

There are fewer examples of polysemy with CV words, partly because such words are more likely to have been polysemous even back in the days of Babakiam, and partly because, due to a smaller possible number of word shapes, Babakiam had fewer such words to begin with. For example, there are only six possible meanings for the morpheme pu, compared to 12 for pup. The same ratio appears for -i-: pi has four meanings, but pip has eight.

Word order

Pabappa has a flexible word order. The dominant order is SOV, meaning that a verb's subject will come first in a sentence, then the object, and then the verb itself. However, a verb can be placed between the subject and object, or even at the beginning of a sentence, to show emphasis.

Forming questions

Qualitative questions

Qualitative questions here are defined as all questions that seek information outside of a yes-no answer; they could be called "open ended questions" instead.

Most qualitative interrogatives are formed from a basic all-purpose question word, pum, which is inflected in various ways to derive the specific meanings required in each sentence.

The commonest forms of pum are:

Pum itself, used with no inflection. This usually corresponds to English "who", "what", or "which".

Pibop, with the accusative ending -p, which also corresponds to English "who", "what", or "which" but refers to the objects of transitive verbs. It, thus, sometimes also corresponds to English "whom".

Pibop pom wodobi?

What did I just step in?

Pibos, with the genitive ending -s, and sound changes in the stem associated with the addition of the ending. This usually corresponds to English "when".

Pibom, with the locative ending -m. This usually corresponds to English "where".

Pibur, with the instrumental ending and its associated sound changes. This usually corresponds to English "How? By what means?"

Conjugation tables

Vowel stems

All verbs whose stems end in a vowel take endings beginning with -b. Below is the verb pepu "to bend, fold":

pepu	Past	Present	Imperative
(Indicative)	pepubi	pepuba	pepubu
(Subjunctive)	pepubep	pepubap	pepubop

Since Pabappa verbs are not marked either for person or for transitivity, pronouns must be present for context. However, when two pronouns come together in a word, they are elided into a single word stressed on the initial syllable. Thus for example:

Pom pubulap pepubi.

I folded the shorts.

Pomap pepubi mupadarna pubom.

I bent you over a barrel.

Note that the subjunctive forms are the same as those of the 3rd person Poswa intransitive subjunctives, but that, as above, they are in fact derived from the transitives.

-p stems

Verbs whose stems end in -p change the p to s and omit the -b-. Below is the conjugation of pupimip "to sit (up)":

pupimip	Past	Present	Imperative
(Indicative)	pupimisi	pupimisa	pupimisu
(Subjunctive)	pupimisep	pupimisap	pupimisop

Pom pupimisa urtam.

I'm sitting on the floor.

Note that many verb stems ending in -p are reflexive verbs. For example, the verb pepu "bend, fold" above also functions as a reflexive verb, pepup. Its meaning is not "to bend oneself over" as one might expect, but rather "to sleep":

Pom pepusa urtam.

I'm sleeping on the floor.

The pepu that means "bend over" and the pepup that means "sleep" were historically two unrelated words that coalesced with each other due to sound changes and came to be seen as a single verb. Generally, someone wishing to speak about bending over in the reflexive voice, if the context was unclear, would avoid the reflexive and instead say something such as

Pom pibibibap pepubi.

I bent my body.

-m stems

Verbs whose stems end in -m keep the -m and add -p- instead of *-b. Below is the conjugation of pudem "to ask (for information)":

	Past	Present	Imperative
(Indicative)	pudempi	pudempa	pudempu
(Subjunctive)	pudempep	pudempap	pudempop

"Mom," blumpur pudempi, "pampabum patsa sana poplosa?"

"Mom," asked the child, "where do babies come from?"

-s stems

Verbs whose stems end in -s keep the s and omit the -b-. Below is the conjugation of wapipas "to wall out, seal from within":

	Past	Present	Imperative
(Indicative)	wapipasi	wapipasa	wapipasu
(Subjunctive)	wapipasep	wapipasap	wapipasop

Note, however, that verbs ending in -s do not always correspond to nouns ending in -s, because historically all final -s was dropped. Nouns lost their -s but verbs often did not because the stem of a verb in Pabappa is never used in its bare form, and thus the -s was never word-final.

-l stems

Verbs whose stems end in -l drop the -l and also omit the -b-. Below is the conjugation of parsappel "to growl in anger, to bare one's teeth":

	Past	Present	Imperative
(Indicative)	parsappe	parsappea	parsappeu
(Subjunctive)	parsappep	parsappeap	parsappeop

Pom parsappea!

I'm angry!

Note that the past tense indicative form of the verb ends in -e, not the expected *-ei. This is due to a sound change that took place in recent times, shortly after the general loss of all preexisting final -e. Thus, the past tense form of -l-stem verbs is one of the very few places in Pabappa where final -e is found.

Thus one can say

Parlapsi pop parsappe.

The dog growled at me.

Although -e- is the commonest vowel to precede a stem-final -l, all five vowels can do so. The same pattern above is followed for words ending in -il. Using the verb pupil- "to be excited, to tremble":

Pom pupia!

I'm excited!

Blalola pupi.

The girl was excited.

Likewise, for words ending in -ol or -ul, it is the imperative final -u that disappears. Using the example of putol "snow":

Putoa.

It's snowing.

Puto!

Let it snow!

However, stem-final -al occurs only in loanwords and a few native words that have recently lost a final -e, and therefore these words add an -e to the stem and then conjugate as vowel stems. Using blal "to be sick", one can say:

Pom blaleba.

I'm sick.

And so on.

-r stems

Verbs whose stems end in -r change the r to b and thus resemble vowel stems. Below is the conjugation of piner "to drink (alcohol)":

	Past	Present	Imperative
(Indicative)	pinebi	pineba	pinebu
(Subjunctive)	pinebep	pinebap	pinebop

Pom pampomop pinebi.

I drank the wine.

Pom paropomop pinebi porlap.

I drank the beer too.

Irregular verbs

See Pabappa irregular verbs.

Pabappa has very few irregular verbs. Since all of Pabappa's verbs, even the irregulars, are internally consistent, it could be said that the irregular verbs are merely suppletive, with one stem replacing the other, or that they are actually two verbs that share a meaning. But by convention, verbs of this type are nonetheless considered irregular.

Interjections

Interjections can be considered to be either a subset of the nouns or a subset of the verbs. However, going far enough back in the history of the language, the "verb" analysis is shown to be the only correct one, as the nouns that resemble interjections were themselves originally verbs.

Many interjections are used to express pain and unpleasant emotions. Interjections have a lesser role in Pabappa than they do in Poswa, and the Pabaps consider the Poswobs' frequent use of interjections to be a prime example of their cultural impoliteness.

Some interjections have been borrowed from Poswa. For example, young Pabap children can say

Bebo!

I have to go to the bathroom!

This is a recent loanword from Poswa's bevo. However, while Poswobs will keep on interrupting each other's conversations to say "Bevo!" at the most seemingly inappropriate times even as adults, Pabaps learn to break themselves of this habit in early childhood. A Pabap would be more likely to use a softer phrase such as

Pom liplempa.

I'm uncomfortable.

NOTE, CAN USE PUP HERE. E.G. "POM PUSA"M

Onomatopoeia

This is very rare in Poswa and Pabappa.