Classical Arithide conjugation

Main article: Classical Arithide grammar

Classical Arithide verbs are divided into two conjugations based on their infinitive endings, namely -ān (the first conjugation) and -ēn (the second conjugation). Whereas all vowel-stem verbs take -ān in the infinitive, the converse is not true, and the distinction between the two verb classes in terms of semantic and lexical meaning is not entirely clear, although it has been noted that all causative forms take as their infinitive -ēn. The two conjugations differ in their basic finite forms, whereas infixes for the various aspects and moods are common.

Verbs in each class are conjugated for four voices, three basic aspects, five derivative aspects, seven moods and four tenses, on a cascading hierarchy as above. I.e., to the root form of the verb would first be appended affixes indicating voice, followed by aspect, then mood and subsequently tense. The indicative perfective active is not generally marked, hence the existence of four tense-only forms. Certain aspects and moods in Classical Arithide form separate infinitives from the main verb, but as semi-independent verbs are not always able to take the full range of verb conjugations.

There is a small class of antideponent verbs in Classical Arithide, i.e. verbs with an active form but a passive meaning. All verbs in that class take the -ān ending.

Conjugations of an Arithide verb

The basic conjugations of an Arithide verb are given in table format as laid out in the following template.

verb	stem, gerund, imperative, cohortative potentive, causative, passive
supine location instrument agent patient	perfect aspect	perfect participle	present tense
	perfective aspect	perfective participle	past tense
	imperfective aspect	imperfective participle	progressive tense
	(conditional mood)	(conditional participle)	future tense
	habitual, inceptive, frequentative, protractive desiderative, jussive, subjunctive

Stem & gerund

The conjugation of a verb is conducted with its stem as the basis. To find the stem of a first conjugation verb, simply remove the infinitive ending -ēn; the same is true for second conjugation consonant-stem verbs. With vowel-stem verbs, however, the stem has to be learnt by heart as the vowel is frequently elided, or has its quality changed, in the infinitive. From the stem is formed the second major part of a verb's conjugation, the gerund, by affixing an -o; hence napsēn "to hide" has the stem naps- and the gerund napso, napso-. Most complex conjugations are formed using the gerund, as are a number of common verbal phrases and periphrastic constructions; frequently, when those conjugations require an affix beginning with a vowel, the -o of the gerund is elided.

Verbal nouns

The left side of the table, shaded slightly darker, lists the main verbal nouns, of agency (doer), of patiency (done to), of instrument (tool), of location (place done at), as well as the supine (act of). Agentive nouns are of declension VI and instrumentive nouns are declension VIb, while the patientive and locative nouns as well as the supine are of declension VIII (see Classical Arithide declension for the respective inflection patterns).

Imperative & cohortative

At the top-right of the table, listed with the stem and the gerund, are the imperative ("walk!") and the cohortative ("let's walk") moods respectively. These are the only two forms of the verb that are progressively invariable (see Progressive inflection), i.e. they do not inflect further for the next level of time-flow distinction, in this case tense. The imperative is formed by removing the final -n from the infinitive and adding -ra (i.e. napsēn > napsēra, nakān > nakāra); The cohortative for all verbs is identically constructed, by appending -ōra to the stem. In colloquial speech or for purposes of scansion, the final -ra may be omitted for both these moods.

Free derivatives

Under them are listed the only three derivative verbs that can conjugate nearly as fully as the main verb itself, with only minimal restrictions (the "free derivatives"): the potentive (-ābēn), causative (-ārēn) and passive (-stēn) voices.

To illustrate, napsābēn (napso- + -ābēn potentive) can take any ending that the main verb can, except the passive, because potentive verbs are intransitive by nature and thus do not have a passive; nor can napsostēn (napso- + -stēn passive), for the same reason that passive verbs are also intransitive by definition; in addition, the causative is the only derivative of the three that allows recursion: napsārāre "made to cause to hide" is semantically permissible, whereas napsābābēn is illogical and napsostostēn is forbidden for transitivity reasons as already discussed.

Of these, the passive verb is constructed in certain regards somewhat differently from its active counterpart.

1. The imperative is conjugated -ura—i.e. napsostura not *napsostēra
2. The cohortative is conjugated -ulla—i.e. napsostulla not *napsostōra
3. There is a third-person imperative ("let him hide") ending in -sit—i.e. napsosit

Records of earlier Arithide show the passive form as originally having been constructed -sitēn, which casts some light on the origins of the seemingly irregular third-person imperative, and the patientive verbal noun. The latter is attested as once regular (napsositos, which phonetic attrition reduced), and the former of which is unattested but postulated by scholars to have been napsositu, paralleling the imperative and cohortative. For those moods, however, no material is available to explain their distinct construction from the active.

Aspects & tenses

The table is ordered with the aspects preceding what is, in Classical Arithide grammar, traditionally known as the four basic tenses, for reasons of origin: the tenses ultimately derive from reduced versions of the aspects; written records exhibit tenses only from the fifth century BCIE. The perfect aspect (-at) gave rise to the present tense (-a), the perfective (-em) to the past tense (-e), and the imperfective aspect (-is) to the progressive tense (-i), in a logical process of mapping. The once-common conditional mood (-auer) decayed into the future tense (-ae) in the early decades of the establishment of the Lazeian Empire.

With the development of the tenses, finer temporal distinctions became possible, and the aspects evolved from finite verb forms to dually functioning affixes: they could stand alone without tense-marking, or, as with many Indo-European languages, they could act as aspectual stems and take tenses. This overlapping feature of the aspect was often utilised in literature, as well as politics, for reasons of style, emphasis, or deliberate ambiguity.

The participles of the various aspects and the conditional mood serve two main purposes. First, due to the SOV syntax of Classical Arithide, verbs were used prenominally as modifiers. Initially these modifier verbs used the same forms as final verbs, but gradually evolved distinct forms with lengthened vowels and, in the case of the imperfective, lost the accompanying consonant. Adjectives of the verbal class, however, did not undergo this change (see Classical Arithide adjectives). Second, analogously to the Latin ablative absolute construction, the participles could indicate the context of a main sentence, e.g.

• Kodhē roimēn, sōpeda tholorae ivage. Having weakened the enemy, the soldiers went in for the kill.

Limited derivatives

The "limited derivative" verbs are, as opposed to the free derivatives, independent derivative verbs that may not take the full range of conjugations. Most derivatives in this category are modal: the inceptive mood (-senēn "to begin to"), the frequentative (-vasēn "to do repeatedly"), the protractive (-tamēn "to go on and on"), the desiderative (-ssēn "to want to"), the jussive (-spēn "to want the listener to") and the subjunctive (-ōnēn). The first three moods take the imperfective stem; the latter three take the gerundive stem. None of these verbs may take a subordinate voice (as they are moods), nor recur (i.e. napsisenisenēn, for example, is not permissible); all may take the inceptive and the subjunctive subordinately, and the inceptive may take the frequentative in subordination.

Also part of the limited derivatives are the progressively invariable habitual and perfective habitual aspects, which take the imperfective and perfective stems respectively, but both of which end in -mne. The simple habitual also doubles as the generic mood, to express universals.

First conjugation -ēn

The first conjugation is the most common conjugation to which verbs in Classical Arithide belong, encompassing approximately three-quarters of all verbs. The regular conjugation is illustrated by the example verb damēn "to carry" below:

damēn	dam-, damo, damēra, damōla damābēn, damārēn, damostēn
sup. damos loc. damas ins. dampta agt. damon (dampter)	damat, damat-	damāt	dama
	damen, damen-	damēn	dame
	damis, damir-	damī or damīre	dami
	-	-	damae
	damossēn, damōnēn

-nēn verbs

Verbs whose stems end in -n take a slightly different ending in the perfective aspect, which has arisen due to historical phonetic dissimulation. To illustrate, the conjugation of the verb sernēm is provided below.

sernēn	sern-, serno, sernē, sernō sernārēn, sernostēn
sup. sernos loc. sernas ins. sernta agt. sernon (sernter)	sernat, sernat-	sernāt	serna
	sernem, sernem-	sernēm	serne
	sernis, sernir-	sernī or sernīre	serni
	-	-	sernae
	sernossēn, sernōnēn

Non-finite verb forms

Modifiers

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