Reference Grammar

Section 3.1: Verbs: Introduction

There are three classes of verbs. All three classes conjugate in roughly the same way, the only differences being in the method of joining the affix to the stem. Verbs are classified by the ending of the lexical form (infinitive), whether it is a consonant, a front vowel, or a back vowel.

possible stem endings
CI
CII
CIII		Consonant stem
Front-vowel stem
Back-vowel stem		d t s ng m
i ì e ei è ào ë ê iu à iì ai æ a
u ù û òë o ò

Mungayöd verbs distinguish between tense, voice, and mood, with any aspectual differences being deduced from context or additional verbiage. Mungayöd has active and passive voices, infinitive, indicative, and subjunctive moods, and present, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect tenses. An imperfect fell out of use before its classical period (beginning approximately 3000 years before the present). Middle/reflexive functions are taken care of adverbially.

Each verb has five principal parts (with examples given for maràt - to offer, masa - to have, mamògù - to tell):

  1. first person singular present active indicative (maràka, masaka, mamògùka)
  2. infinitive (lexical form) (maràt, masa, mamògù)
  3. first person singular perfect active subjunctive (marmas, masumas, mamògnas)
  4. first person singular present passive indicative (martano, masano, magnùo)
  5. participle (mart, masùk, mamòng)

Most verbs exhibit some stem changes in the perfect indicative and in the entire passive system. Some can be somewhat radical, as with ìng - to name: