Verb Agreement in heŚakþe
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Details of how to conjugate realis verbs in heŚakþe
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 14 Jan 2018, 15:55.
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This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
In
heŚakþe, as in many other languages, verbs must agree with nouns. However, there are some important things to know about how that happens in heŚakþe, as it can get quite complicated. In this langauge, verbs must agree with one argument in person, number, gender, and definiteness. Thus, we should understand how this works.[top]Basic Agreement
First, we will look at basic agreement. This is how agreement operates in intransitive clauses with definite subjects (which should be in the absolutive case). Now, we can expect the verb to come in one of two basic forms: CVCV or CVCCV. The only difference between them is that in CVCV verbs, the final vowel usually gets deleted, and in CVCCV it does not. Before trying to understand how this works more generally, let's look at the endings used if we assume the verb is definite and singular:
| F | M | N | |
| 1 | -ni | -nu | -ne |
| 2 | -si | -su | -se |
| 3 Animate | -ki | -ku | -ke |
| 3 Inanimate | |||
F is for Feminine, M for Masculine, N for Neuter. This is used for human/animate gender; inanimates do not have gender, as can be seen. To actually use these, you take the CVC of a CVCV verb for 1/2/3 Animate forms, adding the suffixes, and then use the plain CVCV form for 3 Inanimate; with CVCCV verbs you add the suffixes (or lack thereof) without additional modification.
In actual sentences, this is not particularly complicated to deal with. One simply selects the appropriate gender for the person or thing they are talking about.
[top]Transitive Clauses
To add a slight (but not dificult) complication, we look at transitive clauses. For language learners, don't think about this too hard, it's just unnecessary confusion. This little bit of confusion comes from the fact that though heŚakþe has morphological ergativity, it does not have syntactic ergativity. Thus, while intransitive clauses agree with their absolutive subject, transitive clauses agree with their ergative subject.
[top]Plural Forms
There are four possibilities for plural agreement: 1 Plural Exclusive, 1 Plural Inclusive, 2 Plural, and 3 Plural. None of these change for gender. The endings are -ń, -r, -s, and -k (in the order the types were given). None of these delete vowels, and are added directly to their CVCV or CVCCV forms.
[top]Indefinite Subjects
The rules of basic agreement change when the subject is indefinite. For obvious reasons, this is only used in the 3rd Person. When this happens, the verbs takes agreement as though the subject were plural, irregardless of number or gender. This is even the case for clearly gendered nouns; "A man reads" would be Caj juna gavek not *Caj juna gavku.
[top]Anthropomorphism
Consider that, in English, we can anthropomorphize many different objects. Particularly well-known examples are boats, cars, and the Earth, all of which can be referred to as "she" rather than "it". When a speaker of heŚakþe does this, the noun in question takes plural agreement on the verb; this can be seen in examples like "The world is a beautiful place", said either HeNiśegbo moja caj mina śega for a non-anthropomorphized Earth or HeNiśegbo mojak caj mina śega for an anthropomorphic effect.
[top]Genderlessness
In some situations, especially in writing, it can be useful to talk about definite, singular subjects without adding gender. In these cases, the same strategy is applied: the plural marking is used rather than the singular marking.
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