Kjaxono verbs

Due to its complexity and widespread irregularities, unique neologisms to describe unusual concepts in regards to conjugation, and concepts with little if any equivelant in any other natural language, verbs in Kjaxono often pose a mammoth stonewall to learners of the language. This article presupposes familiarity with Kjaxono grammar.

Overview

Kjaxono verbs are constructed agglutinatively, though they show many fusional features. Kjaxono verbs are also unique in that there are only 200-300 verbs in the language; more precise meanings are expressed by auxiliary verbs, or serial strings of other verbs. Kjaxono verbs are extremely closed class, contrasting with nouns, which are not.

Kjaxono verbs are constructed radically different than in other languages

A unique feature only found in the Xjedgjaŋ language family is the prescence of what is translated as pattern. Pattern is described in most grammars of Kjaxono as an event's manner, in relation to time. Pattern should not be confused with aspect, with aspect being how an event extends over time. The two are often entangled, and in combination can produce many very precise meanings. There are four patterns in Kjaxono:

• The punctual pattern describes any event that occurs or is finished at a single moment in time. The event in question is usually very brief in duration. Some examples of such events would be the flick of a match, a clap, etc.
• The repetitive pattern describes any event that occurs or is finished at many moments in time, with the length of time between each event being regular. An example of such an event which would use the repetitive pattern would be the regular beeping noise of a fire alarm.
• The irregularitive pattern describes any event that occurs or is finished at many moments in time, with the length of time between each event being irregular.
• The fragmentative pattern describes any event that occurs or is finished at many moments in time, but in short bursts, or fragments, with the length of time between each event being irregular. The fragmentative pattern is occasionally considered a subpattern within the irregularitive pattern, but this article will treat the fragmentative pattern as a seperate pattern.

Kjaxono verbs conjugate for the following:

• Tense
  • Past
  • Hodiernal past
  • Present
  • Future
• Mood
  • Indicative
  • Conditional
  • Hypothetical
  • Imperative
    • Hard
    • Soft
• Evidentiality
  • Direct
  • Reportative
  • Assumptive
• Voice
  • Active
  • Middle
  • Passive
• Aspect
  • Perfective
  • Habitual
  • Continuous
  • Gnomic
• Pattern
  • Punctual
  • Repetitive
  • Irregularitive
  • Fragmentative
• Person

Kjaxono verbs are unique cross-linguistically in that for the most part, the full meaning that is conjugated for is only represented via the consonants, with the vowels in every slot except the verb stem being inserted to avoid illegal consonant clusters. The vowel that is inserted into the verb depends on the type of evidentiality being employed

Verb structure

Kjaxono uses a variety of prefixes and suffixes to conjugate verbs. The following chart shows the maximum amount of affixes and alterations a verb in Kjaxono can take in their usual order. Note that in everyday speech, most Kjaxono verbs do not take the amount of forms that the table may suggest. Kjaxono linguistics assigns names to the affixes; this is shown on the first row. For example, the PC slot refers to a polypersonal circumfix, the TM slot refers to the combined tense mood slot, and so on.

Kjaxono verb template

PC	Vowel grade	TM	E	Stem	Vowel grade	VPA	TM	P
Polypersonal clitic		Tense	Evidentiality			Voice	Mood	Postverb
		Mood	or Vowel(s)			Pattern
1	2	3	4	5	6	Aspect	8	9
						7

Only the tense and mood affix is required to be present within a Kjaxono verb. This is what is most commonly employed, though in semi-formal and formal speech more inflection is employed.

Objective verb conjugation

As previously stated, the objective verb conjugation covers all verbs that are transitive, and have positive volition.

Person marking

All Kjaxono verbs inflect for the subject, direct object, and indirect object of a phrase, when applicable.

No direct object or neutral as to one		Subject
		1p	2p	3p	Dummy
Indirect object	1p	c-	n-	j-	x-
	2p	q-	ż-	k-	l-
	3p	∅	z-	g-	mj-
Animate direct object
		Subject
		1p	2p	3p	Dummy
Indirect object	1p	ck-	nk-	jk-	xk-
	2p	qk-	żk-	kd-	lk-
	3p	h-	zk-	gk-	mk-
Inanimate direct object
		Subject
		1p	2p	3p	Dummy
Indirect object	1p	s-	x̌-	z-	ng-
	2p	r-	ŋ-	t-	x̌jl-
	3p	b-	m-	rb-	rj-

Tense/mood marking

	Past	Hodiernal past	Present	Future
Indicative	-jt-	-ŋj-	∅	-hl-
Conditional	-jg-	-tŋ-	-p-	-rg-
Hypothetical	-jq-	-tp-	-xjt-	-sk-
Hard imperative	-h-	-hs-	-zng-	-gz-
Soft imperative	-q- (-gq-)	-x̌- (-n-)	-lg-	-bh-

Vowel grades

These are the Kjaxono vowel grades. There are four vowel grades - the direct grade, reportative grade, assumptive grade, and neutral grade. The first three are used to indicate evidentiality within the verb. The direct grade is used for scenarios when the speaker directly witnessed the actions they talk about. The reportative grade is used for scenarios when the speaker is only reporting the actions they talk about. The assumptive grade is used for scenarios when the speaker assumes the actions they talk about occurred. The neutral grade is used for when evidentiality is not marked, and it is signified with the lack of a vowel in both vowel grade positions, but oftentimes a schwa is inserted to break up particularly large consonant clusters.

Direct	Reportative	Assumptive
-eǔ-	-u-	-ǒ̖-

Voice/aspect/pattern marking

Active voice
	Punctual	Repetitive	Ireggularitive	Fragmentative
Perfective	-l-	-q́r-	-q́s-	-q́br-
Habitual	-śl-	-śr-	-ś-	-śj-
Continuous	-xl-
Gnomic	-tŋ-	-tr-	-gq-	-qŋ-
Middle voice
	Punctual	Repetitive	Ireggularitive	Fragmentative
Perfective	-ǧ-	-ǧl-	-ǧs-	-ǧb-
Habitual	-n-	-nl-	-ns-	-nb-
Continuous	-c-	-cl-	-cs-	-cb-
Gnomic	-n-	-nl-	-ns-	-nb-
Passive voice
	Punctual	Repetitive	Ireggularitive	Fragmentative
Perfective	-'t-	-'l-	-'s-	-'b-
Habitual	-'n-	-'nl-	-'ns-	-'nb-
Continuous	-ż-	-żl-	-żs-	-żg-
Gnomic	-'n-	-'nl-	-'ns-	-'nb-

Secondary mood marking

Indicative	Conditional	Hypothetical	Hard imperative	Soft imperative
-njm-	-nt-	-gjm-	-hm-	-hd-

Common objective post verbs

The following is not at all an objective list of postverbs, but they are the most common. In these postverbs, the uppercase V indicates the vowel grades being used.

Postverb	Meaning
-gVbh	away from the object
-zVg	towards the object
-śjVx	forwards
-rh	backwards
-sVk	to the left
-Vm	to the right
-q̌xVd	around
-gqV	inwards
-Vjt́	outwards
-rqVt	upwards
-rqVg	downwards
-rqVš	perpendicularly
-qVx̌	over a straight path
-dVm	over a curving path

Examples

"Assumptively, I usually could have repeatedly gone in a curved path to him" translates to hǒ̖jgǒ̖qośrntdǒ̖m.