Kjaxono verbs

Due to its complexity and widespread irregularities, unique words 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 at least with Kjaxono grammar.

Scales and subscales

When talking about Kjaxono, unique terminology is often employed when referring to its verbal system: the two most important are scales and subscales. These roughly correspond to ordinary conjugations in other languages, but scales and subscales distinguish themselves from other language's conjugation systems in several ways. For example, some scales may imply seperate inoformation of which in an ordinary language's conjugation would have to be conjugated in addition. Another difference is the manner of which Kjaxono verbs conjugate, which is also significantly different from other languages.

In the Cjaingi Omacili, scales (Gqabakjoŋ /ɢa.'ba.kʲoŋ/ in Kjaxono) and subscales (Kangakjoŋ /ka.ɴa.kʲoŋ/) are described as so:

"[...] it [Scales] [is] the system in verbs in which we classify, organize, and differentiate between the verbs in which take objects and not, to ensure that [subscales] see the lines and draw correctly in their wake [...]" (Page 291-292)

In Kjaxono, two types of scales are used: the transitive and intransitive. The transitive scale is used primarily for transitive verbs, aswell as with volitive verbs. The intransitive scale, meanwhile, is used for intransitive verbs and involitive verbs. Translated from the Cjaingi Omacili, the two scales in Kjaxono translate as the Objective scale, and Non-objective (or anti-objective) scale respectively. The objective scale and non-objective scale are what these are referred to by most linguists in Xjetjeŋ. The three subscales within are called the northern (qahaż), eastern (iemaqaż), and western (eameqeż) subscales. The northern subscale refers to verbs of any scale that start with front vowels, the eastern subscale refers to verbs of any scale that start with back vowels, and the western subscale refers to verbs that starts with consonants.

Overview

Kjaxono verbs are usually constructed agglutinatively, though they show many fusional features.

Kjaxono has 5 main tenses, the past, hodiernal, present, perfect, and future. The perfect tense has 5 different forms, of which are conveyed via the preverb slot of Kjaxono's verb template. The individual perfect subtenses are sometimes considered tenses by themselves, but they do not vary morphologically except in the preverb. Otherwise, the perfect tense takes the same conjugation as the present, lacking a tense affix.

Kjaxono has 5 moods, the indicative, conditional, potential, hypothetical, and imperative. The imperative mood specifically has two seperate submoods: the hard and soft. Typically, the hard imperative is used by people of higher social classes to people of lower social status. Some examples of this would be an employer to an employee, by parents to children, etc. The soft imperative is used far more commonly, and acts as a more polite and formal version of the latter.

Kjaxono has 3 main types of evidentiality, the direct, reportative, and assumptive. The direct is employed when the speaker has directly witnessed the event being discussed. The reportative is employed when the speaker is reporting the event, but has not actually witnessed the event themselves. Finally, the assumptive is employed when the speaker is assuming the event being discussed occured.

A unique feature only found in the [..] 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, aspect being how an event extends over time. The two are often entangled, and in combination can produce many very precise scenarios. 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.
• 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.

Pattern is indicated both as a suffix occuring in the 5a slot of the verb template as shown below, and in the 8c slot. In other words, if pattern is included within the verb, a postverb must follow.

The following list shows in total what Kjaxono verbs can conjugate for.

• Person
  • Indefinite
  • Definite
• Tense
  • Past
  • Hodiernal
  • Present
  • Perfect
    • Continuative perfect
    • Anterior perfect
    • Universal perfect
    • Recent perfect
  • Future
• Mood
  • Indicative
  • Conditional
  • Potential
  • Hypothetical
  • Imperative
    • Hard
    • Soft
• Evidentiality
  • Direct
  • Reportative
  • Assumptive
• Voice
  • Active
  • Middle
  • Passive
• Aspect
  • Perfective
  • Momentane
  • Prospective
  • Imperfective
  • Progressive
  • Stative
  • Gnomic
• Pattern
  • Punctual
  • Repetitive
  • Irregularitive
  • Fragmentative

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 verb template

PrV		TmpD			E	STEM	P	At²		V	PsVe²
Preverb		Tense	Person and Mood		Evidentiality		Pattern	Aspect	Tense	Voice	Postverb
Locative type	Tense		Definiteness	Indefiniteness							Misc.	Evidentiality	Pattern
1a	1b	2a	2b	2c	3	4	5a	6a	6b	7	8a	8b	8c

Only the parts in bold are required to be present within a Kjaxono verb.

In Kjaxono, preverbs serve many functions. In some subscales they are used to differentiate between different tenses (most notably each of the perfect tenses) but they serve other uses as well. The existance of post-verbs universally is highly debated, but they are a prevelant feature of the [...] dialect, and are beginning to be used in mainstream dialects. In most dialects, preverbs only conjugate for the perfect, past, and nonpast tenses; in the hodiernal and present tenses the preverb is usually simply absent. Like how preverbs function, postverbs are also present, usually serving as a postposition. Seperate markers for evidentiality based on it's previous position within the E slot are also present in the PsVe² slot.

Transitive scale (Objective scale)

Northern objective scale

For this section, the verb stem used is " aqaǔŋ" [aqa.'u:ŋ]; to bring.

Preverb tenses

Perfect tenses				Past	Nonpast
Continuative perfect	Anterior perfect	Universal perfect	Recent perfect
n(ǔ)-	e(ǔ)-	p(ǔ)-	b(ǔ)-	e(i)-	n-

Tense and mood prefixes

Tense		Mood		Singular				Plural				"Indefinite" Marker
				1st	2nd	3rd		1st	2nd	3rd
Past	i-	Indicative		N/A	c(e)-	kj(e)-		s(e)-	cj(e)-	k(e)-		o-
Hodiernal	ǔ-	Conditional		x(e)-	ŋ(e)-			xj(e)-	ŋj(e)-
Present	N/A	Potential		q(e)-		tj(e)-		l(e)-		t(e)-
Perfect		Hypothetical		h(i)	hŋ(i)-	mq(i)-			ŋj(u)-	mj(i)-
Future	e-	Imperative	Hard	N/A	ż(o)-			N/A	qż(o)-
Prefixed onto the T&M prefix			Soft		c(o)-				qac(o)-

In addition, all tenses excluding the present triggers vowel gradation, turning the final vowel of the verb stem into /a/. In this example, aqaǔŋ would turn into aqaaŋ /aqa.'aŋ/.

Evidentiality prefixes

Direct	-tj-
Reportative	-d-
Assumptive	-ng-

Note that these prefixes combine with markings on the postverb

Pattern suffixes

Punctual	-ik(-)
Repetitive	-tk(-)
Irregularitive	-lǒ(-)
Fragmentative	-te(-)