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.
Other terminology
Overview
Kjaxono verbs conjugate for all of the features listed below.
The Imperative mood 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 (an example being 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. Person marking in verbs can also specify the nature of definiteness in the pronoun. This feature - sometimes termed verbal personal definiteness - has little if any equivelance in any other natural language.
The perfect tense has 5 different forms that are conveyed mostly 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.
- Person
- Indefinite
- Definite
- Tense
- Mood
- Indicative
- Conditional
- Potential
- Hypothetical
- Imperative
- Hard
- Soft
- Evidentiality
- Direct
- Reportative
- Assumptive
- Voice
- Aspect
Verbs are constructed agglutinatively, though oftentimes they show fusional features.
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.
| PrV | TmpD | E | STEM | At² | V | (PsV) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preverb | (Voice) | (Person) | (Aspect) | (Tense) | Tense | Mood | Person | Evidentiality | Aspect | Tense | Voice | Postverb | ||
| Definiteness | Indefiniteness | |||||||||||||
| 1 | 1a | 1b | 1c | 1d | 2 | 3 | 4a | 4b | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
One will notice the prevelant double marking that Kjaxono verbs conjugate for.
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.