To deal with all the different verb models, prepositions are used to mark the various participants in the action. The most frequently used of these are u (subject) and o (object). Thus, "I am reading a newspaper" is na leg u ya o cimbun. (Actually, if the u ya is implicit based on the context, it may be left out: na leg o cimbun). The normal word order in this construction is verb-subject-object, but these may be rearranged for emphasis (na leg o cimbun u ya, u ya na leg o cimbun, etc.)
There are three tenses in Eklektu: past (ha), present (na), and future (ra). In general they are used in a similar manner as they are used in English: na ya vid o mau "I see a cat", ha ya vid o mau "I saw a cat". However, unlike English, the tense of any verb phrase is relative to the context of the phrase, not the entire sentence. For example, in English you would say "Yesterday you said you were sick (ill)", meaning "Yesterday you said, 'I am sick'". In Eklektu, the verb phrase that indicates what you said remains in the present tense: ha lana va cwo o na krank. This allows you to say "Yesterday you said you had been (would be) sick", ha lana va cwo o ha (ra) krank, using only the three basic tenses.
Eklektu also has three aspects: perfective (le), imperfective (me), and generic (ke). The perfective aspect represents completed action, regardless of tense: le ya prind o glob can mean "I caught the ball" or "I will have caught the ball", though it is most often used in the past tense. (You can combine a tense with an aspect, and say ra le ya prind if you want to say "I will have caught it".) The imperfective aspect represents incomplete action, and roughly corresponds to English -ing: me ya leg "I was/am/will be reading". The generic aspect is used when you are concerned about the action represented by the verb in general, not any particular event: ke ya graf o manga "I write comic books" vs. me ya graf o manga "I'm writing a comic book", le ya graf o manga "I wrote a comic book". This is also useful when combined with a tense marker, for example: ha ke ya graf o manga, no na ke ya far o flaut "I used to write comic books, but now I make flutes".
In addition to a tense and an aspect, an Eklektu verb phrase can have a mood. The most common mood, the indicative, is unmarked. The imperative mood, used for giving commands, uses the verb marker ku: ku lev putar "turn left." In case of an emergency, an urgent command can be given without using any verb markers at all: ses! "stop!" A similar marker hu is used when expressing wishes or hopes, often represented in English by "let" or "may": hu sneg "let it snow" (note that sneg is just an ordinary noun being used as a verb; Eklektu makes no formal distinction between nouns, verbs, and adjectives). The other mood in Eklektu is the subjunctive, used mainly in hypothetical "if" clauses and marked with the particle zu: ven zu ya es o va "if I were you..."
Besides prepositional phrases, verbs can be modified by preceding nouns as well. The subject follows the verb marker and precedes the verb. This order is often used for common verbs such as es "to be": ke mur es o gra = ke es u mur o gra "the mouse is gray". The modifying word can also be another verb, such as pu "can": ke pu cwo o Eklektu ka? "do you speak Eklektu?" But since any word can be used as a verb, "the mouse is gray" can also be written more concisely as ke mur es gra or ke gra u mur. Note that in the first construction the verb is the phrase es gra, not es by itself. But the es is still necessary for clarity; without it, ke mur gra means "it is gray like a mouse, mouse-gray". This construction should be used with care to avoid ambiguity.
Verb markers may be attached to verbs as suffixes. The resulting word is a participle, though it can be used as either an adjective or a noun. In order to distinguish active participles from passive participles, the appropriate preposition is inserted between the verb root and the verb marker. Thus, the word for "reading (active, imperfective)" is leg+u+me = legume, and the word for "read (passive, perfective)" is leg+o+le = legole. A participle can be modified by an ordinary prepositional phrase (legume de o cimbun "reading a newspaper", yakuole de u elflar "baked by elves", grafora de i mel ink "yet to be written with black ink"). This phrase can then be the object of the auxiliary lo "who, which, that": ku don o pom a menc lo legume de o cimbun "give an apple to the person reading the newspaper". But a shorter way to say legume de o cimbun is to modify the participle directly, by a preceding noun: cimbun legume. In this case there is no ambiguity: an active participle is modified by the object of the verb (cimbun legume = legume de o cimbun), and a passive participle is modified by the subject (elflar yakuole = yakuole de u elflar). So the shortest way to say "give an apple to the person reading the newspaper" is don o pom a cimbun legumea menc. (In fact, you don't even need menc; you can say cimbun legume by itself!)
Verb roots are a productive source of new words. For example, from leg you can derive both legul "reader" and legol "reading material". From graf (to write) you can derive graful "writer", grafol "writing (something written)", grafil "a tool for writing", and grafal "something to write on". The general rule is to append any of the prepositions that mark the different participants in the action, followed by the suffix -l.
Another transformation of a verb is the causative form. This form is made by appending el "to cause" to the verb. The subject of a causative verb is the same as the subject of the original verb; the person or thing that actually caused the action is identified with the preposition lu. For example, na kan es kusi (na es u kan o kusi) "the dog is happy" becomes lu ya ha kan esel o kusi (ha esel lu ya u kan o kusi) "I made the dog happy".
Vocabulary for Lesson 3 Verb markers:
ha past tense verb marker hu let (it, he, she, etc.), may (it, he, she, etc.) ke generic verb marker ku imperative marker le perfective aspect verb marker me imperfective aspect verb marker na present tense verb marker ra future tense verb marker zu subjunctive markerOther particles:
a indirect object marker i instrument marker ka question marker lo who, which, that (conjunction) lu cause marker o direct object marker u subject marker ven if (conjunction)Main roots:
bes to kiss cimbun newspaper cwo to speak, say, tell don to give el to cause elf elf es to be far to make flaut flute glob ball, sphere, globe gra gray graf to write, draw ink ink krank sick, ill kusi happy lana yesterday lar more than one; plural suffix leg to read lev left (direction) manga comic book, manga mau cat mec to mix mur mouse pom apple prind to catch pu can; to be able ses to stop, cease sneg snow utsu to hit, strike va you vid to see yaku to bakeBack to Lesson 2.
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