A verb denotes an action or an occurence, for example to eat, to speak, to look and to think.
Pandunia has three verb grades: agentive, patientive, and stative. The grades are indicated by the vowel endings -a, -u and -i respectively. There are no verb inflections for other things, like person, number, time and mood, which are common in other languages, like English. Things like that are indicated by separate words in Pandunia.
Person and number are indicated by the subject. For example, the verb sa (‘to be’) has the same form in all persons.
me sa doste.
– I am a friend.
tu sa doste.
– You are a friend.
ho sa doste.
– He/she is a friend.
memen sa doste.
– We are friends.
tumen sa doste.
– You are friends.
homen sa doste.
– They are friends.
Also a noun can serve as subject.
mau sa hevan. – The cat is an animal.
A verb can involve an agent (abbreviated A) and a patient (abbreviated P). The agent is the active participant, which brings about an event and has control over it. The patient is the passive participant, which is affected by the event.
Agent and patient can mean many things, but prototypical agents and patients share certain characteristics.
The prototypical agent
Consider the sentence a player kicked the ball to the goal. The player is the agent because he is alive, moves, kicks the ball by its own will and causes a change of place in the ball.
The prototypical patient
Consider again the sentence the player kicked the ball to the goal. The ball is the patient, because it’s a non-living thing, it stood still in relation to the player, it is drawn to the event by the player and it undergoes a change of place.
The player kicked the ball.
└─────┬────┘└──┬───┘└────┬────┘
AGENT VERB PATIENT
Consider another sentence, the player scored a point. Here the point is the patient, because it would not exist without the event. In fact, it undergoes a change of state from non-existence into existence.
The player scored a point.
└─────┬────┘└──┬───┘└────┬────┘
AGENT VERB PATIENT
There are two types of verbs in Pandunia. Their difference is that they indicate opposite orders of agent and patient.
Note that the verb types deal only with the word order. They don’t have anything to do with passivity or transitivity, which are manifested on the clause-level.
Verbs that end in -a are called forward verbs because the energy that originates from the agent flows forward via the verb tow the patient.
AGENT ───> A-VERB ───> PATIENT
The verb is the only necessary member of a clause. A minimal phrase can consist of a verb only, as in phrase B below.
A: tu loga o auda?
– Do you you talk or listen?
B: auda.
– (I) listen.
Sometimes a verb is accompanied by only one participant, either agent or patient. If there is a word immediately before the A-verb, it is the agent.
┌─────────┐ ╔══════════╗
│ AGENT │→║ A-VERB ║
└─────────┘ ╚══════════╝
me loga.
A V
‘I speak.’
If there is a word immediately after the A-verb, it is the patient.
╔══════════╗ ┌─────────┐
║ A-VERB ║→│ PATIENT │
╚══════════╝ └─────────┘
viza ye!
V P
‘Watch this!’
There are three possible word orders when both agent and patient are present: agent–verb–patient (AVP), patient–agent–verb (PAV), and verb–patient–agent (VPA).
The most common word order is agent–verb–patient (AVP). This is the direct word order that is normally used.
┌─────────┐ ╔══════════╗ ┌─────────┐
AVP: │ AGENT │→║ A-VERB ║→│ PATIENT │
└─────────┘ ╚══════════╝ └─────────┘
me viza homen.
– I see them.
tu beka ban.
– You bake bread.
The second order is patient–agent–verb (PAV).
┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ╔══════════╗
PAV: │ PATIENT │ │ AGENT │→║ A-VERB ║
└─────────┘ └─────────┘ ╚══════════╝
↑ │
└───────────────────────┘
It is used when the speaker wants to draw the focus on the patient. It is used for fronting the question word. It is also common in dependent clauses.
Examples:
que tu viza?
– What do you see?
me yama ban, de tu beka.
– I eat bread that you baked.
The third possible order is the verb–patient–agent order (VPA), which is rarely used.
╔══════════╗ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐
VPA: ║ A-VERB ║→│ PATIENT │ │ AGENT │
╚══════════╝ └─────────┘ └─────────┘
↑ │
└────────────────────────┘
This order can be use used when the speaker wants to add the agent as an afterthought or clarification.
viza tu, ho di feme. – Sees you, that woman.
Verbs that end in -u are called backward verbs, because the energy flows backward to the patient via the verb from the agent.
PATIENT <─── U-VERB ───> AGENT
The arguments of backward verbs are exactly in the opposite order compared to forward verbs.
Sometimes a verb is accompanied by only one participant, either agent or patient. If there is a word immediately before the U-verb, it is the patient.
┌─────────┐ ╔══════════╗
│ PATIENT │←║ A-VERB ║
└─────────┘ ╚══════════╝
nave mergu.
P V
‘Ship sank.’
If there is a word immediately after the U-verb, it is the agent.
╔══════════╗ ┌─────────┐
║ A-VERB ║←│ AGENT │
╚══════════╝ └─────────┘
venu man.
V A
‘Came a man.’
There are three possible word orders for U-verbs when both agent and patient are present: patient–verb–agent (PVA), agent–patient–verb (APV), and verb–agent–patient (VAP).
The patient-verb-agent order is common in the passive voice, where the focus is on the passive recipient of the action.
┌─────────┐ ╔══════════╗ ┌─────────┐
PVA: │ PATIENT │←║ U-VERB ║←│ AGENT │
└─────────┘ ╚══════════╝ └─────────┘
This order is usually translated to English by using the passive voice or an intransitive verb, but sometimes a transitive verb can be used too.
Examples:
ban beku tu.
– Bread is baked by you.
kupe parcu.
– The cup broke ~ got broken.
rajer suku homen.
– The king is pleased by them. ~ The king likes them.
The most common order is agent–patient–verb (APV). It is used typically in the active voice, where the the focus is on the agent of the action.
The APV order is equivalent to the subject–object–verb word order (SOV) that is the most common word order by number of languages. It is the normal word order in languages like Latin, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Hindi and Tamil. SOV is followed by SVO (i.e. AVP) as the second-most common order. Together they account for almost 90% of the world’s languages.
┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ╔══════════╗
APV: │ AGENT │ │ PATIENT │←║ U-VERB ║
└─────────┘ └─────────┘ ╚══════════╝
│ ↑
└────────────────────────┘
Examples:
me homen vidu.
– I them see.
tu ban beku.
– You bread bake.
The verb–agent–patient order is very rare but possible. This order is similar to the VSO word order of Classical Arabic and Filipino.
╔══════════╗ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐
VAP: ║ U-VERB ║←│ AGENT │ │ PATIENT │
╚══════════╝ └─────────┘ └─────────┘
│ ↑
└────────────────────────┘
vidu me tu. – ‘I see you.’
In Pandunia, also adjectives can be used as verbs. When adjectives are usd in that role, they are called adjectival verbs or stative verbs. They are basically adjectives that describe the subject in a verb-like manner. The subject of a stative verb is in the state denoted by the verb root. Stative verbs are frequently accompanied by the verb sa ‘to be’. When it is optional, it is marked inside brackets in the following examples.
me (sa) seni.
– I am old.
me vola sa juni.
– I want to be young.
tu di buke (sa) boni.
– Your book is good.
Stative verbs differ from other verbs by the fact that a stative verb is about being in a state whereas other verbs indicate a change of state.
Stative verbs are always intransitive. They can’t take an object.
Tense is a property that expresses time reference. The main tenses are the past, present, and future. The marker pasa indicates the past tense, nun indicates the present tense, and futa indicates the future tense. More specific time references are expressed with various time expressions, like yesterday, tomorrow or one hour ago.
man pasa yama ban.
– The man ate (or did eat) bread.
man nuno yama ban.
– The man eats bread (now).
man futa yama ban.
– The man will eat bread.
It is also possible to express the future in the past with a combination of two tense markers.
man pasa futa yama ban. – The man was going to eat bread.
Aspect expresses how an action or event extends over time.
shura (‘to begin or start’) indicates beginning of an action or transition to a new situation. In linguistics it is called the inchoative or inceptive aspect.
me shura fuka kote.
– I start wearing the coat. ~ I put the coat on.
kaguje shura piru.
– Paper starts to burn.
tu shura yama.
– You start to eat.
fina (‘to end, cease, quit or stop’) conveys the idea of “to stop doing something”. In linguistics it is called the terminative or cessative aspect.
homen fina haha.
– They stopped laughing.
kaguje fina piru.
– Paper ceased to burn.
tu fina yama.
– You stop eating.
pula (‘to fulfill or complete’) indicates that an action is done completely. In linguistics it is called the perfective aspect.
tu pula yama piza.
– You ate a pizza (completely).
me pula viza filme.
– I completed watching the film. / I watched the film completely.
dura (‘to keep on, continue or proceed’) indicates that a situation is on-going, continuing or in progress at the time, which the speaker is talking about. In linguistics it is called the continuative or progressive aspect.
tu dura yama piza. – You keep on eating pizza.
A more common way to express continuation is to use the verb sta (‘to stay’) in the sense ‘to be in the process of’.
tu sta yama piza.
– You are eating pizza.
me sta viza filme.
– I am watching the film.
ha (‘to exist’) indicates that the action or event is complete and its result has still an effect at the time, which the speaker is talking about. This aspect resembles what is called the perfect tense in English grammar.
me ha dona buk pa homen.
– I have given the book to them. (So I don’t have it.)
homen no ha redona le pa me.
– They haven’t given it back to me. (So probably they still have it.)
me ha vena pa pol.
– I have come to the city. (So I am still there.)
-n- denotes someone or something that does the action of the root. It is the active participle suffix.
loga
– to speak
logani
– speaking
logane
– the one who speaks
padu
– to fall
paduni
– fallen
-t- denotes someone or something that undergoes the action of the root. It is the passive participle suffix.
loga
– to speak
logati
– spoken
pada
– to drop
padati
– dropped
una
to unite
→ unati
united
The causatives are the verbs that are used to indicate that one person causes another person to do something. Causation can come about by asking, requesting, forcing, hiring or otherwise making someone else to do the job.
Sometimes the simple active verb is causative. For example, when you drop something, you make it fall.
Tomas pada petre.
– Thomas drops a stone.
petre padu.
– Stone falls.
In other situations, the causative is formed by using one of the participle suffixes. -ana means that someone causes someone to do something. -ata means that someone causes something to be done to someone or something.
Sara padana Tomas.
– Sara causes Thomas to drop (something).
Sara padata petre.
– Sara causes the stone to be dropped (by someone else).
Here is a more complete example. Note that to feed has two different causative meanings in English.
pesh yamu.
– Fish is eaten.
mau yama pesh.
– The cat eats fish.
me yamata pesh pa mau.
– I feed fish to the cat.
me yamana mau va pesh.
– I feed the cat with fish.
A causative can imply that the action is done for the one who causes it.
me no bina dom. me binata ho. – I don’t build the house. I have it built (for myself).
Serial verb construction is a string of verbs that share the same subject, which is before the verbs. In serial verb constructions the verbs are interpreted so that the first verb (an auxiliary verb) is something that the subject possesses and the second verb is something that the subject does (when there is an object in the end) or experiences (when there is no object).
me saba kitaba javab.
≈ I have the ability to write the answer.
– I can write the answer.
me halalu kitaba javab.
≈ I have the permission to write the answer.
– I may write the answer.
me musu kitaba javab.
≈ I have the compulsion to write the answer.
– I must write the answer.
Note that the same auxiliary verbs can be used alone as transitive verbs in the pivot construction.
guru halala me kitaba javab.
– The teacher permits me to write the answer.
guru musa me kitaba javab.
– The teacher compels me to write the answer.