More on the Elefdar Tongue: Verbs

In a previous post, I described the simple conjugation of Elefdar verbs. Today we'll talk a little bit about verbs and the way that they are transformed into nouns and participles.


Nominal Form of the Verb
The nominal form of the verb is when a verb is transformed to a simple noun expressing someone or something acting out the verb. For example, “walk” becomes “walker” and “teach” becomes “teacher”. In the Elefdar tongue, the verb takes a suffix -ad to indicate this transformation. In the above examples, abet (“walk”) becomes abatad (“walker”) and ceina (“teach”) becomes ceinad (“teacher”). Note that with a verb such as ceina where it already ends in -a, Elefdar simply adds a -d to make the nominal form.

Participial Form of the Verb
The participial form of the verb is when a verb is transformed to an adjective expressing action. For example, “I walk” becomes “I am walking”. The verb in the preceding sentence is am, and walking is an adjective describing I. In the Elefdar language, a verb becomes a participle by the addition of the suffix -a to its simple present tense form. Thus, abet (“walk”) becomes abeta (“walking”).

If the verb naturally ends with -a in its simple present tense, the final vowel is transformed to -o. Thus, ceina (“teach”) becomes ceino (“teaching”).

Examples:

Common Word	Elefdar Verb	Noun	Participle
love	aldam	aldamad "lover"	aldama "loving"
walk	abet	abetad "walker"	abeta "walking"
roam, wander	dan	danad "wanderer"	dana "wandering"
begin	firsad	firsadad "beginner"	firsada "beginning"
teach, instruct	ceina	ceinad "teacher"	ceino "teaching"