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<html><head><title>Questions on Kebreni verbs</title></head>
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<center><h1><!--title-->Questions on Kebreni verbs
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<p>Posted by <b><!--poster-->Philip Newton</b>
on <!--date-->00:03 7/14/01
<p>In reply to: <a href="94.html">Questions on Kebreni verbs</a> posted by Mark Rosenfelder</b> on 13:22 7/13/01
<p>
<blockquote><p>For the volitional, if the verb begins with a vowel,
insert an <b>h</b> before switching vowels: <b>adnedu</b> 'I add it'
--> <b>ahednedu</b> 'I add it on purpose'.</p></blockquote>
<p>Does that mean that the verb <b>es'u</b> 'to not be' is irregular?
In the conjugation table, it forms its volitional as
<b>e<u>v</u>es'u</b> and not as <b>e<u>h</u>es'u</b>.</p>
<p>The first explanation I came up with is that verbs like 'to be' and
'to do' tend to be irregular in many languages. But perhaps a better
one is this: according to the lexicon, it derives from Methaiun
<b>wech-</b>, and the <b>v</b> in the volitional may be a reflex of the
Methaiun <b>w</b> (similar to how some stems change their consonants
in, say, Verdurian due to the underlying consonant in the Cadhinor
word).</p>
<p>Of the vowel-initial verbs I found in the lexicon, this is the only
one whose original form starts with a consonant, which probably
accounts for this irregularity. Do you perhaps want to state that
reason somewhere? :-)</p>
<p>Cheers,<br>Philip.</p>
<hr><i>Mark responds:
<p>Yes, <b>es'u</b> is irregular, for historical reasons. Methaiun <b>w</b>
normally becomes Kebreni <b>v</b>. In this case it was lost word-initially,
but it was retained in the volitional.
<p>(This implies that the volitional has worked like this since ancient
times... a rare clue about Methaiun morphology. :)
<p>And yes, vowel-initial roots are rare in Kebreni. They were probably
prohibited at an early stage; but derivations and borrowings eroded this
constraint even in Methaiun times (cf. Meth. <b>ams-</b> 'touch'). </i>
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<b>Philip Newton</b>
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