---

Basic Inflections

Lisadian verbs inflect for both person and tense. The two primary tenses are non-past and past. There is also a distinction in active verb forms between transitive and intransitive or passive forms. The transitive forms inflect for person based on the agent of the sentence, while the intransitive forms never inflect for person. The active verb forms also have a secondary participle or connective (in parentheses) form for the addition of case endings, the non-past “-u” becoming “-(e)l” and the past “-e” becoming “-(e)s.” The infinitive forms are used in certain constructions and can function as gerunds. There are also three passive participles. The third-person singular infinitive form is used as the dictionary form. The following table shows the basic forms of the verb “zama” (to see).

	Non-Past	Past	Infinitive
1st Sing	zanu (zanel-)	zane (zanes-)	zana
2nd Sing	zangu (zangel-)	zange (zanges-)	zanga
3rd Sing	zayu (zayel-) / zamu* (zamel-)	zaye (zayes-) / zame* (zames-)	zama
1st Pl	zaenu (zaenel-)	zaene (zaenes-)	zaena
2nd Pl	zaengu (zaengel-)	zaenge (zaenges-)	zaenga
3rd Pl	zaeru (zaerel-) / zaemu* (zaemel-)	zaere (zaeres-) / zaeme* (zaemes-)	zaema
Intransitive	za (zal)-	zae (zas-)	zaya
Participle	zala	zasa	zava

The semantic interpretation of the intransitive form of a verb often depends on the argument and whether it is marked as agentive or patientive. For example, if the verb “zama” (to see) is used in its intransitive form, it can mean either “to look” if the argument is marked agentive (i.e. dae zae “I looked”) or “to be seen” if the argument is marked patientive (i.e. da zae “I was seen”).

Most verb forms can be derived by removing “-ma” from the dictionary form and adding the appropriate suffix. Intransitive forms are a bit irregular as the root’s final vowel will be influenced by the suffix. The root-final vowel changes are shown in the table below:

Root	Non-Past	Past
a	-a	-ae
e	-u	-e
i	-iu	-i
o	-o	-ae
u	-u	-u

*The transitive third-person forms with “-m-” are more archaic and often used in poetry.

---

Negation

The are three different ways to negate a verb in Lisadian. The first is simply by adding “nae” to the front of the verb. The second method is to use the intransitive infinitive form of the verb along with the negation verb “nama;” the verb “nama” then conjugates accordingly for person, tense, and transitivity. The third and more archaic method is to add the suffix “-in” to the end of the verb in its connective form. Remember that the abessive/genitive case is used to mark the patients of negated verbs.

---

Copular, Locative, and Possessive Constructions

The copula verb used for equative sentences and with adjectives is “ima.” It is usually treated as a transitive verb with personal inflection when used in equative sentence and phonological realized as a clitic on the preceding word and, thus, causing stem changes in the preceding word (i.e. verih “dog” -> verg’ inu “I am a dog”, zarif “happy” -> zarv’ imu “he/she is happy”). Alternatively, the agentive form of a noun can be placed directly in front of another noun or an adjective without the copula verb (i.e. ve hwin “he is a child”, dae zarif “I am happy”). Adjectives in this second construction can be marked as patientive if the subject in question is only momentarily in the depicted state or is put into that state involuntarily or by some external force; for example, dae zun (“I am slow”) means that the speaker is just naturally or always slow as an inherent trait, while dae zuna (“I am slow”) means that the speaker is slow perhaps because they are tired or for some other reason beyond their control.

When talking about location, the verb “laehma” (trans. “to stand smth up”, intrans. “to stand”) is used intransitively (i.e. dae durmin laegiu “I am in the house”). When motion is present, the verb “hrezma” (trans. “to move smth”, intrans. “to move”) is used intransitively (i.e. dae durmine hrezi “I went into the house”).

The locative construction using laehma is also used for expressing possession where the English verb “to have” is typically used; however, the exact construction is largely dependent on certain semantic criteria. If the possessed is inanimate and concrete, then the possessor is marked with the adessive case and the possessed is marked with the patientive case. If the possessed is abstract, then the possessor is marked with the inessive case and the possessed is marked with the patientive case. And finally, if the possessed is animate, then the possessor is marked with the instrumental case and the possessed is marked with the agentive case. The main way to negate this constructions is to simply negate the verb and change any instances of the agentive case into the abessive case. Alternatively, the possessor may be marked with the agentive or abessive case (depending on the level of volition involved) and the possessed marked with the caritive case; however, this construction expresses a more general lack of something.

---

“Aerdhema” Constructions

The verb “aerdhema” (to grow) is a very common auxiliary verb used in TAM constructions. The most common construction combines “aerdhema” in one of its active intransitive forms with the infinitive of another verb inflected with either the illative or ablative case. When used with the illative case, it marks progressive aspect (i.e. ga zanise aerdhu “I am looking at you”). When used with the ablative case, it marks deontic necessity or even a sort of future tense (i.e. ga zanine aerdhu “I can’t help but look at you”).

The verb “aerdhema” can also be used to mean “to become” when used with the illative case (i.e. lisa furine aerdhu “the tree becomes green” or gwenda rongine aerdhu “the man becomes a cat”). This construction can then combine with the passive participles to denote a change of state. When used with the non-past passive participle, it denotes inchoative aspect or the start of a new state (i.e. dae maeuna hloline aerdhu “I start eating the apple” or “the apple is started by me”), and when used with the past passive participle, it denotes cessative aspect or the end of a state (i.e. dae maeuna hlosine aerdhu “I finish (eating) the apple” or “the apple is finished by me”). Agent nouns, if present, are usually marked with the genitive case in this construction, while agent pronouns can optionally be marked as agentive or genitive (i.e. vergi maeuna hlosine aerdhe “the dog finished the apple”). This construction is often abbreviated in casual speech, leaving the -ne ending off of the passive participle (i.e. dae maeuna hloli’ aerdhu “I started eating the apple”).

---

Other Modal and Aspectual Constructions

Their are two modal verbs that are suffixed directly onto transitive infinitive forms of other verbs: -vima (to want) to express volition and -yema (must, to have to) to express deontic necessity or obligation (i.e. zanaviu “I want to see,” zanayu “I must see”). There are also two suffixes that attach directly to the connective forms of verbs: -iun is used to mark progressive aspect (i.e. hloneliun “I am eating”, hlonesiun “I was eating”), and -iah is used to mark prospective aspect (i.e. hloneliah “I am about to eat”, hlonesiah “I was about to eat”).

---

Participles and Attributive Phrases

Participles and attributive phrases can be broken down into whether the modifying verb or phrase is passive/intransitive or active/transitive. In the former’s case, the verb must modify a patient, and if an agent is present, it is marked by the genitive case. In the latter’s case, the verb must modify an agent and the patient is marked by the patientive case. In both cases, the modifying verb takes the modifier suffix -a and precede the noun it modifies. When negating an attributive phrase, the -in negation discussed above typically is used. All of this is demonstrated below using the verb hloma “to eat” and the nouns aer “food, earth” and verih “dog”:

---