European Loan Verbs

13.1 Introduction

Alashian's position on Cyprus has meant that the language has been in close and intense contact with non-Semitic languages for several thousand years, in particular Greek, Turkish, French, and most recently, English. This contact has had a profound impact on the structure of Alashian due to the very different morphological structure of Alashian's Semitic core (consisting of abstract roots and non-contiguous inflection) and the Indo-European/Turkic system of fixed roots and inflection.

The traditional Semitic model allows for the incorporation of loan verbs by abstracting a triliteral or quadriliteral root from a word, disregarding its original vocalic components, and applying a Semitic vowel template. This can be seen, for instance, in how Modern Hebrew verbalized טלפון telefon “telephone” as טילפן tilpen “he phoned” by extracting the root *t-l-p/f-n and applying the native template *C₁iC₂C₃eC₄, as also seen in בילבל bilbel “he confused”.

Alashian once behaved in much the same way, taking foreign words (primary Ancient and early Medieval Greek) and devising new roots usable in its root-and-template model, with words such as Greek φάρμακον phármakon “medicine, herb, drug” giving Alashian πάραν paran “heal” (root *phrān). However, as time went on and bilingualism became increasingly common, this system began to break down; conversion to a Semitic model was simply not well suited to an actively bilingual community due to the complexity involved (making it hard to use spontaneous borrowings, as is common in bilingual environments), the distortion of foreign words (rendering many foreign lexemes unrecognizable), and the presence of many foreign words for which it is simply not clear what the three or four 'most essential' consonants may be. Alashian, much like its Semitic cousin Maltese, needed a means of borrowing foreign verbs intact regardless of length or vowel structure.

The so-called 'European Loan Verb Conjugation' of Alashian consists of a heavily pared-down version of the Semitic model that is mostly affixing, with little reliance on vowel patterns for semantic force. Roots in this conjugation are always contiguous and cannot undergo vowel modification (except, for some verbs, in the imperfect), thereby acting much more like verbs in many Indo-European and Turkic languages. Nowadays the vast majority of new verbs being introduced into Alashian use this system rather than the Semitic model: τελεφούν telefūn “telephone” gives ατελεφουνώ 'atelefūnā “I am phoning”, τελεφουνώτ telefūnāt “I phoned”, and so on. Interestingly, the conjugation of native Semitic quadriconsonantal roots follows the European root model in some scales.

Some examples of loan words:

13.2 The Present Tense

The present tense, much as with native Semitic roots, consists of both prefixes (usually marking person) and suffixes (marking gender and number). For most verbs, these prefixes are *'a- (first person singular), *ni- (first person plural), *ti- (second person), and *yi- (third person), while the suffixes are *-Ø (masculine singular), *-ī (feminine singular), and *-ū (plural). Note that the non-zero suffixes will actually displace the stem augment *-ā-, which remains intact in the masculine singular forms.

If the stem is vowel-initial (or, strictly speaking, glottal-stop-initial), the vowel of the prefix is lost and just a single consonant is attached. Orthographically, an apostrophe is always inserted in place of the lost vowel. This does not apply in the first person singular; the regular prefix is employed in this case.

In spoken usage, most speakers replace the intervocalic -’- in the first person singular with /v/, so that αυργανιζώ 'a'urganizā is typically pronounced as thought it were written αв̄υργανιζώ 'avurganizā.

13.3 The Preterite Tense

The preterite tense is always regular, consisting of a series of suffixes marking person, number, and gender added to the augmented stem. These suffixes are for the most part the same as those used by regular Semitic roots, although the second person forms are always aspirated. The stem augment *-ā- becomes *-ay- in the third person feminine singular and third person plural.

13.4 The Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense is by far the most complex paradigm used by European roots, and the only one that allows vowel changes to the stem itself, at least in some cases. Three subparadigms can be identified.

The first applies to roots that are only two syllables long, counting the augment, such as δραιв̄ώ drayvā “drive” and ιουζζώ yūzzā “use, utilize”. These roots do not undergo any vowel changes, although they lose the augment and replace it with *-ie- or *-ey-. Regular imperfect endings are then added, though the second person plural forms are aspirated.

Most other verbs, however, replace the augment with *-e- rather than *-ie-, and instead replace the final non-augment vowel of the root with *-ie-. This applies regardless of what that vowel may have originally been.

However, if the vowel that would be replaced according to the above rule is already a diphthong, as in εв̄λυωιώ 'evluoyā “bless” or κυλαιλώ kulaylā “patch up”, then the root remains unchanged, and the verb conjugates like drayvā or yūzzā above.

13.5 The Perfective Subjunctive Tense

The perfective subjunctive includes two subclasses, much like the present tense. If the root begins with a consonant, the prefixes *vā- (first person singular), *vani- (first person plural), *vati- (second person), and *vē- (third person) are simply added. The augment is present in a shortened form *-a- in all forms.

If the root begins with a vowel/glottal stop, the prefixes instead become *vā- (first person singular), *van- (first person plural), *vat- (second person), and *vay- (third person). Unlike the present tense, no apostrophes are written.

13.6 The Imperative

The imperative is formed regularly for all verbs with just the root and augment (masculine singular), root + *-ī (feminine singular), or root + *-ū (plural).

13.7 Deverbatives

European-root conjugation includes an infinitive and a single participle which is active in meaning (unless modified as described in the following section). The infinitive consists of the root, the shortened augment *-a-, and the special infinitive suffix *-t ¹ . The participle consists of the prefix *mi-, the root, and the shortened augment *-a-.

13.8 Scales

Verbs with European-type roots cannot conjugate in multiple scales, at least not in the Semitic-root sense of having an alternative set of conjugations that convey a different meaning when applied to the same root. However, they do have two formants, *-n- and *-t-, which can be used to make transitive roots passive and reciprocal, respectively. These are added directly before the root in all forms, after any other conjugational prefixes. If the formant ends up in word-initial position followed by another consonant, an epenthetic *i- is added, so that the formants become *'in- and *'it-. The addition of a formant only causes one slight alteration to the paradigms described above: the participle prefix *mi- becomes *ma-, thus μιτελεφούνα mitelefūna “telephoning”, but μαντελεφούνα mantelefūna “[being] telephoned”.

Since the *t formant always forms reciprocals, it can only be used with plural subjects.

When these formants are added to a root beginning with a vowel/glottal stop, they behave as though they were part of the root and displace the glottal stop, so that in the present tense and perfective subjunctive, the prefixes used are those intended for roots beginning with consonants: ι'υργανιζώ y'urganizā “he/it is organizing”, but ινυργανιζώ yinurganizā “he/it is being organized”.

As can be seen above, these two formants never undergo any sort of assimilation, aspiration, or metathesis, as their cousins used in nuktāb and taktēb do.

Other notions expressed by the various Alashian scales have no morphological equivalent for European-type roots. Causatives and reflexives must be expressed periphrastically.

13.9 Quadriconsonantal Roots

Quadriconsonantal roots do not exist in the reciprocal scale taktēb. However, they are able to productively form reciprocals by switching to a European root paradigm with the t-formant. Any quadriconsonantal root can acquire the fixed pattern *C₁aC₂C₃ēC₃-ā- and then conjugate as though it were a loan verb, as with *balbēl “confuse” to ιτβαλβηλώ 'itbalbēlā “confuse one another”. Quadriconsonantal roots may only appear with the *t-formant; zero-formant and *n-formant forms are prohibited.