INTRODUCTION
The verb is how we describe and define things, events or occurrences. These events or actions may have occurred or will occur at a certain point in time. After all, time is limited and we like to describe events as they should occur. These actions should convey whether it is still going on, over, or had occured. The state of the verb is after all, very important, as it denotes the properties of the action that occurs. In order to denote these properties, the verb is inflected (i.e. changed) to reflect them.
The process by which a basic verb (also called lemma) is inflected to denote person, mood, tense etc. is called verb conjugation. When a basic verb (usually in the infinitive form) is conjugated, the resultant form is called a verb conjugate. Many languages, such English and German conjugate verbs, but some like Chinese and Vietnamese do not. Nepali conjugates verb extensively, as the essence of the sentence is carried by it.
Take a few sentences in English. The basic verb here is ‘to see’, which can be conjugated (forms in italic) to show the tense (or the time of occurrence):
I saw cats. (past tense)
I see cats. (present tense)
I will see cats. (future tense)
Notice that the verb reflects the properties of the subject. This is very important, as the subject of the sentence is used as the basis for conjugating the verb. If instead of ‘I’, it was ‘he’, the conjugates would be very different:
He saw cats. (past tense)
He sees cats. (present tense)
He will see cats. (future tense)
We shall now look over the properties of the subject that the verb will take on below.
GRAMMATICAL PROPERTIES
When you conjugate a verb, you first look at the subject and decide its properties. These are several categories, and properties are:
Grammatical person
The perspective of the subject, whether it is in first, second or third person. Comparative example in English:
He kicks the ball. (third person)
I kick the ball. (first person)
Grammatical formality
The level of formality or respect used to address the subject. There are no examples in English, but many languages such as Nepali and German use a tiered pronominal system to denote respect. For instance, the German Sie and du (both ‘you’) are examples of differing formality:
Sie sind ein Arzt. (formal)
Du bist ein Arzt. (informal)
= You are a doctor.
Grammatical number
The number or quantity of the subject, whether it is singular or plural. Comparative example in English:
He kicks the ball. (singular)
They kick the ball. (plural)
Grammatical gender
The gender of the subject, whether it is masculine, neutral or feminine. Note that Nepali uses a zero/fem system, meaning masculine and neutral share the same conjugations, with the conjugation differing only for feminine subjects. Comparative example in English:
He kicks the ball. (masculine)
She kicks the ball. (feminine) [Note that the ending would be different in Nepali]
Grammatical tense
The time of occurrence of the event. It could be in the past, the present or the future. In Nepali, the future tense is usually denoted by the present tense, with the future tense reserved for only absolutely certain events. However, the future tense does exist and is somewhat parallel to the present. Comparative example in English:
I kicked the ball. (past)
I kick the ball. (present)
Grammatical aspect
Denotes how an action might extend over time. It could either be indefinite, progressive or perfect. Comparative example in English:
I kick the ball. (indefinite/simple)
I am kicking the ball. (progressive/continuous)
Grammatical mood
Denotes actions or situations that need to be communicated but need not necessarily be actual. They could be real or irrealis, such that they can denote commands, statements, conditions or probability. Comparative example in English:
You kick the ball. (statement/indicative)
You, kick the ball! (command)
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT
When you make a sentence in Nepali, the verb must agree with all of the grammatical properties of the subject. This agreement is also known as subject-verb agreement. In Nepali, the conjugate agrees with all of the given grammatical properties. An example in Nepali:
म भात खान्छु (ma bhāt khānchu) [first person, neutral respect, singular, neutral gender, present tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood]
= I eat rice.
तिमी भात खान्छौ (timī bhāt khānchau) [second person, medium respect, singular, neutral gender, present tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood]
= You eat rice.
Although the above seems rather complicated, it actually comes quite naturally. In fact, you are in fact doing it right now. Take this sentence in English:
They ate rice. [third person, neutral respect, plural, neutral gender, past tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood]
The verb conjugate above is agreeing with the subject’s properties between the [square brackets].
TENSE
The time at which the action occurs is called the tense. In Nepali, there are three tenses much like English. They are:
- Past tense (I ate)
- Present tense (I eat)
- Future tense (I will eat)
ASPECT
The description of the action over a period of time as it might occur is called the aspect. Like English, there are three aspects for each tense but the past tense has two extra aspects, which I haved marked with an asterisk (*) to indicate that it applies to the past tense only:
- Simple/Indefinite (I eat)
- Progressive/Continuous (I am eating)
- Perfect (I have eaten)
- *Unknown (I ate, it seems)
- *Habitual (I used to eat)
MOOD
Actions or situations that need to be communicated but need not necessarily be actual is called the mood. There are various different moods, but they all boil down to statements and everything else:
- Indicative (I eat)
- Irrealis (I might eat)
TRANSITIVITY
A verb may also carry several properties which determines whether the sentence will take a direct object or not. While this is important, this will be discussed later as we are yet to define the term ‘direct object’. However, in brief, the property of a verb by which the statement takes a direct object is called transitivity. A direct object is one that takes on the action directly. You can read more here.
ROOT OF THE VERB
All verbs are listed in the dictionary in their basic form, also known as the lemma. When you want to conjugate a verb, you want to transform this lemma so that you get the root by which you conjugate a verb. In Nepali, all verbs are listed in their indefinite form, which ends in –nu. Thus, you will see a listed verb following this pattern:
Root + नु (nu)
For example:
खानु (khānu) = खा (khā) [root] + नु (nu)
The root never changes over the course of the conjugation bar a few cases, and extracting it from the lemma is quite easy. We simply remove the नु (nu) from the verb to get the root. Thus, the root is the lexeme by which we conjugate the verb by keeping it unchanged.
CONJUGATION DEMONSTRATION
The chart below expresses the different forms of the verb to play, which in Nepali is खेल्नु (khelnu). Note that the subjects are all in singular and do not have a grammatical gender (pronouns are neutral in Nepali). The rows contain the grammatical person while the columns contain the grammatical tense. Note that the mood is indicative and the aspect is indefinite.
The root of the verb is खेल् (khel). Notice how different suffixes are used, but the root remains the same.
Red (I) = 1st person (khele*, khelchu, khelnechu)
Blue (You) = 2nd person (khelyau, khelchau, khelnechau) [mid]
Green (He)= 3rd person (khelyo, khelcha, khelnecha) [neut.]
* = Nasalisation (m̐)
EXAMPLE STATEMENTS
Using the pictorial chart to sketch out several verb conjugates, we can use them to create some statements to demonstrate how the verb changes according to the subject:
मैले* बल खेलेँ (mai-le bal khelem̐) [first person, neutral respect, singular, neutral gender, past tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood]
= I played (the) ball.
तिमी बल खेल्नेछौ (timī bal khelnechau) [second person, medium respect, singular, neutral gender, future tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood]
= You will play (the) ball.
* = Although the word for ‘I’ in Nepali is म (ma), the form used here is actually म (ma) + ले (le), with ले (le) being a case marker. In Nepali, it is important to mark the case of the subject, in this instance indicating the nominative case (this case points the action-doer). Only in few types of tenses and moods can we omit the case marker, with simple present and future being one of them (thus, only timī and not timī-le in the second statement above). In others, such as the simple past (first statement), it is obligatory to mark the nominative case with le. (Le is much weirder than that, but you will see it why later!)
Furthermore, when le or other case markers are added, it may change the form in a process called obliquing. In this case, म (ma) is changed into मै (mai). However, timī will not change for some reason, so adding le will make it timī-le only. We will go through this later, when we tackle case markers and then, obliquing. For demonstration:
तिमीले बल खेल्यौ (timī-le bal khelyau)
= You played (the) ball.
SUMMARY
- The process by which a basic verb (also called lemma) is inflected to denote person, mood, tense etc. is called verb conjugation.
- When a basic verb (usually in the infinitive form) is conjugated, the resultant form is called a verb conjugate.
- When you make a sentence in Nepali, the verb must agree with all of the grammatical properties of the subject. This agreement is thus known as the subject-verb agreement.
- The grammatical properties are: person, formality, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood.
- The property of a verb by which the statement takes a direct object is called transitivity.
- All verbs are listed in their indefinite form, which ends in –nu. The root of the verb is thus anything before it, which is used to conjugate the verb.
- To extract the root, remove the -nu. The root does not usually change, bar a few exceptions.
- Some pronouns upon taking case markers change their form. This is called obliquing.
- Subjects take up case markers obligatorily in certain tenses and aspects. Simple present is a notable exception; one need not mark the subject with a case marker.
EXERCISES
A. USING THE CHART ABOVE, FILL IN THE FOLLOWING WITH THE APPROPRIATE VERB CONJUGATE.
1. ū bal __ (He plays the ball)
2. ma bal __ (I will play the ball)
3. us-le bal __ (He played the ball)
B. USING THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES, DESCRIBE THE TENSE, ASPECT AND MOOD OF THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES.
1. John will be eating sushi.
2. Mary was a project manager.
3. Paul stayed at the Hilton hotel.
4. The university is developing solar technology.
5. You should run away now!
C. DESCRIBE THE GRAMMATICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SUBJECTS BELOW.
1. We are going home.
2. Mary and Susan went hiking.
3. You (timī) will be going tomorrow.
D. ASSUMING A SIMILAR CONJUGATION PATTERN TO THE CHART, CONJUGATE THE FOLLOWING VERBS SO THAT IT AGREES WITH THE GIVEN PROPERTIES.
1. लेख्नु (lekhnu) /to write/ = first person, neutral respect, singular, neutral gender, past tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood
2. सिक्नु (siknu) /to learn/ = second person, medium respect, singular, neutral gender, present tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood
3. पढ्नु (paḍhnu) /to read/ = third person, neutral respect, singular, neutral gender, future tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood
E. NOW, MAKE A SIMPLE STATEMENT USING THE VERB CONJUGATES OBTAINED IN D.
ANSWERS (answers for E. are for illustrative purposes only)
A.1. khelcha
A.2. khelnechu
A.3. khelyo
B.1. future, progressive, indicative
B.2. past, simple, indicative
B.3. past, simple, indicative
B.4. present, progressive, indicative
B.5. present, simple, irrealis (command)
C.1. first person, neutral respect, plural, neutral gender, present tense, progressive aspect, indicative mood
C.2. third person, neutral respect, plural, feminine gender, past tense, indefinite aspect, indicative mood
C.3. second person, medium respect, singular, neutral gender, future tense, progressive aspect, indicative mood
D.1. लेखेँ (lekhem̐)
D.2. सिक्छौ (sikchau)
D.3. पढ्नेछ (paḍhnecha)
E.(D.1.). मैले किताब लेखेँ (maile kitāba lekhem̐) = I wrote (a) book.
E.(D.2.). तिमी विज्ञान सिक्छौ (timī vijñān sikchau) = You learn science.
E.(D.3.). जन किताब पढ्नेछ (jan kitāb paḍhnecha) = John will read (a) book.
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