Magin_Edward-thesis

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4.4.3.3 Verb stems and their conjugations
For each verb, there are usually two distinct stems, one past and the other nonpast.
One pair of stems is axift/axiv, ‘speak’ (or ‘say’). To say ‘they spoke,’ the speaker
uses the past stem axift, 48 together with the third person, plural ending -in, ew axift-in. To
say ‘They speak,’ the non-past stem, axiv, is required: ew axiv-in. In English, we see
similar differences, such as ate/eat and went/go in which a different stem is used
depending on whether an utterance is in past or non-past tense.
Verb stems ending in a vowel take a slightly different set of suffixes (see Table 7
above). For example, the past stem of ‘to (cause to) boil (transitive)’ is kelandî. To say, ‘I
boiled the potatoes,’ a speaker would say min patat kelandîn. The verb agrees with the
plural object, taking the third person, plural ending -n.
4.4.3.4 Copulas – present, future and past tenses
The primary copula word is best considered as an irregular form of the verb bin,
‘be.’ The past stem is bu (or bû or bî) while the non-past stem can be described as a zero
(Ø) form, which takes just the bare person suffixes, as listed in Table 8. These forms are
usually written as being adjoined to preceding words.
Table 8.
Present tense irregular copulas
person & number post consonant post vowel
1SG -im me
2SG -î -î
3SG -e ye
1PL -în ne
2PL & 3PL -in ne
Examples with present tense copulas are as follows. In (52) the first person, singular
copula is attached to the adjective birsî, ‘hungry.’ The third person, singular copula is
48 Most dictionaries list verbs in the PST.3PL form, including the PST.3PL root in the listing.