Verb Classes

I modified Shonkasika’s verb paradigm a bit. I made the aorist (a sort of gnomic and present habitual) and the past habitual members of a full-fledged habitual/gnomic aspect, bringing the total to four: simple(unspecified), habitual, perfect, prospective. The habitual will have two possible regular formations: the most common and currently productive way is a suffix (-li non-future, -lo future), called the ‘weak habitual’, and an older, non-productive way, partial reduplication of the beginning of the verb stem, called the ‘strong habitual’.

Taken with the strong future (ablaut, unproductive) vs. weak future(suffix -bo, productive), and the two groups of regular perfect formation (both suffixes), Shonkasika now has 8 regular verb conjugation classes that are not predictable from the citation form, the active infinitive.

The conjugation classes are grouped into 4 general classes, with each one subdivided into subclass A (with Group A perfects, in -ipe) and subclass B (with Group B perfects, in -uka):

Class 1: weak habitual, weak future
Class 2: weak habitual, strong future
Class 3: strong habitual, strong future
Class 4: strong habitual, weak future

Class 1 has the most members by far, followed in numerical order by the others (at least for now).

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