Seratofian verb paradigm

Seratofian verb paradigm is the complete set of grammar rules which modify a verb root to convey grammatical and semantic information that satisfy a variety of both grammatical categories and day-to-day needs. The overall verb paradigm in Seratofian is best described in terms of 'windows' (Seratofian: žéli) as conjugation is seen in term of a combination of tense-aspect-positivity rather than a whole set block which determine the whole conjugation set, rather the windows system is a set of preverbs and endings for that specific combination. In general, a different mood will be the namesake of its own set of windows, with the example of the indicative windows, subjunctive windows, etc..

General characteristics
Verbs in Seratofian have one base infinitive, which can be derived into three more "additional infinitives" (sometimes referred to as 'child infinitives') for a total of four infinitives. Infinitives are divided up into positivity (positive and negative), as well as perfectness (perfect and imperfect). The imperfect-positive infinitive serves as the base infinitive in all Seratofian verbs. Specific tenses do not have their own infinitives and are subject to the four total infinitives found in modern Seratofian. Modern Seratofian distinguishes three major moods (indicative, subjunctive, conditional), one minor mood (imperative), three basic tenses (past, present, future), two major aspects (imperfect and perfect) as well as two minor aspects (simple and continuous), as well as two voices (active and passive). Seratofian, however, does not distinguish its conjugations between transitive, intransitive, stative, or medial verbs. These categories are organized into what is known as a window system as previously mentioned and are categorized into sub-windows of specific moods by either its preverb, first and third person singular present tense endings, or even both.

Rather than set conjugation patterns (like 1st, 2nd, or 3rd conjugations), Seratofian verbs are classified based on their window code (like Ia3-IIe1-IIIa1-IVa2), which are found in almost every dictionary entry for a verb. These can be called as a 'pattern in a pattern', as there are several verbs which conjugate similarly in all three moods. Some linguists even try to classify all the possible conjugations into a big list of conjugations like other Artemian languages but was proven to be very difficult to accomplish as the reference grammars and conjugation lists all referred to the windows system, and separated the preverbs and endings into moods and not conjugations.

Window system
The window system in Seratofian is a term coined by linguists to describe the verbal paradigm found in modern Seratofian, as the entire paradigm does not rely on set conjugations, but rather segments of patterns from each mood which are combined with other set patterns for other moods and passiveness to complete a set of conjugation for the verb. Usually, a window consists of conjugations for all three persons in all the three numbers of Seratofian, as well as the preverb for forming the additional infinitives. Every verb essentially possesses five windows, one for each window category. The conjugations of that verb thus follow the set patterns (or templates) that are within the corresponding assigned window for the entire paradigm, as a window dictates the formation of additional infinitives and the endings for each and every verb that falls within the window. The use of preverbs in the additional infinitives is another strong determiner and use for the windows system.

There are, however, exceptions to the windows system. A few very commonly used like the copula ér "to be" and vér "to want" have their own separate set conjugation patterns, although they sometimes mimic conjugation windows found elsewhere in regular conjugation. These verbs, attributing to their rampant and vigorous use, have maintained their sense of independence from the system, and have become formally codified with the passing of the first modern Seratofian complete grammar books recognizing their irregularity.

Window classifications
Window system classification consists of three parts. The first part consists of a roman numeral, which coincides with the mood and passiveness of the verb. These major classifications are known as "doors" in Seratofian grammar study. The second part consists of the first person ending of the present tense imperfect mood, also known as a conjugation theme, and the third part consists of a number which is a differentiator from all the systems which have similar categories as the previous two parts. Below is a list of mood-voiceand their corresponding roman numeral in the traditional window classification notation:

The conditional passive forms have largely eroded and have become supplemented using periphrastic construction with the conditional verb in the indicative passive form followed by the verb in the subjunctive passive. This construction, however, is rarer in modern speech, with conditional passives being dropped in favor of more active constructions in the conditional, even in formal registers. However, conditional passives were still prescribed as its separate own window system by the late 19th century, as Seratofian grammarians tried to maintain the language to its original roots, even if the conditional passive has been eroding since the mid of 18th century as evident in numerous writings and works.

The imperative may be treated as a sixth window, but the trend of associating a certain window system with a window system of the imperative windows has led to the merging of the imperative windows with the indicative active ones, treating them as an extension of the indicative-active window system. It is entirely possible to describe and list their endings in its entirety its own separate paradigm, but the practice was stopped in the 1931 spelling and grammar reforms done by the Seratofian Language Academy to simplify classifications of the Seratofian verb paradigm. The imperative itself is already collapsing into a single-window in colloquial speech as fixed affixes are attached to the end of such verbs to form imperative constructions suitable for different grammatical categories but are kept in formal speech.

In addition to the main mood-voice combinations, conjugation theme within each respective door system further divides the main paradigm into various different ways of expressing the mood-voice combination which is dependent on the first person present conjugation. Seratofian first-person present conjugations usually serve as the base for all other conjugations in that same window, and form the backbone of the conjugation number system employed in modern Seratofian grammar. As a result, the conjugation theme classifier within the traditional classification of windows is usually that theme vowel which determines the first person present conjugation, for example: a, e, or i. They are called theme conjugations because of the appearance of the so-called "theme vowels". There are instances where the theme vowel is accompanied by a nasal consonant (such as m and n), which are categorized differently from the "plain" theme vowel conjugations. There are also other instances where a different type of consonant is inserted, but not as common as nasal consonants.

Below is a list of conjugation themes and variations possible in Seratofian. Note that GT stands for general theme and ST for specific theme. Variations are differences within each specific theme conjugation, showing discrepancies within the same conjugation pattern. They are not classified as other specific theme conjugations within the same general theme conjugation as they do not have a fundamental change to the first person present conjugation, from which the basis of window classification modern Seratofian verb paradigm is based on. Thus said, the variations in the Seratofian verb paradigm make the entire system of conjugations very irregular, which may span various tenses and even the formation of the additional infinitives along with its preverbs. Variations can include, but not limited to, ablauts, length, and emission in various circumstances.

It is interesting to note that the theme vowels a and e on average possess the most variations across all doors. This may be attributed to the wider variety of verbs contained within each specific general theme vowel as well as shifts in conjugations. Throughout the conjugation paradigms, the overall tendency for the nasal and consonant insertion after the theme vowel to possess fewer variations is a sign of innovation within the Seratofian language, although some nasal themes have evolved concurrently with other vowel themed conjugations. Thus, nasal conjugations that possess more variations than the average can usually be attributed to natural evolution rather than innovation.

In isolated cases, the o and u theme vowels possess equal or even more amounts of variations when compared to the a and e theme vowels. The historic Proto-Artemian theme vowels of o, which was abundant in the proto language, had split into two major groups of o theme vowels and u theme vowels, giving birth to more variations from an early stage of the development of the Seratofian language. In short, the old theme vowel carried on from Proto-Artemian, and the irregularities and discrepancies between each variation of the same specific theme can be great, but sometimes mimic those of the u theme conjugations that were born of the same root.

Grammatical categories
As previously mentioned before, the Seratofian verb paradigm differentiates grammatical categories to fulfill semantic roles within daily speech. Below are the grammatical categories differentiated within Seratofian and their explanations below.

Mood
Grammatical mood in Seratofian is baked into the core of the Seratofian verb paradigm. From grammatical mood, the respective "doors" of Seratofian conjugation are formed when coupled with voices. As such, grammatical mood plays an important part of determining the attitude and the inflection of verbs to convey the correct grammatical substance to the listeners. With such, modern Seratofian distinguishes between three major moods, which are also used with a diverse set of modal verbs to convey more specific meanings. The moods found in modern Seratofian are:


 * Indicative
 * Subjunctive
 * Conditional

In addition to the three major moods found above, Seratofian also distinguishes, and also has dedicated endings for verbs, the imperative mood, treated as a subset of the indicative by modern grammarians.

The indicative is by far the most common mood used in daily speech. The indicative conveys the declarative purpose of language and has the most complex and fleshed-out conjugation system due to its rigorous use in daily speech, while the subjunctive declares one's wishes, comments, emotions, or thoughts on a matter. The most common use of the subjunctive mood is with the modal verbs "to want", "to desire", and "to dream". It is entirely possible to form hypothetical scenarios using only the subjunctive conjugation without using any modal verbs, but is less commonly used, mainly due to the presence of the South Artemian sprachbund theorized by some linguists.

The conditional mood is used to describe if-then statements and sentences, usually with an onset of a condition and a consequence of either fulfillment or not fulfillment. The conditional mood is also mainly used with the modal verb "would", but is extremely common to be left out due to its redundancy within the sentence. The imperative mood is used to command others to do a specific task or chore using separate forms of a verb to emphasize the necessity of doing such. Although the imperative mood has been merged with the indicative in most grammar books, they still are a part of the four base moods of Seratofian.

Tense
=Door I: Indicative-active= The first door in the traditional set of Seratofian verb paradigm is the indicative-passive door, which comprises of four separate infinitives, two for the perfectness of the verb, which is subdivided again into negation of that verb, as is with every other door. The first door is the most used door in Seratofian, as it is the only realis active mood within Seratofian. The door is also noted for being really extensive in its variety of themes and variations. The first door consists of 5 general theme vowels (a, e, i, o, u), divided into 13 specific theme vowels, for a total of 31 variations for the first door, the most out of any door.

General theme Ia
General theme Ia consists of four specific themes further subdivided into nine different variations. Theme Ia comprises of specific themes a, ar, am, and an, who have an -a theme vowel unifying the whole Ia paradigm. Theme Ia is characterized by the lack of third-person conjugations in its present form and is therefore found across the specific themes. Moreover, theme Ia serves as a "base" for the other a themes across other doors, as some variations of other doors mimic closely some specific variations of theme Ia. The details of each specific theme and variation would be further discussed in each variations' respective section.

Specific theme Ia
Specific theme Ia conjugates verbs that have an a as the theme vowel in the first person present tense. Specific theme Ia comprises of 5 different variations, some of which greatly differ in the past and future tenses as a result of being classified by only the present. However, due to them being classified as the same specific theme, some more irregular endings and inflections on these systems have become more streamlined to follow the more major pattern (Ia1), thus making the paradigm less irregular than before. Specific variations would be discussed in further detail in each respective section.

Variation Ia1
Variation Ia1 is considered by many linguists to be one of the major conjugation patterns in both general theme Ia and specific theme Ia. This variation is marked by the systematic and regular attachment of preverbs to both the perfect and negative categories, as well as the somewhat regular formation of both the past and future tenses which serve as a standard for more regularization across themes. Variation Ia1, in line with other Ia conjugations, do not have their own dedicated preverbs for the negative perfect and the positive perfect, and the negative perfect infinitive for all tenses is simply attaching a negative suffix to the front of the verb along with the perfect preverb.

Below are the endings for variation Ia1 in all tenses, perfectness, and positivity:

A general trend for variation Ia1 is the regular endings of all the categories, and morphology in this variation could seem to be more agglutinative than it is fusional, as is apparent with the regular past tense identifier -áj- in the first and third persons and -éš- in the second person, while the future is formed by inserting -av-.As apparent from the table above, some first person singular and third person singular forms are identical. This is thought to happen due to the omission of the final vowel found in the nucleus of the final syllable in more inflected forms.

Note that the letters in parentheses only appear whenever the consonant preceding or successive phoneme appears to be a vowel. As previously mentioned before, the perfect negative infinitives are constructed by combining the perfect and negation preverbs into a single preverb. However, it is noted that the past conjugations in the perfect negative conjugations take on -ún before the preverb eu-, forming úneu(r)- as the preverb with the insertion of  to smoothen the transition between the root and the preverb. Also in the present perfect negative, a schwa is inserted between the perfect preverb and the negative preverb to enable the nasal  to be the coda of the second syllable of the preverb and not the onset of the root verb.

Below is an example for the Ia1 verb ežtír "to find".

Variation Ia2
Variation Ia2 shares some things in common with variation Ia1, especially in its present and future forms. The past forms of variation Ia2 are somewhat irregular when compared to the other variations in this specific theme set. As such, variation Ia2 contains the same preverbs and combinations of preverbs as variation Ia1 except in the past tense of all four additional infinitives, even then, some forms of the past tense preverbs mimic those of the first variation.

Below are the endings for variation Ia2. The past preverbs in perfect and negative are completely different than the major variation (variation Ia1), and thus are suffixed also differently from the other. The first and third person perfect preverbs in the future tense have been kept the same as in variation Ia1, although the endings of the dual forms are a bit different. The second person simple present has also mutated into the combining form of -éš.

Below is the conjugation chart for the Ia2 verb édir "to eat".

Verbs with the infinitive starting with a consonant will have that consonant mutate with the surrounding environment or is lost completely.

Variation Ia3
Variation Ia3 is probably one of the most irregular variations within specific theme Ia, possessing some forms that mimic general theme Ie, however, it has been influenced more by Ia. Many linguists note the shifts in conjugations that led to the bulk of previously Ie verbs to be conjugated using the Ia paradigm, mostly due to incorrect usage and application of the paradigm onto daily verbs which eventually causes shifts in conjugation. Variation Ia3 was not considered a real variation until the late 1930s, where it was seen as simply a mistake. In its core, the present tense forms have all completely merged with variation Ia1, and in the simple tenses show some variation between Ia1 and Ia2, however for the rest of the window is a complete mix between Ia and Ie with the tendency of Ia dominating over Ie. The negative forms heavily depend on variation Ie too, and as a result, variation Ia3 contains very little verbs.

Below are the endings for variation Ia3.

The perfect preverbs of š-, u-, and v- are reminiscent of the Ie paradigm, which is still vigorously used in that theme. The negative forms are also a remainder of the past Ie conjugation stem which have been combined with some aspects of general theme Ia. The overall tendency of this variation to continue to absorb more endings from the general theme Ia has become clear in some dialects where variation Ia3 has fully merged with variation Ia1, and the Ie preverbs have been completely lost.

Below is an example for the verb kelér "to cover.

It is important to note that the onset /k/ in the example above has been omitted and in place has palatalized the preverb for the perfect aspect.

Variation Ia4
Variation Ia4 bears many similarities with variation Ia1 in essence that the infinitives and the preverbs bear great similarity although subtle differences exist in the future tenses. A major difference between the two variations is that the negative has been collapsed into a single n- preverb across all persons and tenses in the plural form, which mainly end in -t. There are also notable discrepancies within the third person endings across all tenses and voice-positivity combinations. Below is the conjugation chart for variation Ia4.

Below is an example of the verb a̋šír "to shade"

Variation Ia5
Variation Ia5 is characterized by the lack of differentiation between second and third person endings across all tenses and voice-positivity combinations, resulting the past forms of the second person pronoun to be regularized with other persons. The variation also is heavily similar to variation Ia4 in the essence of the collapsing of all negative preverbs into a single preverb for all tenses and persons. However, variation Ia5 differs in some endings in the first person plural across all tenses with the previous variation. Variation Ia5 is also noted to be one of the most regular variations in general theme Ia. Below is the conjugation chart for variation Ia5.

The conjugation paradigm appears to be more simplified with the emerging of both the first and second person into a single form, as well as the standardization of the past "part" -áj- into all grammatical categories. Across all conjugation variations, this phenomenon is considered odd, with other instances of such mergings usually occurring with the first and third persons. Although odd, the conjugation is still very regular when compared to other conjugation variations of all doors.

Below is an example for the verb éštetír "to appear"

Specific theme Iar
Specific theme Iar is characterized by the addition of the -ar suffix onto the first person singular present simple category. This specific theme does not have any variations, meaning that all verbs that fall into this specific theme are conjugated the same way. Specific theme Iar also possesses different forms for the third-person singular present simple conjugation from the previous specific theme, although the bulk of the conjugation is similar to that of specific theme Ia. Below is the conjugation table for theme Iar.

The preverbs for the perfect positive past and future mimic those of Ia1 and Ia2.

Below is a conjugation chart for the verb škrépér "to write".