Iltârer Verbs

Iltârer verbs are inflected according to mood, aspect, and person. There is an infinitive and participles for each aspect and mood. There are three conjugations, as well as a number of irregular verbs.

Mood

The moods are the most distinctive feature of the Iltârer verb system. They represent a three-fold philosophical categorization of action as either volitional, spontaneous, or fatal. These three perspectives on action are considered complementary; in principle the same event could be described using any of the three moods.

The volitional mood is used when the action is viewed as resulting from a conscious choice. It is thus frequently used in conjunction with a human subject in the causative case to indicate deliberate, intentional action. When used with an inanimate subject, there is an implication of "divine will". The volitional mood is much more common than the other two; most actions and events are seen as volitional "by default" unless the speaker has a special need to interpret them as either inevitable (fatal) or unexpected (spontaneous).

The spontaneous mood is used when an action seems to arise of its own accord, neither willed by some obvious agent nor the inevitable outcome of natural law. There are spiritual implications here as well, since spontaneous action is associated with the deity ArKoko. The spontaneous mood is also used for hypothetical, conditional, or uncertain statements.

The fatal mood is used when the action is viewed as resulting from inevitable natural processes. It is most often used with inanimate subjects in the absolutive case, and is the norm in describing periodic occurrences (such as a sunrise) or statements supported by the force of logic. It can also be applied to human subjects, as a literary mode conveying the idea that our actions reflect deep patterns beyond our conscious control. Scientific descriptions are almost invariably expressed in fatal mood. There is no passive voice in Iltârer, but the fatal mood with a human subject sometimes conveys a similar sense.

Consider the following examples (refer to list of abbreviations if needed):

Mimi	mimephilale	a	mîlpas	an.
V-vol.viv.2	N-caus.sing	PP-2.caus.	N-abs.plur.	PP-2.ref.

The poet writes his thoughts. (Volitional mood, causative case: the poet is viewed as intending and causing the writing. This would be the usual way of expressing the idea.)

Mimin	mimephilal	â	mîlpas	an.
V-spo.viv.2	N-abs.sing	PP-2.abs.	N-abs.plur.	PP-2.ref.

The poet writes his thoughts. (Spontaneous mood, absolutive case: the writing is viewed something that happened spontaneously or magically.)

Mimiste	mimephilal	â	mîlpas	an.
V-fat.viv.2	N-abs.sing	PP-2.abs.	N-abs.plur.	PP-2.ref.

The poet writes his thoughts. (Fatal mood, absolutive case: the writing was an inevitable result of natural processes; this description has a very "clinical" flavor.

Mimi	mimephilal	â	mîlpas	an.
V-fat.viv.2	N-abs.sing	PP-2.abs.	N-abs.plur.	PP-2.ref.

The poet writes his thoughts. (Volitional mood, absolutive case: here the action is willed by an unspecified party, but not caused by the poet; the implication is of divine inspiration.)

Aspect

Iltârer recognizes only the three aspects: perfective, vivid, and potential.

Perfective

The perfective aspect indicates an action regarded as completed and irreversible. This should not be mistaken for a past tense, as the Iltâr usually describe past events in the vivid aspect. The perfective is used to indicate that the action or event has run its course and hence is removed from immediate concern, not only for the speaker and listener, but for the persons described in the discourse as well. It is used principally in relative clauses, but can be used in the main clause to provide background information or clarify a state of affairs that was set in place before the time of the main events of the discourse.

Percire Ilin a mimet nan mimête a ehte. Ilin sees (or saw) the book that he had written (or once wrote). The implication is that Ilin regards the book as an artifact of his past, perhaps with some nostalgia or regret.

Pâmaran, miemât Athiar i. From the Earth, I (Athiar) was born. (The speaker does not intend to describe the event of her birth, but to convey an established reality that sheds light on her present nature.)

Vivid

The vivid aspect is the most common in both speech and written texts. Speaker and listener are focusing on the event as a living happening, although its actual place in time may be past, present, or future. This is the usual aspect for narration, questions, statements of immediate intent, and most description. Although the sense of the vivid aspect is most sharply conveyed by the present tense in English, it should be remembered that simple narration, which constitutes a large segment of all discourse, is conventionally rendered in the past tense in English, but in the vivid aspect in Iltârer. When the time of events is important (and it often is not), Iltârer uses a temporal introductory phrase (see the page on Clauses and Sentence Structure).

Potential

The potential aspect views the action as hypothetical or possible. It is used routinely in conditional statements, and to mark speculative assertions and alternative choices. It is also used to make polite suggestions or requests.

Most conditional statements put both clauses in the potential aspect, with the condition in the volitional or spontaneous mood and the result in the fatal mood. No additional syntactical elements (like English if and then) are used:

Sila	chea	ehte,	nenilerit	i.
V-vol.pot.3	N-abs.sing.	PP-3.abs.sing.	V-fat.pot.1	PP-1.abs.

If there is sollitude, I will sit.

Pîmale	taphesari	â	Ilinen,	percirin	â	mâtâra	an.
V-vol.pot.2	N-abs.plur.	PP-2.abs.	N-caus.sing.	V-fat.pot.2	PP-2.ans.	N-abs.sing.	PP-2.ref.

If Ilin can make the citizens understand him, they will perceive his fear.

Note that Ilinen, although the object of pîmale, is in the causative case, indicating the possibility that he may himself produce the understanding. This type of conditional probably gave rise to a common Iltârer idiom, in which a noun in the causative case is used with a verb in the potential aspect in order to suggest "tries to...".

Pîmale	taphesari	â	Ilinen
V-vol.pot.2	N-abs.plur.	PP-2.abs.	N-caus.sing.

Ilin tries to be understood by the citizens.

If the verb is in the fatal mood, the sense shifts to "can..."

Pîmâlli	taphesari	â	Ilinen
V-fat.pot.2	N-abs.plur.	PP-2.abs.	N-caus.sing.

Ilin can be understood by the citizens.

Têthnerit	ia.
V-fat.pot.1	PP-1.abs

Mood/Aspect Combinations

The following chart summarizes the uses of different combinations of mood and aspect in Iltârer. This is not an exhaustive catalog of idioms, but does sketch out some common patterns of usage that may not be apparent from the descriptions of mood and aspect separately.

	Volitional Mood	Spontaneous Mood	Fatal Mood
Perfective Aspect	background, irreversible completed events, regret, nostalgia	futility, prophecy	axioms, traditional wisdom
Vivid Aspect	narration, questions, unqualified intention	surprising events, revelations, plot reversals	inevitable events, logical conclusions, periodic processes
Potential Aspect	suggestion, request, conditions, options, purpose	speculative possibilities, whimsy, fantasy, humor	results of conditions, theoretical predictions

Forms

For each tense and mood, the three forms listed are 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person, respectively.

Infinitive	-âl	-ês	-
Volitional mood
perfective	-ât, -âte, -âtâ	-êt, -ête, -ê	-a, -, -â
vivid	-a, -ace, -aca	-e, -i, -er	-a, -e, â
potential	-ali, -ale, -alâ	-er, -ir, -er	-ani, -ene, -ane
Spontaneous mood
perfective	-âs, -âs, -âsâ	-eht, -ethe, -e	-ath, -aht, -âth
vivid	-an, -ane, -ana	-en, -in, -ers	-an, -in, -as
potential	-alin, -alen, -alân	-er, -irer, -erer	-anli, -inli, -anlis
Fatal mood
perfective	-âlâr, -âlâre, -âlârâ	-e, -ise, -is	-a, -, -a
vivid	-âl, -âle, -âla	-et, -iste, -it	-e, -e, -e
potential	-âlle, -âlli, -âllâ	-erit, -erite, -irit	-an, -in, -an

Irregular Verbs

Infinitive	siel, to exist (there is)	esâl, to drink
Volitional mood
perfective	sil, sil, silâ	esâta, esâte, esâtâ
vivid	sil, sile, silâ	esa, ese, esâ
potential	sili, sile, sila	esali, esale, esalâ
Spontaneous mood
perfective	silis, silis, silâs	esâth, esâs, esâsâ
vivid	silin, silin, silas	esan, esin, esas
potential	silini, silini, silinis	esalin, esalen, esalân
Fatal mood
perfective	sil, sil, sila	esâlâr, esâlâre, esâlârâ
vivid	sil, sil, sila	esâle, esâle, esâle
potential	sin, sin, sin	esâlle, esâlli, esâllâ

Participles

Participles are formed by adding -sa to the third person ending in all cases. The participle is technically a verbal noun, often used in the reference case with an adjectival sense. Although originally the participles retained a clear semantic connection with the (indefinite) subject of the verb (so that they might be uniformly glossed with "that which..."), their increasing use as modifiers tended to shift them into more varied roles. Since there are very few matrix verb constructions in Iltârer, the participles are rarely found performing verbal functions, and the participle system may be thought of as a suite of nominalizing affixes with varied meanings. The table below shows the type of meaning typically assumed by each of the nine participles, with the verb tattan used to provide concrete examples:

	Volitional Mood	Spontaneous Mood	Fatal Mood
Perfective Aspect	one who (which) has... tattanâsa, fighter, veteran	result tattanâthsa, wounds, injury	recipient, patient tattanasa, injured one, victim
Vivid Aspect	activity, process, practice tattanâsa, fighting, conflict	event tattanassa, a fight	instrument, means tattanesa, weaponry, arms
Potential Aspect	intention tattananesa, desire to fight, bloodlust	prerequisite, circumstance tattananlissa, defensiveness	abstraction, underlying principle tattanansa, hostility, animosity

Infinitive

The infinitive is a verbal noun, sometimes used interchangeably with the vivid volitional participle, but more often as an imperative or exhortation:

Tattan chîl! Fight the darkness!

Impersonal verbs are usually simple infinitives:

Cîcîcirn. It's raining.

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