While most Meroned verbs are regular, they don't take the common-ending form of verbs in Spanish (always -ir, -er, -ar), Farsi (-dan, -tan), Aywen (-et), or other languages. However, they do conjugate regularly. I've conjugated some things in the regular word list, simply for my own convenience; it's easier to look up "was" (dalo) than to remember that it's the past tense of "is" and go find lo, then conjugate it. However, in order to really use that word list, you'll need to know your conjugations - especially the point-of-view ones.
There are twelve tenses in Meroned -
SIMPLE TENSES
Meroned has three basic tenses. We'll use the example "to fade", zel.
Present (fades): di-, dizel/zel (the present tense is often abbreviated to just the infinitive form)
Past (faded): da-, dazel
Future (will fade): du-, duzel
PROGRESSIVE TENSES
Present (is fading): didamb ba-, didamb bazel
Past (was fading): dadamb ba-, dadamb bazel
Future (will be fading): dudamb ba-, dudamb bazel
PERFECT TENSES
Present (has faded): vibe-, vibezel
Past (had faded): dabe-, dabezel
Future (will have faded): vube, vubezel
PERFECT PROGRESSIVE TENSES
Present (has been fading): didamb vibe-, didamb vibezel
Past (had been fading): dadamb dabe-, didamb dabezel
Future (will have been fading): dudamb vube-, didamb vubezel
PERSON
Meroned also has seven persons. Using "faded" (dazel):
Singular
First person (I or y): a-, adazel
Second person (you or bel): e-, edazel
Third person (he/she or eld/elzh): di-, didazel
Third person indeterminate (it or el): bi-, bidazel
Plural
First person: (we or yyo): an-, andazel
Second person (you all or belo): en-, endazel
Third person (they or yamy): din-, dindazel
These persons essentially eliminate the need for pronoun use in regular speech, although sometimes they are used anyway (usually to emphasize a point). There aren't any formal forms, but use of the regular pronoun (bel edazel as opposed to simply edazel) is generally considered a more formal usage.
Keep in mind: You can't just say bel dazel. Chances are good you'll get your point across, but you'll be laughed at. That edazel is key.
MOOD
Meroned has only the indicative and imperative moods -- it is fully lacking the subjunctive. There is linguistic evidence that it once had a subjunctive, but as in English, it fell into disuse and is effectively lost. To indicate uncertainty, the southern regions of Meron add the suffix
-kosos
But this is a regional quirk. Like English-speakers, Meroned-speakers get by without a subjunctive, although as a result of this lack the language is more dependent on tonal nuance.
Imperative
daga- (fade!), dagazel
These prefixes are just attached onto the front of the word. With words such as "to call" (amin), the past and present active tenses drop their a's (damin, bamin), but the rest of the prefixes retain their vowels.
VOICE
Active
The active voice is the standard person, tense, and mood without any additions or subtractions.
Passive
To make a verb passive, a suffix is added. Using "it fades" (bidizel):
-zhar, ("it is faded") bidizelzhar
Note that "faded" is not in this sentence a predicate adjective. (i.e. "faded" does not say anything about the intrinsic state of "it.") Rather, "is faded" is a compound verb indicating that the fading is being done to "it" by another actor. To use "faded" as an adjective, we need .....
PARTICIPLES
Frequently it is necessary to make verbs into adjectives: verbal adjectives are called participles. These are not finite verbs, but are formed from the verb stem. Participles also can serve verbal functions, but they are particularly necessary for adjectival purposes. Meroned has four different participial forms. Forming them requires an infix, meaning the addition of syllables in the middle of the verb. This infix goes after the first consonant. Again, using the verb "to fade" (zel):
Perfect passive participle
This form in English has two possible translations. The first, more literal, is "having been __ed". This is clumsy in English: we usually shorten to "__ed". It is perfectly possible to say "the faded rug". It is also, however, possible to say "the rug having been faded." (in this, Meroned is similar to Latin.) Either translation is correct.
-abe-, "having been faded," zabeel/zabel
(note: when Meroned contains two of the same vowel consecutively, though both should technically be pronounced, common practice is to elide them: hence, zabel)
The perfect passive participle is most commonly used to form the attributive adjective. "The excited boy" uses a perfect passive participle form in excited.
Perfect active participle
-ale-, "having faded," zaleel/zalel
The perfect active participle is sometimes difficult to distinguish in translation from the perfect passive, since the English-speaking tendency is to translate them both as "faded". However, they are clearly distinct in Meroned, and the perfect active participle is primarily used apposatively: "The rug, having faded, was put away" is a sentence that would contain the perfect active, while "the faded rug was put away" would use the perfect passive.
Present active participle
-ilo-, "fading," ziloel
The present active participle is almost exclusively used adjectivally, as in, "In the fading light I saw her." Meroned has a progressive tense which almost fully eliminates the usefulness of a present active participle used as a verb.
Future active participle
-eli-, "about to fade," zeliel
This participle is easily the hardest for English-speakers to grasp. It forms an adjective that is presently untrue but will be true in the future. The sentence "the light is about to fade" may be rendered, fer bilo zeliel. This implies more immediacy than any future finite verb does.
VERBAL NOUNS
Lastly, in Meroned it is possible to make nouns from verbs. Although there are many irregular verbal nouns in the language, verbal nouns can almost always be created by removing the last consonant and adding
-zhab
So "to fade," zel, would convert to the noun "a fade" by becoming: zezhab.
THAT'S THE BASICS FOR VERB MORPHOLOGY!
These rules are almost universally applicable.
On Prefixes and Suffixes
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