Þrjótrunn distinguishes three persons and two numbers, singular and plural.
Þrjótrunn in contrast to the nouns, the verbs have lost many of their
original Latin forms, mainly due to the heavy contractions the unstressed
endings experienced, and due to the confusion of the inflection system
that resulted from this.
Þrjótrunn has only few tenses formed morphologically. Many tenses
are formed by the use of auxiliaries.
Three modes are distinguished: the indicative, the subjunctive, and
the imperative.
Infinite forms include the infinitive, the gerund, the present
active participle, and the perfect passive participle.
Þrjótrunn distinguishes active, middle and passive voices.
In the present tense, infinitive and present participle, Þrjótrunn
distinguishes three conjugations.
In the preterite, the forms are not distinguished by conjugations,
but instead, the preterite stem is a principle part of each verb.
Additionally, the perfect participle is a principle part on its own.
The gerundive and the supines as well as many finite forms of
Vulgar Latin have not survived in Þrjótrunn.
The Latin perfect tense is called 'preterite' by Þrjótrunn grammarians,
the Latin imperfect tense was lost, and the analytical 'hefir'/'issir'
+ PPP is called 'perfect' tense in Þrjótrunn.
The -t in 3rd person present endings was probably retained due
to analogy with Germanic. It is dropped in the 3rd person
preterite (where it did not occur in Germanic either).
The tenses in active voice are formed according to
the following rules. Formation of tenses labelled 'synthetically'
will be described in the following sections. The examples given
are a 1.sg. male declaration of love to a 2.sg. female.
In the preterite subjunctive, only few verbs retain synthetic forms.
Of these, only 'issir', 'hefir', and tinir
are commonly used in spoken language.
The use of synthetic forms retained by other verbs is generally
limited to formal or written language.
In the future tense, only the verb 'issir' retains synthetical forms.[1]
Its use is found in older texts while in modern language, its
is restricted to formal occasions.
The passive coincides with perfect forms of verbs that form the
perfect with 'issir'. However,
only intransitive verbs ever form the perfect with 'issir', and
these naturally have no passive voice.[2]
The example sentence
translates as 'I(m.) am loved (by you (f.)).' this time.
The middle voice is formed synthetically with different
endings than the active. It is usually slightly more
regular than the active and can often be derived from
the active by appending an ending, especially in
non-present tenses.
Usually, simple -m (1.sg.) or -st (otherwise) is suffixed
to form the middle voice, but some forms have different vowels
and different umlaut behaviour compared to the active
endings. This document, therefore, lists all the
endings.
In compound tenses, -st- as appended to the particple
or infinive. Final -ð, -s and -r are dropped.
The middle voice emerged by the postponed reflexive
pronoun merging with the verb. Of the original enclitical
form, few is retained. Original accusative and dative are
not distinguished anymore, and the usage of the
middle voice was also widened.
Most personal endings now have -st as a sign the
middle voice. The '-se' and '-te' endings won
over other reflexive endings and after several
simplification stages, the -st remained. Only
in the first person, the original '-me' is
retained as an '-m' ending.
By the different syncope under influence of the
longer ending, some original vowels are retained,
so the original conjugational peculiarities in Latin
are best visible in the middle voice.[3]
Only actions and events can be put in the progressive; states
cannot. Due to this restriction, our example
sentence has a certain connotation...
Progressive Aspect
'issir' + 'að' + gerund in
accusative case (1, 2, 3).
Present Indicative
Já sú að ömunn té.
A different, now obsolete, progressive was formed
with 'issir' + present participle.
These forms are generally not in use anymore, but in the preterite
subjunctive, the form survives to fill the gap of most verbs lacking
synthetic preterite subjunctive forms. The construction has lost
its originally progressive meaning.[4]
A participle in non-future and non-conditional compound tenses
with the auxiliary 'hefir' shows
agreement with the direct object, if present. I.e., it is in
accusative case with number and gender equal to the direct object.
If the direct object is not given, the perfect participle agrees
with the subject, i.e., it is in nominative case, and number and
gender are equal to those of the subject.[5]
A participle in future or conditional compound tenses is always
in the neuter accusative singular (i.e., it agrees with the
infinitive).[6]
A particple in compound tenses with the auxiliary 'issir'
shows agreement with the subject. (This also holds for the
passive voice and the subjunctive preterite).[7]
The participle perfect in middle voice is indeclinable.
Verbs belonging to this paradigm usually have stems
ending in consonant clusters. In some forms, epenthetic
-i- were inserted for rendering the clusters pronouncible
(in 3.sg., 1.pl, 2.pl.).
On the other hand, in the simple paradigm, an original
vowel is sometimes dropped while it is retained in the
vocalic paradigm (e.g. in the infinitive).
The participle behaves similar to an adjective of the 3rd declension with a disyllabic stem and a heavy second
syllable, only dat.pl. is a bit different.
The nom.sg. ends in -ar, the other forms have a
stem ending in -atj-, where the -a- is never
dropped. This -a- is subject to i-umlaut,
becoming -e-.
Regular sound shifts would have dropped the vowel in
the ending -atj- < -ant(i/e)-. But it seems the
ending was stable enough to keep its vowel.[8]
Moreover, the consonant cluster -nt- was probably
long -tt- in earlier language, but was obviously
shortened in its unstressed position.
Probably because the vowel was not dropped from the
-atj- ending, the case ending in dat.pl. suffered
an additional syncope, probably -ur < *-wur
< *ibuʀ < -ibvs.
The stem is often formed by adding -at- to the present
stem, but in general, the stem is irregular. The declension
tables are
shared with the other conjugations.
The stem is often formed by adding -v- to the present
stem, but in general, the stem is irregular. The conjugation
tables are
shared with the other conjugations.
This is the original Latin 2nd or ē-conjugation.
Some i-stem verbs (often those with a light stem syllable) of the
consonantal conjugation were reinterpreted as beloning to this
conjugation (e.g. facere, faciō.
Insertion of -j- is irregular. It depends on
the original weight of the first syllable, so it's
irregular in some cases today. In the cases where the
syllable weight has changed, the ending has sometimes
been adjusted by analogy, too.
3.pl.
Stems in -k(j) or -g(j) have i-umlaut. Stems in -j
have -juð ending instead of -ið.
The participle behaves similar to an adjective of the 3rd declension with a disyllabic stem, only dat.pl. is different.
The ending is -ir in the nom.sg. and an infix -itj- is
added before the case endings, which triggers
no i-umlaut in normal stems, but does trigger
umlaut in stems in -j- (e.g. inf. þakkir >
part.pres.acc.sg. þekiti).
The stem is often formed by adding -it- to the present
stem, but in general, the stem is irregular. The declension
tables are
shared with the other conjugations.
The stem is often formed by adding -(v)- to the present
stem (i.e., it is a weak v-stem), but in general, the
preterite stem is irregular. The conjugation tables are
shared with the other conjugations.
This is the original Latin 3rd or 'consonantal' conjugation,
into which the 4th conjugation verbs have collapsed by
interpreting them as having a j-stem.
The gerund is a neuter noun of the second declension which
has an irregular nom.sg. equal to the infinitive,
and only singular forms. The forms are the same
as for the 2nd conjugation.
The participle behaves similar to an adjective of the 3rd declension with a disyllabic stem, only dat.pl. is different.
The ending is -ir in the nom.sg. and an infix -itj- is
added before the other case endings, which triggers
i-umlaut in the stem.
The preterite forms often use a different stem. While it
is often the present stem plus -(v), it is an independent
stem in general. This is why there is a separate
chapter about perfect and preterite, just as if there was
an additional conjugations for preterite and perfect.
In the preterite indicative, strong and weak v-stems are
distinguished, depending on whether 3.sg. is in -a or in -u.
The weak v-stems will be marked with -(v)- while the strong
v-stems will be marked with -v-.
The perfect participle is a principal part of a verb and will be
listed in a good dictionary. Nevertheless, in many cases, the stem
ends in -at- (1st conjugation), -it- (2nd and 3rd conjugation), or
-t- (many irregular verbs), which will mutate to -ð at the end of
a word after a vowel. Often in complex stems, the vowel does
not drop from the -it- or -at- ending.
The participle perfect behaves like an ordinary adjective of the first declension with a disyllabic stem.
This form is exclusively used to form the middle
voice of compound tenses that use the perfect participle.
The form is derived from the n.nom.sg., and is uninflected.
It is quite regularly derived from the normal passive voice
by suffixing -st. In front of -st, several consonants
are dropped: -s, -st, -t, -tt, -d and -ð are dropped.
(In Old Þrjótrunn, the dropped -st, -t and -tt, -dd, and -ð
caused the -st ending to become -zt.)
The 2. and 3.sg. of the pres.ind. have changed
a bit: L. 'est' dropped the -t.
On the other hand, L. es
> *ez > *eʀ > er probably
copied the initial t- of the 2nd person pronoun:
*'er tú' > 'ert tú'.[9]
As in other Romance languages, the present subjunctive
is not the original
Latin 'sim, sīs, sit', but a form generalised from the
2. or 3. conjugation subjunctive endings (e.g. -iam, -iās, -iat).
Just like in other Romance language, the preterite
subjunctive derives
from the Latin pluperfect subjunctive.
What make this verb irregular is mainly the presence of a
preterite subjunctive form. And since it is a frequent and
important auxiliary, we list the forms for reference anyway.
This is analogous to Old French, where
the synthetical future survived: ier,
iers, iert,...
2
This is the standard way most Romance languages
form their passive voice. French among others
retains a lexicalised distinction between
'avoir' and 'être' verbs, the latter of
which are always intransitive.
3
The middle voice development parallels that
of Icelandic quite well. It is most
fascinating that both Germanic 'sik' as well
as Latin 'sē' finally result in the
same ending '-st'!
4
Modern Icelandic shows a progressive
construction with 'vera' + present
participle. In Þrjótrunn, this
once existed and is now fossilised without
progressive meaning.
5
Both French and Italian show (somewhat restricted)
object agreement in such verb constructions. Usually
these derive from earlier constructions where the
participle was part of the object, not the verb,
like in 'I have a painted room.' for 'I have painted
a room'.
6
This type of agreement is logical if the
infinite is viewed as the object of such
a construction. It is thus analogous to
the normal object agreement rules.
7
This is just like the agreement rules in
many Romance languages.
8
Icelandic -andi ending is also quite
robust.
9
In Icelandic, exactly the same happened, only
the 't' is triggered by 'þú'
instead ot 'tú'. (E.g. Gothic has 2.sg.
'is' and 3.sg. 'ist', the latter just like
Modern and Old High German.)
