ünite dokuz The verb: Primary tenses of the indicative mood (durative present, negative formation, future, preterite).

UNIT NINE

The verb: Primary tenses of the indicative mood (durative present, negative formation, future, preterite).

The essential order of words in the Chuvash sentence, a subject which we shall devote greater attention to later in any event, positions the verb at the end of the clause or sentence. Thus, the sentence begins with the subject, followed by the object, with any other elements of manner or place and time arranged next inline, and finally, the verb concluding. The basic function of the verb is to state action or to predicate existence.
In the present Grammar we shall confine ourselves to the chief forms of current Chuvash usage. Some other forms may be found, but their usage is limited. For convenience, we divide the tenses of the indicative mood (the forms that express fact or actual occurrences, rather than what might or would happen) according to their formation into the primary and secondary tenses. Although we use the term “tense“ to describe the different forms of the Chuvash verb, the connotation of time that this word has is not the on one which the form possesses. We might also speak of “aspect,“ or the manner of looking at an action, focusing not so much on the relative time sequence of events, but features like customary action versus one-time action. In the case of the first tense, the durative present, the meaning is not only that of an action occurring this instant (the fish is swimming this moment in the stream) but also of actions habitually characteristic of the subject (fish swim, as in their nature, in the ocean).


Durative Present

The durative present tense has the formant -t-, after which certain endings characteristic of the different persons are added. These persons are the first, or the speaker (I), and its plural (we), the second, or person spoken to (you) and its plural (also ‘you‘ in English, but different in Chuvash), and the third person, the one spoken of, (he) with its plural (they). The persons will always be given in the same order (1st sg.‚ 2nd sg.‚ 3rd sg.‚ 1st pl.‚ 2nd pl.‚ 3rd pl.), and for this reason, will not be specially marked. The endings characteristic of this tense are not difficult. Chuvash verbs in general have only one declensional type, but there are some variants caused by the vowel harmony, and by whether the stem ends in a vowel or consonant. According to the Chuvash grammarians, the durative present (which they call the Present-Future) denotes:

a. action being completed at the moment of speaking

b. actions going on in general terms, as part of the natural order of things

c. a definite categorical future: something that absolutely is going to take place - this is expressed with the durative present

Herewith we present the forms for the four possible variants in this tense.

  vowel stem    consonant stem

 vula. tăp ĕşle. tĕp  şyr. atăp kil. etĕp
 vula. tăn ĕşle. tĕn  şyr. atăn kil. etĕn
 vula. t"  ĕşle. t şyr. at" kil. et

 vula. tpăr ĕşle. tpĕr  şyr. atpăr kil. etpĕr
 vula. tăr ĕşle. tĕr  şyr. atăr kil. etĕr
 vula. şşĕ ĕşle. şşĕ  şyr. aşşĕ kil. eşşĕ

Note that the tense formant -t- is characteristic of all persons except the 3rd p. pl.‚ where it assimilates before ş to ş. In the current Cyrillic orthography, a soft sign (‘) is used after the -t- of the 3rd p. sg. for back vowel stems only. Since this is not phonemic, we do not reproduce it in these lessons, but it will be found in the reading selections {Chuvash.org: it is phonemic, e.g. vărat "to wake smb", vărat" "he"s throwing smth". Chuvash.org may have replaced soft signs where necessary}. The student is reminded that the -t- of the 1st p. pl. assimilates in ordinary pronunciation to the following bilabial stop -p-, so that these forms are usually pronounced [vulappăr], [ĕşleppĕr], [şyrappăr] and [kileppĕr].
Historically, it may be of interest to note the origin of the tense from a combination of a verb form in -a/-e to which a reduced form of another verb tăr- (“to stand“ > “to be“) was added, plus reduced forms of personal pronouns.
Note that this tense is sometimes translated into English by a future, especially with “going to,“ as in “I write, I am going to write, I‘m going to New York tomorrow,“ rather than the future “I shall go to New York.“ Some examples of the tense follow.

 hĕvel tuhat"  the sun rises
 şyn üpkepe syvlat" man breathes with his lungs
 shyv anatalla juhat" water flows downstream
 yran epĕ Muskava kajatăp I‘m going to Moscow tomorrow
 mĕnshĕn hujhăratăn?  Why are you sorrowing?
 hăşan tavrăntăn   When do you return? When are you going to come back?
 ansan sana tytaşşĕ  When (we) descend, they will seize you
 ĕşmeşşĕ          they do not drink, they are not drinking
 nişta ta kajmastăp  I am not going anywhere
 tytăşşĕ    they are holding you, they will hold you, 

they are going to hold you

Negative Formation

Up to now we have not mentioned how to say “not“ with respect to anything. Thus it may surprise the student to learn that in Chuvash there is no individual word for not, but that this is incorporated as a morpheme into the middle of the word. The morpheme is {-m-}, with allomorphs of -mă-/-mĕ-, -ma-, etc. In the durative present, the allomorph is -mas-/-mes-. The negative forms of the preceding verbs are, then:

 şyrmastăp kilmestĕp  vulamastăp ĕşlemestĕp
 şyrmastăn kilmestĕn  vulamastăn ĕşlemestĕn
 şyrmast" kilmest  vulamast" ĕşlemest

 şyrmastpăr kilmestpĕr  vulamastpăr ĕşlemestpĕr
 şyrmastăr kilmestĕr  vulamastăr ĕşlemestĕr
 şyrmaşşĕ kilmeşşĕ  vulamaşşĕ ĕşlemeşşĕ

In colloquial pronunciation, the -t of the 3rd p. sg. disappears. A few examples are the following:

 tupajmastăr  you cannot find
 nişta ta kajmastăp I shall not go anywhere
 hătălajmastăn you will be unable to save yourself

Future Tense

The second tense of the Indicative or factual mood is the future. It is formed with the stem of the verb, to which the personal endings (almost identical with those of the durative present) are added. The ending of the future tense is a zero-formant, in other words, no ending, plus the durative endings, in all persons except the 3rd, where -ĕ and -ĕş are used. This tense is called the Future-Indefinite in Chuvash grammars, and is used when the expression of the future is more general, and not so dogmatic, that is, when the speaker is less convinced that an action will definitely take place. The endings for this tense are the following:

 şyrăp  pĕlĕp   vulăp  ĕşlĕp
 şyrăn  pĕlĕn   vulăn  ĕşlĕn
 şyrĕ  pĕlĕ   vulĕ  ĕşlĕ

 şyrăpăr pĕlĕpĕr  vulăpăr ĕşlĕpĕr
 şyrăr  pĕlĕr   vulăr  ĕşlĕr
 şyrĕş  pĕlĕş   vulĕş  ĕşlĕş

The negative formation for this tense infixes the allomorph -m- of the negative morpheme.

 şyrmăp  pĕlmĕp   vulamăp  ĕşlemĕp
 şyrmăn  pĕlmĕn   vulamăn  ĕşlemĕn
 şyrmĕ        pĕlmĕ         vulamĕ  ĕşlemĕ

 şyrmăpăr       pĕlmĕpĕr        vulamăpăr       ĕşlemĕpĕr
 şyrmăr  pĕlmĕr   vulamăr  ĕşlemĕr
 şyrmĕş  pĕlmĕş   vulamĕş  ĕşlemĕş

Note that in the written language the 3rd p. sg. and pl. uses front vocalism regardless of stem. The dialects also use the expected -ă.
Some examples of the use of this tense are the following.

 anmăpăr    let‘s not descend, go down
 ülĕmren kurajmăn   you will not be able to see him in the future
 hăshne ilĕn    Which one will you take?
 kurajmăn    you will be unable to see me
 esĕ kajăn-i    Will you go?
 esĕ kirek ăşta jarsan ta kajăp  I shall go wherever you may send me
 tupajăn-i    Will you be able to find them?
 epĕ vişĕ hutcen kĕsenep  I shall whinny three times
 sana arămu tytĕ   your wife will seize you
 pallama tytăp    I shall hire you for to know.

Preterite Tense

The third tense of the Indicative is the preterite, employing the tense formant -R, with the following allomorphs:

a. -r after vowel stems, and after consonants except /l n r/

b. -t after stems in /l n r/

c. -ch -in the 3rd p. sg. of stems in /l n r/


Note the similarity of these morphophonemic changes to that of the locative relational morpheme. To the tense formant, personal endings very similar to the possessive morphemes are added. Some persons speculate that these formations like the preterite arose from an original noun, in this case, in -r, to which reduced personal pronouns were added, thus ‘~my writing, my written thing“ becomes “I wrote, I have written.“
This tense indicates a clearly past action, not relative to any other past, thus, being more like a perfect tense: I have seen, have written. It is an eye-witness tense, used by persons who know about the event first-hand, rather than a narrative tense, in which the event is merely reported by another. The preterite is used for vivid description, and is called the past categorical by the Chuvash grammar writers. The forms are the following:

 vularăm  ĕşlerĕm   şyrtăm  kiltĕm
 vularăn  ĕşlerĕn   şyrtăn  kiltĕn
 vularĕ  ĕşlerĕ   şyrchĕ  kilchĕ

 vularămăr ĕşlerĕmĕr  şyrtămăr kiltĕmĕr
 vularăr  ĕşlerĕr   şyrtăr  kiltĕr
 vularĕş  ĕşlerĕş   şyrchĕş  kilchĕş

The negative conjugation of the preceding uses the -ma- allomorph of the negative morpheme. Note that since it is added after the stem, and before the tense formant, there are only two variants, front and back.

 vulamarăm ĕşlemerĕm  şyrmarăm kilmerĕm
 vulamarăn ĕşlemerĕn  şyrmarăn kilmerĕn
 vulamarĕ ĕşlemerĕ  şyrmarĕ  kilmerĕ

 vulamarămăr ĕşlemerĕmĕr  şyrmarămăr kilmerĕmĕr
 vulamarăr ĕşlemerĕr  şyrmarăr kilmerĕr
 vulamarĕş ĕşlemerĕş  şyrmarĕş kilmerĕş

Examples of various verbs in this tense may be given as follows:

 tuprĕ  he found  tuprăn  you have found (them)
 pĕltĕn  you knew  pytancĕ he has hidden himself
 itlemerĕ he did not obey  tuprăr-i Did you find (him)?
 şürerĕn  you travelled  terĕm  I said
 kilmerĕm I did not come  tytrĕ  he seized

  şavna pallarăn  you have recognized that one
  şavna pĕltĕn  you have known her
  pytantartăm  I have caused (them) to be hidden
  tupajmarămăr  we were unable to find (him)
  văl sire pallarĕ he recognized you

Verb stems ending in -r in this tense have two subclasses, for which no conditions of assignation have as yet been discovered. The first subclass retains -r in all forms of this tense, thus:

 kurtămăr we did see it
 kurcĕ  he saw it
 esir kurtăr-i did you see it

The members of the second subclass, however, drop the -r of the stem before the morpheme of the -R preterite. There are about ten common stems in this class. They are the following verbs of frequent occurrence.

  jĕr-  to weep
  kĕr-  to enter
  kür-  to bring
  par-  to give
  per-  to throw, shoot
  pyr-  to go
  tăr-  to stand
  hur-  to place, put
  jar-  to send, leave, let, release

Some examples of formations are the following.

 mana Tură ulma pacĕ  God has given me an apple
 jacĕ    he let me go
 jamarĕ    he did not let him go
 jamastcĕ   he did not let go (past habitual tense)
 esĕ şynna ăşta hutăn  where did you put the man?
 lasha numaj tavlashsa tăcĕ the horse stood there struggling fiercely
 lasha shăvarma kajrăm  I went to water the horses
 asshĕ vara şime kĕnĕ  his father then came in to eat

In folktales, the verb /kaj-/ to go, also loses -j- before the morpheme of the preterite tense. In the literary language of today, it does not: /kajrĕ/.
No explanation of this phenomenon has as yet been advanced. Some other common verbs ending in -r do not participate in this change, as:

  lar-  to sit, dwell, be
  tar-  to run
  kur-  to see