2011-12-11

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Island Notes - Verbs: tenses, moods and aspects

Island has five verb tenses:

Distant Past (before anyone human was alive) -> Past (living memory) -> present -> Future (expected within a lifetime) -> Distant Future (every human alive will be dead when it happens).

Aspects are not marked on the verb but by way of a particle before the verb. There are three of them - imperfect, perfect and habitual.

Moods - Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive, Optative, Potential and Negative. Can you layer moods on a verb? Sort of like negative and imperitive would be don't verb, optative and negative would be I hope/wish this doesn't happen, optatative + potential would be I hope this likely thing happens.

Verbs do not inflect for person or number.