Scots Gaelic has — like many other languages — verbs that are not conjugated in all forms. These verbs are called defective.
For instance, the following Scots Gaelic verbs are defective:
Tag: conjugation
Accents in Greek Verbs
Greek verb forms make use of the accent, so does the dictionary lookup word too.
In order to simplify the entering of Greek verbs in Verbix, you can now enter words without accents; Verbix puts the accent to the correct place.
Separable and Inseparable Verbs in German
Separable verbs and inseparable verbs in German are verbs whose meaning is altered by the addition of a prefix. So in its infinitive the prefix is added before the root verb. Inseparable verbs keep the prefix before the root verb in all tenses, thus being inseparable. Separable verbs have the prefix separated from the root verb in most tenses.
- Inseparable verb: bekommen (to receive), ich bekomme (I receive)
- Separable verb: ankommen (to arrive), ich komme an (I arrive)
Both verbs have the same root verb kommen (to come).
So the prefixes are used to change the meaning but the verb conjugation follows the pattern of the root verb.
Starting from December 16th, Verbix online conjugator shows in German verb conjugation tables the prefixes (inseparable/separable) and other verbs with the same prefix. In addition the root verb is shown along with different prefixes.
German ß and ss in Verbs
There was a spelling reform in the German language in 1996.
Among other changes, the ortography underwent a change, where ‘ß’ sometimes started to be written as ‘ss’.
As a rule of thumb:
- ‘ß’ continues to be written in the same way when it’s preceded by a long vowel or diptongue;
- and elsewhere it’s substituted by ‘ss’.
A good sample verb is essen ‘to eat’. In present the preceding vowel is short and therefore written ‘ss’. In past the vowel is long and therefore written ‘ß’.
Verbix supports both ways of writing German, check the link below to see more.
Links:
Only 23 Irregular Verbs
Today I read about Hungarian language and its verbs. Just like Finnish, a very remote “sister” language, the Hungarian has only a few irregular verbs.
In fact the number of irregular languages is 23. The 23 irregular verbs are now listed on Verbix website’s Hungarian verb conjugator page.
Links:
Back to the Basics
Today I took the opportunity to visit one of the public libraries in Espoo.
Although there’s a great number of language related sites and pages in the Internet, the language books are still the primary source of information when it comes to grammar and language details.
From all the interesting books there, I picked the book A Guide to Old English by Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson…
“§87 Like MnE, OE has two types of verbs — weak and strong. The weak verb forms its preterite and past participle by adding a dental suffix, the strong verb by changing its stem vowel; cf. MnE ‘laugh, laughed’ and ‘judge, judged’ with MnE ‘sing, sang, sung’. The strong verbs are nearly all survivals from OE; new verbs when made up or borrowed today join the weak conjugation. Thus the strong verb ‘drive, drove, driven’ survives from OE. When in the thirteenth century ‘strive’ was borrowed from the French, it followed the pattern of ‘drive’ because the two infinitives rhymed; hence we get MnE ‘strive, strove, striven’. But we conjugate the comparatively new verb ‘jive’, not ‘jive, jove, jiven’, but ‘jive, jived’, i.e. as a weak verb.”
Spanish Verbs on Windows Phone
You soy, tú eres, él es, … now on the Windows Phone!
Yes, Verbix is now available for Windows Phone. This totally new version of Verbix is able to conjugate any Spanish verb on a Windows Phone (7 or 8).
- The Spanish verb “ser” on Windows Phone.
This Spanish verb conjugator is redesigned to meet the needs of the mobile user:
- It’s faster, it’s even faster than on my PC.
- Store favorite verbs. So instead of typing over and over the same verb, simply tap it and your done.
- As you type, the verb list of 11,000+ verbs scrolls. You seldom need to type the whole verb.
- The verb tables were designed to fit as well as possible on the screen. So instead of using Verbix in the web, you no more need to zoom/zoom-out.
More information:
- Verbix for Windows Phone
- Windows Phone Marketplace (find “Verbix” there).
Extinct Languages
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers.
Basically there are two ways that a language becomes extinct:
- The speakers switch to another language.
- The language evolves so much that it’s considered a different language.
Among the extinct or nearly extinct languages, the users of Verbix can conjugate Latin and Gothic verbs.
In WikiVerb there’s now also a page dedicated to extinct languages.
Links to go:
- Extinct Languages at WikiVerb
- Conjugate Gothic verbs
- Conjugate Latin verbs
- Last Speaker of a Language
Writing Japanese, English Alphabet
The Japanese language was added a month ago to the supported languages of the Verbix verb conjugator. Currently Verbix allows users to enter the verbs to conjugate in letters of the English alphabet.
This is achieved by supporting romaji, i.e., writing the letters in Latin script. This is also called romanization.
There are several romanization systems, from which Verbix chose Hepburn romanization with minor modifications. Hepburn is the most common romanization system in use today, especially in the English-speaking world.
Read more:
- Japanese Verb Conjugator — conjugate Japanese verbs
- More information about Japanese verbs
Japanese Verb Conjugation
Japanese verb conjugation is quite simple, because most verbs are regular.
The regular verbs are divided in Ichidan and Godan verbs.
Ichidan verbs end in -eru and -iru. The Godan verbs end in a consonant or vowel and -u.
There are two irregular verbs:
Suru is one of the most used verbs in Japanese, because it is used to form compound verbs, such as benkyousuru （勉強する）’to study’ and dansusuru （ダンスする）’to dance’. From the latter example you can see that suru is used to make new verbs from loan words, too.
While the verb conjugation itself is easy, the use of the verbs is not. But that’s another story.