{"id":184,"date":"2011-05-30T01:52:48","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T06:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/talossan.org\/?page_id=184"},"modified":"2011-05-30T01:52:48","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T06:52:48","slug":"participles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.talossan.org\/?page_id=184","title":{"rendered":"Participles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talossan verbs have two participle forms \u2014 the past participle (which is used almost exactly as it is in English), and the present participle form (which is not used in as many ways as English uses it).<\/p>\n

The Past Participle<\/h2>\n

The English past participle typically looks just like a past-tense form, which ends in “-ed”. For example, “served” is both a past-tense form (“I served the dinner”) and a past participle form (“The dinner was served”).<\/p>\n

Unlike English, in Talossan, the past participle form does not match the form of any past-tense conjugation. Notice, though, that the past participle of an English verb is not always the same form as the past tense form of that same verb. This is shown in the pair “I ate the dinner” and “The dinner was eaten”.<\/p>\n

The Talossan past participle can either end in -at<\/strong> (and if so, it becomes feminine by becoming -ada<\/strong>) or -escu<\/strong> (which has no feminine form). Thus, the past participle form of a verb such as parlarh <\/em>(= to talk) would be either parlat <\/em>(of masculine or mixed-gender subjects) or parlada <\/em>(of feminine gender subjects) or parlescu <\/em>(gender-neutral). Which leads to the question, “when should the past participle form be used?”<\/p>\n

Luckily, the answer is that the Talossan past participle form should be used in exactly the same circumstances and same word position as it is used in English, including using it as an adjective.<\/p>\n

To provide examples of both, consider the sentence el crust c’esteva brenat<\/em> (= the pie was burned). In this sentence, the past participle serves (with a form of the Talossan “to be” verb, estarh<\/em>) in a compound verb phrase (“was burned”). Now consider am\u00e9u del crust brenat<\/em> (= I like burnt pie), in which the same past participle is now an adjective, describing the condition of the pie.<\/p>\n

Almost every adjective that ends in in -at<\/strong> is a past participle. And a past participle does not need to be listed explicitly as an adjective in the online translator for it to be usable as an adjective \u2014 feel free to conjugate any verb to its past participle form and use it as an adjective.<\/p>\n

As for the use of a past participle in a compound verb phrase, you will find that almost every compound verb phrase employs at least one past participle form — sometimes more than one. For example, in the phrase t\u00e9u estescu raplamandat<\/em> (= I have been reprimanded), both “to be” and “to reprimand” have been conjugated into the past participle forms.<\/p>\n

In other words, the Talossan (and English) past participle is among the most-used parts of speech, so you should become very familiar with it.<\/p>\n

As we’ve noted, there are some (but not all that many) verbs in Talossan that conjugate irregularly. Some (but not all) of these verbs have irregular past participle conjugations. For example, if estarh <\/em>(= to be) were a completely regular verb, it would have both of the past participle forms estat <\/em>(which would become feminine as estada<\/em>) and estescu<\/em>. But estarh <\/em>is irregular in its past participle, in that only estescu <\/em>is proper. The forms estat <\/em>and estada <\/em>are improper past participle forms in Talossan. (In other words, you should not count on every single Talossan verb always taking the -at<\/strong> and -ada<\/strong> and -escu<\/strong> ending to become a past participle, just as you could not count on the same thing as regards the “-ed” ending in English, as we saw with examples like “eaten” and “burnt”.)<\/p>\n

Here are the twelve Talossan verbs that have irregular past participle forms:<\/p>\n