Appendix:Garo verbs
This page attempts to uncover verbs, their usage and the process of conjugating any verb from Garo, a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Northeast India and Bangladesh. There is rarely any irregular verbs in Garo, so conjugation of verbs is pretty simple.
Garo is a SOV language, although OSV language structure is also acceptable due to use of grammatical case. Either way, verbs always come as the last word of a Garo clause.
General conjugation[edit]
Garo has a rich set of affixes which can modify the meaning of a Garo verb. Conjugating verbs is as simple as adding some sort of affix to the end of the verb root. The only thing required to add to a verb is its tense indicator. (See next section)
Some affixes should always be infixes placed between the root and the tense indicator, while some are suffixes. Attaching an infix at the end of a word would yield invalid grammar.
It is not uncommon for intransitive verbs to function as full sentences.
Garo verbs do not conjugate based on the grammatical person.
Tense[edit]
There are three main tenses in Garo, like most other languages: Past, Present, and Future.
| Tense | Garo suffix | Example with bil (“fly”) | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past | -aha | Bilaha. | [I] flew. |
| Present | -a | Bila | [I] fly. |
| Future | -gen/-noa (-noa is mainly used in the Mandi/A·beng dialect) | Bilgen./Bilnoa. | [I] will fly. |
Despite there is also infinitives ending in -na, verbs are in the present tense.
Some verb roots naturally end with "a". In that case, conjugation follows the same rules in orthography. For example:
| Tense | Garo suffix | Example with ka·sa (“"love"”) | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past | -aha | Ka·saaha. | [I] loved. |
| Present | -a | Ka·saa | [I] love. |
| Future | -gen/-noa | Ka·sagen./Ka·sanoa | [I] will love. |
Other tenses[edit]
There are some intermediate tense markers that indicate a more specific time of action. For example, -jok indicates that the action just happened. In other words, -jok could be translated as "just happened".
Aspect[edit]
In Garo, aspect can be showed by the suffix, -eng. -eng represents the progressive aspect.
Modality[edit]
Garo also distinguishes between grammatical moods, like the imperative and interrogative moods.
To turn any sentence into an imperative command, the suffix -bo- is used. "Nang·ni cha·aniko cha·bo" translates to "Eat your food", where "cha·bo" is the imperative of "to eat".
The interrogative mood is used in a similar manner. To turn a statement into a yes-no question, the verb needs to be infixed with -ma-. "Cha·aniko cha·ma?" translates to "Have [you] eaten [your] food?".
Negation[edit]
To negate the verb, the suffix -ja- is used. However, -jawa and -nabe suffixes is used to negate the future and imperative tenses, respectively (compare positive-degree suffixes -gen and -bo).