In this post, I'm going to outline some features of verbs in Mwaneḷe, the language that I've been developing over the course of Lexember this year. I'm going to give a broad overview of how the verbs work, and then focus in on some of the uses of directional verbs including verbs of motion and ditransitive verbs.

Generally, the Mwaneḷe verb has the following structure:

(VAL-)(DIR-)stem(-TAM)

• VAL: a valency or voice marker. This slot is left empty for transitive verbs, but can be filled with e- for intransitive verbs, ta- to form the passive voice, pa- to form causatives, and ḷe- for reflexive verbs, i.e. verbs where the agent performs the action on itself.
• DIR: a directional prefix. These establish whether an action includes motion relative to a deictic origin. Here, I'm dealing with the most common of these, the venitive prefix kw(u)- , which denotes action coming towards the origin, and the andative prefix x(e)-, which denotes action going away from the origin. With both cases, if the prefix precedes a vowel, then the vowel in parentheses is dropped.
• TAM: tense/aspect/mood marker. Most TAM markers are verb suffixes, with the exception of the imperative and prohibitive. TAM markers include -ḷ for non-future perfective and -ŋwe for future perfective, for example.

When a verb has multiple core arguments (such as with regular transitive verbs and causatives), the structure is SVO and when the verb has only a single core argument (such as with intransitive verbs and the passive construction), the structure is VS. Here are some example sentences illustrating the VAL and TAM affixes using the verb stem sube "to swim underwater, to dive".

1.  e-   sube u   bwo
    INTR-swim DEF fish
    "The fish swims"

2.  e-   sube-ŋwe    u   bwo
    INTR-swim-FUT.PF DEF fish
    "The fish will have swum"

3.  e-   kwu-sube u   bwo
    INTR-VEN-swim DEF fish
    "The fish swims towards something"

4.  de pa-  sube u   bwo
    1P CAUS-swim DEF fish
    "I make the fish swim"

5.  de pa-  kwu-sube-ŋwe    u   bwo
    1P CAUS-VEN-swim-FUT.PF DEF fish
    "I will have made the fish swim towards something"

Sentence 5 shows how these affixes can build on each other's meaning. In sentences 3 and 5, the motion expressed by the verb is vaguely towards something. It could refer to a deictic center previously established in the conversation, or it could be indic

I want to write 10 high frequency sample sentences that show -in verbs being used in both object and directional focus. Questions:

1. If a specific -in verb is object focus, is it only object focus and never directional focus?
2. Do these sentences look correct:

a) Sabihin niya ang kanyang bakasyon sa akin. (object focus)

b) Binalibag ko si Anna ng mangga. (directional focus)

(edit - I realize I had used an i- verb in a) and replaced it with an -in verb)

(source: me and Learning Tagalog -in verbs type 2 and 3)

Examples of so-called Dir-focus:

1. Pinasok ng magnanakaw ang bahay. = The burglar entered the house.
2. Dinalaw ni Peter si Heidi. = Peter visited Heidi.
3. Nilakad ni Jose ang kalye. = Jose walked the street.

Examples of so-called Actor-focus:

4. Sinipon si John. = John was infected by a cold.

5. Binaha’ ang bahay. = The house got flooded.

6. Ginabi ng dating si Grace. = Grace was overtaken by night in arriving.

To me, in all sentences above, the word that takes the ang form really appears to be an object, and the criteria for standard object-focus sentences (actor takes ng-form, object takes ang-form) are followed. So why the distinction? It seems like saying there are 2 other focuses just adds complication and confusion. Are there some advantages of looking at things that way - like never wanting a location or person to be called an object?

I'm in ASL 3, I saw this one in my homework and I don't remember ever seeing it before. Context is a guy saying he needs to go meet his teacher to finish telling him a story but he ran out of time on the parking meter (I think). The sign in question is a y shape going from him to the teacher. Thanks in advance!

What can this help?

These tips can help if you have these questions:

• How can I improve my readability?
• How can I write more concisely?
• How do I show vs tell?

When do I apply this?

Do not worry about these when starting a draft just write. These tips should be applied in the Editing stage.

What to look for?

You want to audit your piece looking at :

“To Be" verbs >> (am, is, are, was, were, been) “To have” verbs >> (have, has, had)

Wait! What are helping verbs? Are they bad? Can they be good?

There are 3 kinds of verbs: helping, linking, and actions verbs.

To be & to have are helping verbs, AKA auxiliary verb. They are important verbs that help express meaning in a sentence by adding voice, tense, action, and modality.

They are good because they are versatile. You can express a lot just by knowing those two verbs. EG, I have bread. The sofa is in stock. Etc. They are the preferred verbs when speaking and work well in dialogue. Likewise, they are useful when expressing information that is necessary, but not important.

They are 'bad' because they are overused, and often misused.

The point of any audit is to locate mistakes, and ensure processes are working well. If you choose to be or to have for a purpose, then leave it alone. It is okay to use both verbs. However, it’s a good idea to double check they aren’t drowning your piece and have been used correctly.

People always suggest eliminating or reducing to be or to have verbs, I’m saying to audit. To be and to have are functional verb, but they do not take actions. They are not the best to use in descriptions but work well in dialogue.

TO HAVE

1: Present perfect tense

• EG, I have written a post.

Present perfect tenses express an action that started in the past and is still continuing now. While my example makes sense while writing this post, it should be confusing to the reader after the fact. After it is posted, the action is completed. It makes more sense to write 'I wrote a post'.

• I have studied >> I studied
• I have listened >> I listened

2: Past perfect tense aka pluperfect

• EG, I had written a post.

This is INCOMPLETE.

>If you take nothing away from anything else, please remember this. I find this all the tim

I know that things like noun, verb, adverb and adjective are called parts of speech.

But what about things that are based on sentence structure: subject, verb, direct object, indirect object, object complement, et cetera?

My italki tutor yesterday used the word "chapurrear" to describe how new language learners sound when putting together sentences and I thought it was hilarious. It roughly translates to speaking when you only have a basic grasp of the language, so your grammar is clunky and pronunciation is terrible.

It got me thinking about other verbs is Spanish that don't have a single word translation in English. Like "madrugar" or even verbs like "aguantar" and "realizar", which, while there are equivalents in English, they don't quite encapsulate the meaning that the single verb in Spanish does so well.

What are some of your favorite, unique Spanish verbs?

As a bit of background, I am not an expert in linguistics by any means but I have an interest in the field. I am not fluent in anything but English, but took Spanish for 6 years, German for 2, and have recently been studying Esperanto.

In both Romance and Germanic languages, conjugations and helping verbs exist in parallel. For example, to express that I had food earlier today, I could say:

"I ate" (conjugation - simple past)

"I was eating" (helping verb to show past tense - past perfect continuous)

"I have eaten" (both helping verb and conjugation - present perfect)

While these are not all the same tense, they all express the same fundamental idea.

Similarly, in Spanish, helping verbs can sometimes be used in place of conjugation. For example:

"Voy a comer" (I will eat - helping verb and base verb)

"Yo comeré" (I will eat - conjugation of base verb)

This example in Spanish admittedly doesn't work as well, as the helping verb itself still needs conjugation (For example I, you, we, they, etc need unique conjugations of "ir")

My point with this is that when a language is already capable of modifying tenses with helping verbs, having a conjugation system full of irregularities is unnecessary and introduces needless complexity.

Now, obviously, none of the languages common in today's world were designed from the ground up. They're a result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolving communication and meanings. However, there have been serious attempts to create a "universal language" (Esperanto being the most famous). The goal of Esperanto was to be easy to learn and flexible, such that anyone could easily start speaking it.

While I think it does a very good job of this, I believe that the designers choice to use conjugation instead of multiple helping verbs to show tense was bad. For one, in a language designed for simplicity, conjugation requires directly modifying the letters of a word itself. This inevitably leads irregularities as certain conjugations force words into improper forms, requiring special cases. (For example, in English, consider the present tense of "to vote" and "to fish". "To fish" turns into "Fishing" fine, but "to vote" turns into voting, creating an unexpected change in spelling). Compare this to a helping verb, where one verb can take a single form to modify any base verb. (IE, will vote, will fish)

Secondly, an issue with Esperanto that occasionally is brought up is a lack of prescion. English has 4 different

EXAMPLES Marcos nos trajo la comida a nosotros. Marcos brought the food to us.

Marcos nos la trajo. Marcos brought it to us.

Mi madre está comprándome una pizza. My mom is buying me a pizza.

Mi madre está comprándomela. My mom is buying it for me.

Dame el control remoto. Give me the remote control.

Dámelo. Give it to me.

No quiero decirte la verdad. I don’t want to tell you the truth.

No quiero decírtela. I don’t want to tell it to you.

I got these from a Spanish learning website. Please tell me how to know when to put it at the end

In an example it says:

• Les enfants sont tres enerves. Je vais ____ raconter des histoires pour les calmer.
• Oh merci, tu ____ racontes tres bien

So according to book, correct answers are “leur” - “les” respectively. But for the first blank, why can’t I choose les to refer les enfants? Why is it “leur”?

I really don’t get how to choose le/la or lui when the verb isn’t very obvious (like parler or aimer)

Is there a simple way to do this?

Basically the title. I feel that after learning Spanish for a while that most of my trouble at the beginning was with these things that were often brushed over or not explained well by teachers but are actually simple concepts. They are used so often and when you understand how they work and how they are used it’s like a huge piece of the puzzle clicks together. Back when I was learning Spanish in school I probably knew more vocab than I do now after I stopped learning for years, but I feel like I have a much better understanding of the language than I did back then just because I understand these language functions.

When I learned that “gustar” really meant “to be pleasing” my mind was blown and it took away so much confusion. I ended up searching individually for answers to questions had the same answers. “What does lo mean?” “What does se mean?” “What’s the difference between tú and te?” “What does le mean?” I never really understood the answers given until I understood the topic as a whole.

What do you all think?

(Nasdaq: VERB)

Verb Technologies and NewAge, Inc. announced that they have partnered to launch the NewAge Share app, a sales enablement solution with interactive video technology, to support their global brand partners and independent distributors in increasing customer engagement and sales productivity.

NewAge is a social selling and distribution company that commercializes a portfolio of organic and healthy products primarily through a D2C approach to market distribution.

The NewAge Share app includes VERB’s customer relationship and content management application, verbCRM with artificial intelligence features, which facilitates the selling process by allowing distributors to manage, share directly with customers and prospects, and track interactive content, such as product literature and media, demo videos, personalized videos, or business proposals. It provides interaction analytics so distributors can determine which content is resonating with prospects, and assess overall customer engagement and campaign effectiveness. The NewAge Share app also includes verbLEARN, VERB’s proprietary learning management system for interactive video-based training and education.

The app will be available in 10 languages and will serve up to 600,000 distributors in 75 countries. Livestreaming capabilities, powered by VERB’s interactive livestream ecommerce solution verbLIVE, is expected to be added to the NewAge Share app for targeted international markets in September 2021.

Read More:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/verb-technology-partners-direct-consumer-133500445.html

Do your own research, THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE!

Eu leio a receita.

I read the menu

Eu como sanduíches

I eat sandwhiches

Why the article in one case and not the other? and more generally, when do I have to use the article and when don't I?

I keep seeing various articles used with various verbs but I'm never sure when to use them.

Hello,

This seems a bit basic but I was reviewing some grammar and came across this sentence:

イタリア料理を食べに行きませんか 。 Go to eat Italian food? (from Tae Kim's guide)

While the meaning is pretty obvious I'm a bit confused with the usage of the verb stem 「食べ」and direct object marker.「食べ」isn't a verb so does the phrase 「食べに行く」count as a whole new verb? Since 「 イタリア料理を行く」wouldn't make sense at all.

I’ve recently stumbled upon Matt’s video titled “Verbs! Running the Game #35”. This was always one of my favorites. But having rewatched it I’m coming away confused.

So I’m going to describe what I think the advice is and you guys can let me know if I’m wrong or off.

Verbs like “Investigate” or “Find” are bad for PCs directives because it’s vague. And directives that are vague are bad because it doesn’t give much direction at all. The solution isn’t obvious and therefore the players are stuck in a paralysis of choice or are stuck spinning their wheels until they find a more concrete directive. Which touches on the second point, verbs like “Find” are often followed by other more useful verbs like “Find and RESCUE the girl’”

So,most of my confusion lies with the second point. If you skip the first verb and just say “rescue the girl” don’t the players still have to find the girl? Or is Matt saying that you should skip any steps that would be vague and just tell the players? The problem I have with that is then, to me, it seems that you are just giving them the solution. And problem solving is one of the biggest things the players do when they play. I wouldn’t call it railroading, but I would describe it as taking something valuable and core away from the gameplay of TTRPGs.

On top of this, it is something I struggle with, probably because I give vague verbs or directives to my players. So I would ask you all to tell me where I’ve misinterpreted Matt’s video and/ or give me advice on giving good directives, and how you implement the them. Include examples if possible.

As an example in my recent campaign their quest is currently “Find the Stolen Heirlooms”. After watching the video I realized it could be changed to “Return the Stolen Heirlooms to the Edén”. But like I said they still, at the end of the day, have to find the heirlooms. They know with a decent amount of certainty where they are and who has them, which is how I’ve mitigated some of the vagueness, but they don’t know 100%.

Hello

Is anyone able to help me to separate/identify clauses ( subject, verb, direct object etc. ) elements from the text below?

I am having a really hard time with it.

Thank you for any feedback.

John liked pavements. Pavements leading to all manner of weird places, and pavements leading to nowhere whatsoever. John liked pavements so much that he smiled every time his mother took out the bike. The pavements John knew went to city where pedestrians walked in sunstruck squares and lived in spacious, white houses.

Fight me.

Does に have a directionality? Or is it always determined by adding things like "-られ" to the verb after it? e.g. 他人に俺の『自分』を語られたくないんだ. Without the -られ the directionality would be flipped right?

Since I am studying the new French grammar while at the same time studying Ido in depth, I will use the term transitive for verbs that can have a verb complement, and direct transitive if that complement does not start with a preposition.

I have noticed that from one language to another, transitivity varies. For instance, in English we have to subscribe to a newspaper, in French we say abonner quelqu'un à un journal (to subscribe someone to a newspaper), in Elefen we say encrive algun a un jornal (same as in French), in Esperanto we say aboni gazeton (to subscribe a newspaper), in Ido abonar jurnalo (same as in Esperanto), and finally in Interlingua abonar alicun a un jornal (same as in French).

Those are the only languages I can interact with. And yet, such diversity for a single example! All verbs are transitive (from the French definition). English is indirect transitive, the others are direct transitive but they don't take the same thing as direct object…

I've also seen some evolution when it comes to transitivity. In Ido, skriptar (to write works of literature) used to be intransitive. However, it has now become pretty much synonymous with kompozar, to compose (a work of literature, an article, etc.) and as such it became direct transitive. Ido is pretty strict about whether a verb is direct transitive or not because it plays a role in its word formation logic.

In Esperanto, I have seen some instability as to whether a verb is directly or indirectly transitive, and I think a certain rule about the accusative replacing prepositions contributes for that. For instance dubi can be both direct (dubi ion) and indirect (dubi pri io). But that flexibility seems not to be tolerated in all cases.

All that has got me wondering if there could be a consistent way of determining whether a verb is direct or indirect transitive. In Ido, some people thing we can departar loko, but in fact we have to say departar de loko (depart from a place). This makes the language a bit tricky to learn. Any help would be appreciated!

I imagine this has probably been asked at some point in time but I wasn't able to find anything about this specifically -

1 - is there anything specifically grammatically wrong if I were to say 我付出了 vs 我付了.

2- When does a direction complement actually need to be in a sentence?

When I read materials in Chinese I understand what the writer is trying to say when they use the complements, but I can't seem to get used to using them myself as a native English speaker.

I am having a hard time grappling with the concept of these words, and I never know when to use them or why they are used. Can someone explain this to me in a simplified manner? Also, what are the equivalents of these words in english?

‎A. They attacked the German soldiers caught in the trap.

B. Caught in the trap, they attacked the German soldiers.

Q1) Is sentence A grammatical and natural?

Q2) In sentence A, what does "caught in the trap" describe? "they" or "the German soldiers"?

Q3) In sentence B, does "caught in the trap" describe "they"?

Q4) In sentence A, according to context, can "caught in the trap" be interpreted as describing "they"? If so, is A not well written?

Q5) Like in sentence A, is a participle phrase "caught in the trap" describing a direct object(the German soldiers) of a verb(attacked) in a sentence, not the subject(they) considered perfectly grammatical and natural?

My answers

Q1) yes.

Q2) the German soldiers

Q3) yes

Q4) I don't think it's well written if context gives a clue that "caught up in the trap" in A describes "the German sodilers" because without placing "caught in the trap" in front of "they", there's a possibility that it can be seen as describing "the German soldiers" even if the context is clear.

Q5) I think it's perfectly grammatical, as I might have seen this kind of sentence before.

Would you answer my questions separately, seeing my answers? I need a lot of answers from native speakers, to compare their answers to learn.

Thank you very much!

Impersonal verbs, such as il faut, il pleut, ... are sometimes followed by a direct complement (direct = not introduced by a preposition):

- Il faut reserver en avance.
- Il pleut des amendes au tribunal de police.

These complements are not direct objects (= CODs). Impersonal verbs don't have CODs. This manifests in the accord of the past participle. Compare:

- Imagine un peu la patience qu'il a eue pour faire cette prouesse! (personal)
- Imagine un peu la patience qu'il a fallu pour faire cette prouesse! (impersonal)

In both examples la patience is a direct complement of the subordinate verb (= the verb in the subordinate clause). In both examples la patience occurs before the subordinate verb. However, in the first example, la patience is a COD ("il" designates the guy who accomplished the prouesse, the feat), and therefore the past participle eue accords in gender with it; whereas in the second example, la patience is not a COD ("il" is a dummy pronoun that is part of the impersonal construction il fallu), and therefore the past participle fallu does not accord with it.

Q: If it's not a COD, then what is it?

A: In the case of "il pleut des amendes au tribunal de police", it's a sequent (séquence) aka the actual subject (sujet réel). This is because the sentence can be reformulated as: "des amendes pleuvent au tribunal de police". In "il faut reserver en avance" or "il faut une patience de fourmi pour faire ça", I don't know what the terminology is. Maybe complement, maybe expansion, maybe something else.

Consider the following two excerpts from the novel La tulipe noire by Alexandre Dumas, adapted to simple French by Elyette Roussel (CLE International, 2003).

> Je vais lui écrire un mot. Mon serviteur le lui donnera.

(p. 6)

> Ah, jeune homme, nous avons justement ici la chambre de famille; nous allons vous la donner!

(p. 15)

In the expression le lui donnera appearing in first quote the direct object le comes before the indirect object lui, whereas in the expression vous la donner appearing in the second quote the order is reversed.

Is there a reason for this difference? What is the law, if any, governing the order of direct and indirect pronouns when both appear simultaneously before a verb? Or can they be ordered any which way?

So for around a month now I’ve been working on a “root dictionary” (someone who knows more about this than me please let me know what I’m actually describing) of the most commonly-used roots and the various words that are formed from said roots.

This is particularly useful as that my conlang, Vlskari, is fairly agglutinative. For example, from the root for “payment/fee,” I’ve derived the verbs; To pay, To buy, To deposit, To overpay, To rent, To sell, To transfer, and To withdraw. All made solely by changing the prefix to the root. Much of Vlskari’s vocabulary is formed like this.

So far, I’ve got the following roots and their derivatives (nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs):

Agree, Boast/Brag, Cognizant/Aware, Desire/Wish, Design/Plan, Do/Make, a root for “downward motion,” Entire/Whole, Every, Eye, Fee/Payment, Fund, Hand, Have, Heart, Intent/Purpose, Pleasant/Satisfying, Principle/Primary, a root for verbs/nouns/adjectives pertaining to “the body,” Request/Ask, Say/Voice, Self, and Write.

So, I was wondering, have any of you done something similar, and for those whose conlangs work similarly, what are your main/most useful roots?

*We may be anonymous strangers on the internet, but we have one thing in common. We may be a world apart, but we're here together!*

**Welcome to the 24 hour pledge!**

I'm pledging myself to not drinking today, and invite you to do the same.

Maybe you're new to /r/stopdrinking and have a hard time deciding what to do next. Maybe you're like me and feel you need a daily commitment or maybe you've been sober for a long time and want to inspire others.

It doesn't matter if you're still hung over from a three day bender or been sober for years, if you just woke up or have already completed a sober day. For the next 24 hours, lets not drink alcohol!

---

**This pledge is a statement of intent.** Today we don't set out *trying* not to drink, we make a conscious decision *not to drink*. It sounds simple, but all of us know it can be hard and sometimes impossible. The group can support and inspire us, yet only one person can decide if we drink today. Give that person the right mindset!

What happens if we can't keep to our pledge? We give up or try again. And since we're here in /r/stopdrinking, we're not ready to give up.

**What this is:** A simple thread where we commit to not drinking alcohol for the next 24 hours, posting to show others that they're not alone and making a pledge to ourselves. Anybody can join and participate at any time, you do not have to be a regular at /r/stopdrinking or have followed the pledges from the beginning.

**What this isn't:** A good place for a detailed introduction of yourself, directly seek advice or share lengthy stories. You'll get a more personal response in your own thread.

---

This post goes up at:

- US - Night/Early Morning

- Europe - Morning

- Asia and Australia - Evening/Night

A link to the current Daily Check-In post can always be found near the top of the sidebar.

---

CHANCE (noun): a possibility of something happening

CHANGE (verb): make (someone or something) different; alter or modify

I have inadvertently started a “wall of quotes” in my office which includes various sayings and anecdotes I’ve heard recently. Many of them I have heard here and some I have heard in the weekly meditation class I’ve started to attend. Two of them have recently popped out at me as they both contain the word “chance” and “change”

“With change comes the chance to fall in love with yourself again.”

“In each moment, we have a new chance to change.”

Can someone please explain the difference between the past tense perfective поехать compared with the past tense of ездить? Is there a difference in meaning?

For example the sentences:

Куда ты поехал в прошлом году? Could Ты ездил/а be used also?

Позавчера мы ездили в магазин. Could поехал be used here?

From what I understand Поехать is in perfective which means the action is or will be completed. Eздить means that it’s a “round trip” or that the action of going is completed.

Also does ездить not exist in the future tense because of Поехать?

We may be anonymous strangers on the internet, but we have one thing in common. We may be a world apart, but we're here together!

Welcome to the 24 hour pledge!

I'm pledging myself to not drinking today, and invite you to do the same.

Maybe you're new to /r/stopdrinking and have a hard time deciding what to do next. Maybe you're like me and feel you need a daily commitment or maybe you've been sober for a long time and want to inspire others.

It doesn't matter if you're still hung over from a three day bender or been sober for years, if you just woke up or have already completed a sober day. For the next 24 hours, lets not drink alcohol!

---

This pledge is a statement of intent. Today we don't set out *trying* not to drink, we make a conscious decision *not to drink*. It sounds simple, but all of us know it can be hard and sometimes impossible. The group can support and inspire us, yet only one person can decide if we drink today. Give that person the right mindset!

What happens if we can't keep to our pledge? We give up or try again. And since we're here in /r/stopdrinking, we're not ready to give up.

What this is: A simple thread where we commit to not drinking alcohol for the next 24 hours, posting to show others that they're not alone and making a pledge to ourselves. Anybody can join and participate at any time, you do not have to be a regular at /r/stopdrinking or have followed the pledges from the beginning.

What this isn't: A good place for a detailed introduction of yourself, directly seek advice or share lengthy stories. You'll get a more personal response in your own thread.

---

This post goes up at:

- US - Night/Early Morning

- Europe - Morning

- Asia and Australia - Evening/Night

A link to the current Daily Check-In post can always be found near the top of the sidebar.

---

GUILT (noun): a feeling of deserving blame for offenses.

FORGIVNESS (verb): to stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone or yourself) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.

I was raised Catholic. Sixteen years of Catholic school, in fact. I know guilt. It follows me like my shadow on a bright, sunny day. I’ve made many mistakes in my life. Small ones and egregious ones and every kind in between. I’ve done some bad things while drunk, while sober, while hungover, and while clear headed. None of us are perfect. We all deserve to treat ourselves with kindness and compassion, even when we mess up. In sobriety, I’m