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Grammar of participles

Participle is one of nonfinite forms of verbs. There are two basic types of participles in English (Participle I – Ving and Participle II equal to 3rd verb form V3). But Participle I has additional forms (Present Passive, Perfect, Perfect Passive) expressed by auxiliary verbs to have and to be in required tenses. Older Black Speech dialects had the same principle of forming participles or denying them at all. For BlackSpeech.ru site new system was invented. Instead of auxiliary verbs every type of participle have got it's own suffix. But that system was inconsistent and still copying English grammar, that's why it was changed again for Nûrlâm.

There are 4 grammatical forms of participles made by combination of tense (Present and Past/Perfect) and voice (Active and Passive). Each type of participles can be used in adjectival and adverbial phrase or clause. Each of 4 types has it's own suffix with tense marked differently from verbs, which is a feature of fusional language.

Tense Voice
Active Passive
Present -ug -ag
Past
(Perfect)
-uga -aga

Tolkien wrote that ending -at considered earlier an infinitive's suffix is more like a participle, but given translation of durbat is “constraining”, thus closer to gerund, see article gerundive for more information. Gerundive may be translated as future participle in languages which have it.

In colloquial speech participles also have category of number expressed by the standard plural suffix. It's added according to rules for declension class, after adding participle suffix to the verb root.

Participles is the main way to express passive voice (while others like impersonal constructions and gerundives are limited).


Examples of using

Participles may take the following role in the sentence: predicative (part of complex predicate with verb “kulat” (to be) to express passive voice), adjectival or adverbial phrase. Active participles are not used as predicative, passive participles are extremely rarely used as adverbials (specially in colloquial speech). Because the participle system of Nûrlâm differs from majority of European languages, some examples do not have exact translation into them and other constructions are used instead.

Type Nûrlâm English
Predicative use
Present Passive Nazgum kulâ orskag zil The ring is being stolen now
Past Passive Nazgum kuzâ orskaga shi ârsh ik The ring was stolen yesterday
Adjectival use
Present Uruk akrug mag lûmpuzâ Orc drinking too much have fallen
Tanorkuz yakum urukob matug He took the weapon of dying orc
Present Passive Nazgum orskag audâ Nazgûlûr The ring being stolen belongs to Nazgûl
Past Uruk akruga mag kâtuzâ zîgin There was lying a too much drunk orc
Past Passive Shogurm akraga thrakuzâ hûrurm urukûr The potion been drunk brought courage for the orcs
Adverbial use
Present Uruk ukhâ lashug ash laush Orc walks singing a song
Present Passive Uruk lashâ ash laush dûmbag Orc is singing a song being executed
Past Uruk lûmpuzâ akruga mag Orc fell having drunk too much
Past Passive Shogurm thrakuzâ hûrurm urukûr akraga The potion brought courage for the orcs having been drunk

Black Speech may lack many verbal adjectives in its lexicon, so active present participles are frequent. For example, use “pushdug” (stinking) instead of some translation of “stinky”.

grammar_participle.1614530076.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/09/07 14:48 (external edit)