Lesson 13 – Action Words

When we want to talk about doing, saying or thinking anything we need to use verbs (action words).

Suffixes are put onto the end of verbs to describe when, how, or why the action took place. For example, in English ‘-ing’ and ‘-ed’ are suffixes. Compare talk, talking, talked; listen, listening, listened.

In this lesson we will be learning the Present tense, Past tense and Future tense verb forms. We will also look at some example sentences for each of these.

We will also learn how to say you are ‘not’ doing something (negative), how to say you ‘intend’ to do something (intentional), how to tell someone to do something (command), and how to say ‘in order’ to do something (purposive).

First up, here is a list of 20 Tanganekald verbs. A suffix (ending) is added at the end of these ‘roots’ to show when or how the action is happening.

Present tense

Present tense is used to talk about actions which are happening now.  -ing is an example of a present tense suffix in English, for example ‘running‘, ‘jumping‘. 

The present tense suffix in Tanganekald is -un or -in. This gets added to the end of the verb ‘roots’ that we have just learned.

Here are those Tanganekald verbs in present tense. 

Here are some sentence examples using those present tense verbs.

panmauri means ‘dog’, the ending -il shows the dog is doing the action in this sentence, nandurri means ‘man’ and ngolkun means ‘biting’. Ngati means ‘I’, mantri means ’emu apple’ and thakun means ‘eating’.  Ngun means ‘we’, ruminyeri means ‘language’ and yanun means ‘talking’.

Past tense

Past tense is used to talk about actions which happened in the past.  -ed is an example of a past tense suffix in English, for example ‘walked‘, ‘talked‘. 

The past tense suffix in Tanganekald is -ur or -ir. This gets added to the end of the verb ‘roots’ that we have learned.

If you are asking a question in the past tense however, you must use -ung or -ing. 

Here are those Tanganekald verbs in past tense. 

Here are some example sentences using these past tense verbs.

Menengeng means ‘Meningie’ and the ending -ungai means ‘to’, ngeregei means ‘dawn’ and ngopur means ‘went’. Panmauri means ‘dog’ and pulur means ‘swam’. Ngenta means ‘you’, kuwadjani means ‘kookaburra’ and wangur means ‘heard’. Yekau means ‘yes’ and ngati means ‘I’.

Future tense

Future tense is used to talk about actions which are happening in the future.  ‘will walk’, ‘will talk’ are examples of the future tense in English. 

The present tense suffix in Tanganekald is -an or -ani. This gets added to the end of the verb ‘roots’ that we have learned.

Here are those Tanganekald verbs in future tense. 

Here are some example sentences using these future tense verbs.

ngati means ‘I’, kin means ‘her’ and kurunulan means ‘will ask’. Nakan means ‘will see’, and ya is English (as in ‘see ya’). Maranu means ‘big sister’, the ending -il shows that big sister is doing the action of the sentence, tjininyeri means ‘baby’ and morpan means ‘will watch’.

Other verb forms

There are many other verb forms in Tanganekald, which create different meanings. Here are some more examples.

Negative

The negative verb form is used to say that something did not or is not happening. 

the suffix -iambi on verbs means ‘may not, not’.

Intentional

The intentional verb form is used to say that someone intends to do something.

the suffix -il or -al on verbs means ‘intend to’ do something.

Command

The command verb form is used to tell someone to do something.

Notice that the command form of a verb is the same as the ‘root’ form we learned at the start of the lesson. There is no additional suffix added to the end of the verb.

Purposive

The purposive is used when saying that something must happen in order for something else to happen.

the suffix -urambi is used to mean ‘in order to’ do something.