Wistrish reference

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Wistrish perfectives

Wistrish perfectives display temporal, completional and resultative characteristics of a verb and are a separate grammatical category from normal aspects: Wistrish perfectives are displayed through prefixes and are not stackable.

Wistrish perfectives are extremely regularized and unlike similar constructions in Gothic or Slavic languages, perfective forms are never considered separate verbs on their own: they are characterized simply as perfective verb forms.

Classification

Based on what information specific prefix conveys, they are classified into a few main groups:

Imperfectives mark lengthened, ongoing actions. Unlike perfectives, non-past perfectives can express both present and future actions, which are distinguished through the context.

General perfectives view action as a completed whole, some of them also conveying some sort of result of them. Specific point in time that general perfective attached to is the moment when the action ended, though unlike the inceptive perfectives which purely mark the point in time when the action ended, general perfectives are used with a connotation of the action preceding that point in time itself.

Inceptive perfectives mark the point in time when an action begins (or, in the case of resumptive perfective, when it resumes).

Terminative perfectives mark the point in time when an action stops and, in most cases, how it stops.

Non-past perfective verbs always mark future actions / points in time and are by themselves are the most used means of expressing future events.

Perfective lists

Imperfectives

• Imperfective - null prefix

  Marks a general ongoing action, being close in meaning to English progressive tenses.

• Continuative imperfective - 𐍀𐌰𐌹𐍂-

  Has a similar meaning to the imperfective, with the difference that the action in question is stressed to be "still" ongoing.

General perfectives

• General perfective - 𐌲𐌰-

  General perfective actions are viewed as a completed whole, similar in meaning to most of the Slavic perfectives and usually translated into English simple past and future tenses.

  Unlike other perfective prefixes, general perfective does not always use the normal "𐌲𐌰-" prefix, though it is the most frequently encountered of them all. The exact general perfective prefix is verb-specific and in dictionary entries it is often displayed for each verb.

• Delimitative perfective - 𐍀𐌿-

  Translates to "to do X for a while" and marks a whole action of this sort, not implying any sort of logical completion of it.

• Satiative perfective - 𐍅𐌹-

  Similar in meaning to general perfective, but translated specifically "to do X until one is satisfied", ignoring any other logical endings of the action if they exist.

• Productive perfective - 𐌽𐌰-

  Somewhat similar in meaning to general perfective, but puts a logical stress on some sort of physical result of an action, often but not exclusively a byproduct of it.

Inceptive perfectives

• General inceptive perfective - 𐌰𐌽-

  Marks a point in time when the action starts and the beginning of an action itself.

• Resumptive perfective - 𐍂𐌹-

  Marks a point in time when the action resumes after some implied pause.

Terminative perfectives

• General terminative perfective - 𐌼𐌹𐌷-

  Marks a point in time when the action ends, without specifying how it ends. Often used when the finished/unfinished characteristic of the action is inapplicable, unknown or irrelevant.

  The consonant "𐌷" of this prefix assimilates with the initial consonant of the verb if it is present.

• Terminative completive perfective - 𐍄𐌰-

  Marks a point in time when the action ends and explicitly marks that the action reached its logical end / was properly completed.

• Terminative incompletive perfective - 𐌰𐌱𐌰-

  Marks a point in time when the action ends and explicitly marks that the action ceased before it could be properly completed.

• Pausative perfective - 𐌿-

  Marks a point in time when the action ends (either without completion or when completion is inapplicable) and implies that it was or will be resumed in the future.

When used with suffixal aspects, perfective modify the end verb a.k.a. the action described by the last aspectual suffix.