INTRODUCTION

The mixed conjugation verbs appear on the outside to look like A-stems, yet they behave like both A-stems and I-stems. This group of verbs seems to include most verbs with a single consonant before the final “-a”, as long as the consonant is not –th- or –ch- which represented older clusters.

The verbs that appear to belong to this group are:

brona “survive”
fara “hunt”
gala “grow”
laba “hop”
nara “tell”
pada “walk”
rada “make a way”
aphada “follow”
athrada “traverse”
gannada “play a harp”
lathrada “eavesdrop”
limmida “moisten”
nimmida “whiten”
tangada ” make firm”

CONJUGATION

The infinitive, present tense, future tense, imperative, active participle and gerund all seem to be conjugated like regular A-STEM VERBS. Let’s use Tangada- as an example:

Infinitive: Tangado “to make firm”
Present tense: Tangada “makes firm”
Future tense: Tangadatha “will make firm”
Imperative: Tangado “make firm!”
Active participle: Tangadol “making firm”
Gerund: Tangadad “making firm” (n)

The 3rd person singular past tense, passive participle, and the perfective active participle seems to be conjugated like I-stems as if the final “-a” of the verb did not exist. Again let’s use Tangada- as an example:

Past tense: Tangant “made firm” (nasal infix! Lesson 11)
Passive participle: Tangannen “stopped”
Perfective Active participle: Tengediel “having stopped” (adj)

MORE ON THE PAST TENSE, PERFECTIVE ACTIVE PARTICIPLE, AND PASSIVE PARTICIPLE

The past tense, perfective active participle, and the passive participle of these verbs should be conjugated like normal I-STEM VERBS except for the following.

In the 3rd person Past Tense, when the verb naturally has a long vowel, this vowel is probably shortened in the mixed conjugation.

Síla > Sill
Aníra > Anirn
Tíra > Tirn

For all other persons in the Past Tense, the connecting vowel -e- is added to 3rd per. sing. past tense (instead of -i-)before the pronominal ending, triggering intervocalic changes as in the I-Stems. When the verb naturally has a long vowel, it is probably shortened for the past tense.

In the Perfective Active Participle, when there is a long vowel in the verb, it cannot naturally be lengthened any more than it is when forming the perfective active participle, so we must assume that is stays long.

Síla “shine” > Síliel “having shone”

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

• Mixed conjugating seems to occur in most verbs with a single consonant before the final “–a”
• The infinitive, present tense, future tense, imperative, active participle and gerund all seem to be conjugated like regular A-STEM verbs
• The 3rd person past tense, passive participle, and the perfective active participle seems to be conjugated like I-STEMS as if the final “-a” of the verb did not exist … other person past tenses are formed by adding -e- and the pronominal ending
• Long vowels are probably shortened in the past tense of mixed conjugation
• Verbs that contain a long vowel remain long in the perfective active participle