Galician-Asturian - Morphological Aspects

Morphological Aspects

Verbal Forms

• Verbal tenses: Indicative: Present, Imperfect, Perfect simple, Past perfect simple, Future Conditional; Subjunctive: Present and imperfect; Imperative, Infinitive simple and conjugate, participle and gerund.

• Synthetic future. In Eonavian is characteristic the construction of the future tense with the phrase verb 'haber' + pronoun + tense infinitive: "eiyes atizar" u otras "eivos dar", "y'a poñer", which are similar to others used in Galician-Portuguese to prioritize the personal pronoun to the desinence ending: atizaryes-ei, darvos-ei, poñerlle-a.

• Conjugated infinitive. Use of conjugated infinitive in subordinate constructions where the infinitive end or part of a prepositional phrase, where processes have different subjects and aims to avoid ambiguity.

• Verbal desinence. There is in this language, like the rest of the family Galician-Portuguese, a strong dependence of original vocalism in the Latin language, in fact, that in Galician-Asturian is even more conservative. So e.g., the verbal inflection of Eonavian is conditioned by the loss of the distinction between open and closed vowels in Vulgar Latin. The disappearance of the distinction between unstressed vowels, and given the mobility of stressed vowels within the verbal root, the morpheme was prevailed over the root in most cases, distinguishing between open and closed position as tonic when combined.

Thus the vowels acquired certain metaphonic connotations, to incorporate this distinction into verbal inflection, ignoring the etymological origin of the words. So in cases of strong personal forms, namely, the three person singular and third plural present indicative, subjunctive and the whole of the second imperative, speakers always distinguish between vowel -e- and o-open, always distinguishing between strong and weak forms other than monosyllabic verbs, where the stressed vowel of the root morpheme and the match, and with the exception of the verbs give duty and, in fact irregular in Galician-Asturian. That said, these are the main features of the verb forms in this language:

- Desinence –des in the 2nd person plural every conjugations. Confirm, García García, that although the ending is maintained stably in the 2nd and 3rd, in the 1st conjugation is giving way to the influence of Castilian -ais and -aides.

- Desinence of perfect past –che. Verbal Forms 1st person singular: ‘veño’, ‘teño’, ‘vexo’.

- Deformation vocal by rizotónic effect.

- Keeping infinitive ended in “-r-“ to the join with pronomes

- Disappearance of the desinence –s- in 1st person plural to join ‘nos’ enclitic.

- The -n- paragogic is presented in 1st person singular perfect in all strong and bending double –er, -ir, dixen-, puxen, fun, salin, còmín.

- Endings in “-i” often take -n paragójica: tomein, falein, subirein, falarein, hein, sein.

- Using the vowel e-open forms 1st person plural past (coyèmos, dixèmos), or the open vowel –o- in the forms of plural in 2nd and 3hd (fòmos, fòron).

- The infinitive in –er- in many verbs in Castillian is in -ir, so e.g.: ‘morrer’, ‘encher’, ‘ferver’, ‘render’, etc., less frequently and in form hesitant, conversely: ‘valir’/’valer’ y ‘tosir’/’toser’.

- Alternation occurs -e- open and closed ar verbs with-e-open rizotónica. In these, is opened the vowel -e- radical of three persons of the singular and 3ª of the plural.

- In the inchoative verbs and other in-cer and circulatory, the 1st person singular present indicative and subjunctive all present are treated as "ces” –“ce”, lluzo, lluce, lluza, lluzas, lluza.

- Alternation -e- opened and -e- closed in the thematic vowel tonic of most verbs in -er.

- The vowel -e- closed is typical of the three persons in plural of the perfect simple, six of pluperfect simple, all the imperfect subjunctive in the two series, forms of the gerund and the 1st person future. Present-e-closed the 1st and 2nd person plural of this tense, the plural of the imperative the 1st and 2nd person plural of the future, both in this as in the hypothetical future-e.

- There are verbs (‘medir’ and sentir) that show alternation i/e in the root vowel: with -i-in the strong forms (forms in the singular and 3rd plural of present tense, of singular imperative and all the subjunctive) and -e-in the weak vowels.

- As in Western Asturian occurs, is accentuated in the first two persons of the plural present subjunctive.

• Composite shapes. Garcia Garcia and Celso Muñiz admit the existence of composite shapes with verb ‘ter’ as an assistant, but with a criterion more restricted than in Castilian and probability connotations. However this position should be noted, more as such an approach particular of these authors on the morphosyntax of the compound forms than as the existence of one's own specialty of the Eonavian language.

Nominal Forms

• Gender and number. The gender and number is made into analogic desinences: o/a, os/as. Theses forms are altered by effect the lost the consonant -n- intervocalic: ratois (mice), caxois (drawers).

• Augmentatives and diminutives. The instability of nasal consonants make the alteration also of the augmentatives and diminutives forms: casúa (big house), pedrúa (big stones), casía (small house), pedría (small stone), etc.

• Plural Gender. It is also characteristic of Eonavian, change gender to specify a group or an unknown number of things, so e.g. "el anada", "el herba", (is different "a herba" a blade of grass, than "el hierba", a grass farod), in adverbial locutions to "da feito" (in fact), "da remoyo" (soacking), etc.

• Identity between male and neutral articles and demonstrative. Although the forms of gender-neutral are widespread, as has highlighted Frías Conde, the use of these forms is due to the influence of Castilian, so these forms originally was unknown in Eonavian, («Los derivados de "ille" e "illum" en el gallego de Asturias», Revista de Filología Románica, nº 10, 1993, pp. 241–252), so if it in itself is strange that it is precisely the neutral "lo", the only article that begins in a consonant, it is beyond question the strangeness of that article, if we consider that no analyst records the existence of contractions with article -lo', something which is unacceptable both in Galician and Asturian.