o yis     Auxillary verbs

Apart from when used as an imperative, or when a verb is being used as a yes/no response to a question, every O Yis verb will come with an auxillary verb. These verbs, unlike the main verbs, are conjugated; an auxillary consists of a stem and a suffix. Conjugation is irregular.

The auxillary verb performs several tasks: it carries information about the grammatical mood of the clause, and some aspect details; it also provides information about the perceived status of the person being addressed. Furthermore, some auxillaries carry tense information (past vs non-past) encoded lexically: different stems are used for each tense.

The auxillary suffix changes according to the state of the verb - in other words the intentionality and/or success of a given action. A verb will be in one of five states of completion, demonstrated through its auxillary:

• -ic, the possible or conditional state - an action may or may not happen
• -e, -mbe, the intended state - definite plans have been made to undertake an action
• -a, the incomplete or imperfective state - the action has started but not yet completed
• -uk, the complete or perfective state - the action has finished (as far as possible) or stopped, but there's no indication of whether the result is satisfactory
• -an, -tan, the satisfactory or telic state - the action has been completed and the outcome is satisfactory

The lexical choice of auxillary stem supplies information about how the speaker views the action. This information can be generic (I tell you, I ask you) or can carry details of the perceived veracity of the statement (I know this first hand; I believe this is what happened). The action can also be optative, jussive or hortative (like, need, let, endure, want). The default is the tell/say/ask series of stems. Different stems are used depending on the status of the person being addressed and, for some series, the tense of the action.

The audience status hierarchy

Judging the person or group being addressed is a crucial part of the language, as it has an effect on the choice of auxillary stem used with a verb. The status hierarchy is:

1. children; close family
2. close or family friends
3. extended family; friends
4. colleagues
5. acquaintances
6. strangers
7. authority figures

For example, a parent will use first status auxillaries when addressing their spouse or children, and the children will use the same auxillaries when responding; a kindergarden teacher would tend to use third status auxillaries when addressing a class of pupils, a school teacher may choose to us fourth or fifth status auxillaries while a professor may even use sixth status auxillaries (for instance at the start of a new year) - in each of these cases the child would be expected to use seventh status auxillaries in response. Similarly, quality newspaper journalists tend to use fifth or sixth status auxillaries in their reports whereas tabloid journalists are more likely to resort to fourth or even third status auxillaries.

Most auxillary stems cover a range of statuses:

Combining auxillary stems with suffixes can be a little irregular (and is subject to dialect variation). The following table gives the results for the majority of speakers born and raised in the city of Malaje: