Augment
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The imperfect tense in Penthik is marked by an augment, that is a prefix added to the verb stem. This is a reflection of the PIE augment (h₁e-), which was prefixed to past-tense verbs.
Unlike some languages where the augment depends on the conjugation class, in Penthik the choice of augment depends entirely on the initial sound of the verb stem:
Initial sound | Augment | Example |
|---|---|---|
Consonant | э- | э-ӄер-ем "I was making" |
Vowel | ј- | ј-ав-ис "You were appearing" |
(Note that the tense also requires suffixes.)
This rule applies to all conjugations: thematic -ети and -ити, athematic, and most of the irregular verbs, with only a handful of exceptions (e.g. ести "to be" has эрем).