Commands is the 30th skill in the High Valyrian language course. It has 8 lessons.
Grammar Notes[]
The future tense[]
The High Valyrian future is used for distant projections about what will happen, as well as to commit the subject to some future course. Here's a quick example:
- Daenerys dāri ȳdrēlza. "Daenerys will talk to the king."
You could also translate this with the English "going to" future:
- Daenerys dāri ȳdrēlza. "Daenerys is going to talk to the king."
If a sense of immediacy is desired, though, the present is used, as shown below:
- Tubī Daenerys dāri ȳdras. "Daenerys is going to talk to the king today."
This latter fact is something to keep in mind. In this course when you see a future tense sentence, assume that the actual marked future tense will be used.
Future active indicative verb conjugation[]
The future stem in High Valyrian has an l associated with it, but what happens between the root and the l differs depending on the root's termination. For roots ending in a consonant, -il is added, and then the present tense agreement set is added after that, with a small caveat that in the first person, a sound change results in the unique ending -inna. An example is shown below:
| I | You | He/she | We | Y'all | They |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jorrāelinna | Jorrāelilā | Jorrāelilza | Jorrāelili | Jorrāelilāt | Jorrāelilzi |
The agreement facts hold for other verbs whose roots end in vowels. What differs is the vowel before the l. In each case, the vowel is long, but the quality differs based on the placement of the vowel. When the root vowel is a or o, the result is -ēl; when the root vowel is otherwise (e, i, or u), the result is -īl. Here's an example (using the third person plural) of each type of vowel ending:
- Ȳdrēlzi "they will speak" -a becomes -ē
- Nektēlzi "they will cut" -o becomes -ē
- Urnīlzi "they will see" -e becomes -ī
- Sindīlzi "they will buy" -i becomes -ī
- Bardīlzi "they will write" -u becomes -ī
Future active subjunctive verb conjugation[]
There are a second set of subjunctive agreement endings in High Valyrian, and the future tense is the first place you'll see them. They are similar to the subjunctive endings you already know, but the o is replaced by u. These endings are added to the future stem, whose formation we've just discussed. Here's an example:
| I | You | He/she | We | Y'all | They |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jorrāelilun | Jorrāelilū | Jorrāelilus | Jorrāeliluty | Jorrāelilūt | Jorrāelilusy |
Again, these endings are added to the future stem, so be sure to effect the necessary vowel change in vowel final stems, as shown below:
- Nektēlun: "I will cut"
The verb sagon, "to be" is barbarically irregular in the future tense. Using the stem kes-, the verb conjugates as a present tense verb would, but it has future meaning. Here is its full conjugation paradigm:
| I | You | He/she | We | Y'all | They |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kesan | Kesā | Kessa | Kesi | Kesāt | Kessi |
| Keson | Kesō | Kesos | Kesoty | Kesōt | Kesosy |
The verb emagon is regular, with a consonant-final stem em-, and the verb jagon is lightly irregular, having a future stem īl-. This means that the first person form for the future indicative of jagon is īnna, "I will go".
Saying yes[]
As you know, the third person singular version of the verb sagon is used for "yes" in High Valyrian. Where it makes sense, the tense of this verb matches the tense of the sentence. Thus, in a future tense context, you will see kessa used to mean "yes", though issa will always work as well.
Lessons[]
Lesson 1[]
- Drūr: Tomorrow