Derived Verbs

As we learned at the beginning of Starting Out, there are four simple verb classes. Of these four, we have only studied three. Here, we will study the fourth: the -aya class. Unlike the other verb classes, the -aya verb classes often use strengthened roots — or even verb stems — where roots from other classes would use weak roots. Why is this so? Part of the reason is that the -aya class is most commonly used by derived verbs, which are formed from verbs (and nouns) that we've seen already. Although it is convenient to treat the -aya class as a verb class like the others, its nature and behavior is ultimately quite different.

In this chapter, we will study two derived verb forms. We will also study the use of noun prefixes, which is related to one of our derived verb forms.