Learn Assyrian › Grammar

4.16–4.21 Objects on the verb, in full

4 · Verbs — how the system works · a plain-language guide to Assyrian (Sureth) grammar

Object endings above gave you the recognition-level table. This is the whole system, and it is worth having because "give it to me," "he told her," "I saw you" are the sentences you need on day one.

The flip that makes the past look strange

On a present-tense verb, everything is where English would put it: the S-ending is the subject, and an object rides after it as an L-ending:

On a past-tense verb the two swap jobs. The S-endings — the ones you learned as subject markers — now mark the object, and the L-ending carries the doer:

Read ktilenle as "kill-me-he-did." Linguists call this ergative marking, and Khan's term for the Assyrian version is "extended ergative"; you do not need the label, but you do need the flip. Note the "them" ending is -e here, not the -i of the present.

Final-y verbs do the same thing with an extra y:

The easier way — ka- plus a pronoun

You do not have to stack endings. Assyrian has a perfectly ordinary prepositional phrase for the job, built on ka- "to, for" (Prepositions, Chapter 8), and Khan notes that speakers actually prefer it for "me" and "you":

There is a longer variant with ka-diyy-: ka-diyyu, ka-diyyo, ka-diyye, ka-diyyukh…, and the phrase can move in front of the verb — katu ktelle and ktelle katu are both fine. This is the construction to use while the stacked endings are still settling. It is not a learner's shortcut; it is what people say.

"To him" — indirect objects

For a present-tense verb, either an L-ending or a ka- phrase:

For a past-tense verb, the ka- phrase is the normal way:

But an S-ending can carry the indirect object too, as long as there is no definite direct object in the clause — and these are lovely, everyday sentences:

The catch is worth stating plainly: if the direct object is definite, that same S-ending will be heard as the direct object instead — shudrale e gupta means "he sent that cheese," not "he sent it to her." When in doubt, put the person in a ka- phrase and there is no ambiguity.

On a command, both work: halle! "give him!" and hal katu! "give to him!"

Both objects at once

The rule is the same everywhere: the thing goes on the verb, the person goes in a ka- phrase.

You never put both in ka- phrases.

Objects on the compound tenses

Perfect and progressive forms take the possessive endings — the -u / -o / -ukh / -i set you already use on nouns ("his, her, your, my") — placed on the participle, before the copula:

So a perfect with an object reads literally as "killed-of-him he-is". If that feels like a lot, it is — and the ka- phrase is available here too.

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