Azurian verbs have indicative, subjunctive and imperative moods and present and preterite tenses. In addition there are three nominal forms, the infinitive and the present and perfect participles. Also, there is a formal middle voice.
The infinitive has an ‘infinitive marker’ á, which isn’t always required. The infinitive is the form usually encountered in dictionaries, but it has several other uses as well.
The present participle is marked with the formant -and-, and is often used adjectivally. These adjectives do not have an indefinite inflection, and the definite inflection is used whether the sense is definite or not.
Similarly the past participle also is often used adjectivally. In the case of the strong verbs, which have different passive and active forms of the participle, the passive forms are used adjectivally. Unlike the present participle adjectives, the past participle ones take only the indefinite adjectival inflection, whether the sense is definite or not. If a plural marker is added, the vowel in the verbal ending will be dropped. For example f.sg. boren, f.pl. bornar. The past participle forms a composite perfect with the auxiliary hava in the present tense, and a pluperfect with the auxiliary in the past tense. A composite passive voice is formed with the auxiliary vera.
The middle voice is formed by adding -st to the infinitive or past forms. A composite perfect tense may be formed by adding the auxiliary hava to the past form. The resulting forms do not always have a middle or reflexive sense, and the middle may be on its way out as an inflectional category.
The imperative is the imperious mood, most often marked with a final e, but endingless and a-marked imperatives exist. Verbs in the imperative are not marked for tense. Although person marking largely has disappeared from the Azurian verb, there are 1st and 2nd person plural imperatives in use, marked respectively with -em and -i endings on the uninflected root.
Verbs are divided into two categories, weak and strong, based upon the character of the conjugation. Weak verbs form the past tense with conjugational endings, while the strong ones don’t rely on such crutches.
The weak conjugation is fairly simple, consisting of only four classes with characteristic formants. Weak verbs in principle do not conjugate through vowel alterations, but the d- and the t-class do have alterations in the present and the imperative. The following table gives the infinitive, present, past, past participle and imperative forms of example verbs, with the names of the classes and the way they are codified in the first column:
| inf. | pres. sg. | pres. pl. | past sg. | past pl. | p. part. | imp. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a-class (wa) | kadla | kadlar | kadle | kadlå | kødlu | kadlad | kadle |
| ja-class (wja) | krevja | krever | kreve | kravde | kravdu | krevd | krev |
| d-class (wd) | døma | dæmer | dæme | dømde | dømdu | dømd | døm |
| t-class (wt) | djuga | díger | djuge | djugte | djugtu | djugt | djug |
The strong conjugation is a little more complicated. Common to all is that the infinitive ends in -a, the present and past tenses are endingless, the imperative ends in -e, and the past participle ends in -e or -en depending on whether the construct, which includes an auxiliary, is an active or a passive one. If the auxiliary is hava, the construct is active and the ending is -e. If the auxiliary is vera, it is passive and takes the ending -en.
The chief feature that distinguishes these forms from each other is the alternation of the root vowel, which can have five different forms, or, more often, less, if some of the forms share the same root vowel. These alternations are indicated in the abbreviation list in the dictionary where the conjugation class of the verb is identified. The root vowels are indicated in the following order: present singular, present plural, past singular, past plural and past participle. For example: “(í í ai í í)” for bíta.
The subjunctive is somewhat eroded in Azurian, with many forms identical to the indicatives, especially in the present tense. The subjunctives heve, hevde and tjeve of the verbs hava and tjeva are used a lot in set phrases. The following table gives the subjunctive forms of the various weak verb classes.
| pres. sg. | pres. pl. | past sg. | past pl. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a-class (wa) | kadle | kadlí | kadlå | kadlag |
| ja-class (wja) | kreve | kreví | krevde | krevdi |
| d-class (wd) | døme | dømí | dømde | dømdi |
| t-class (wt) | djuge | djugí | dígte | dígtí |