Verbs

The Vayoti verbs are similar to the English verb in this one respect: they do not neatly group themselves into several "classes" the way that, for instance, French verbs do (i.e., the -er, -ir, and -re verbs). Like in English, where a verb can "look" any which way (e.g., take, go, buy, sit, need), there is no rule dictating that all Vayoti verbs will correspond to a set of forms or endings. 

Consider, for instance, these verbs (bold font indicates the stress): 

pult'yan - to tempt

latno - to widen, expand

balpat - to applaud, clap

vorazakhshi - to correct, rectify, fix

e'y'stri - to negate, deny, dispute

zhotrob - to infiltrate

num - to assign, allot, apportion, distribute

vitsir - to lose, be defeated

b'tsak - to pay

From these examples it is clear that there are no "families" of verbs in Vayoti comparable to those we find in the Romance or Slavic languages. Yes, there are certain special classes or forms, and special suffixes (comparable, for instance, to such English endings as "-fy" in beautify, magnify, deify, or "-ize" in idealize, winterize, specialize), with which the Vayoti learner will quickly become familiar.  

The "conjugation" of a Vayoti verb is quite simple. In point of fact, the verb does not conjugate, strictly speaking. That is, its own form does not change with respect to person, number or tense (like English sing, sings, sang, have sung). So, to take num (to assign, allot, apportion") as an example, no matter whether the subject is in the first, second or third person, or whether it is singular or plural, or in the past, present or future, num remains num. 

How then, are these nuances (person, number, tense) conveyed? 

First, let us establish that person is conveyed simply by the presence of the subject in noun or pronoun form, exactly as in English. This also establishes number. Unlike in some Romance, Slavic or other languages, the verb cannot stand alone and, by itself, indicate person and number. In this respect, the Vayoti verb operates exactly like an English verb. 

Tense is established in this way: 

Past, Future and Conditional Tenses are indicated by Time Particles that immediately precede the verb. (For a rough equivalent, consider the placement of "did" in front of an English verb: "We did talk", or, for that matter, "will": "We will talk.") 

There are two versions of Past Time Particle, two versions of Future Time Particle, and one Conditional Time Particle. 

The Past Time Particles are: 

zhun - Past Indefinite 

shan - Past Continuous

When zhun is placed before a verb, it conveys that the action happened, simply, much as we say in English, "I ate dinner" or "Sally broke her glasses." 

When shan is placed before a verb, then the construction conveys an ongoing action in the past, much as we say in English "I was eating dinner when Fred walked in" or "Sally was breaking her glasses so often, she finally decided to get contact lenses." 

The Future Time Particles are: 

zwe - Future Indefinite

swi - Future Continuous

When zwe is placed before a verb, then the construction conveys that action will happen, simply, much as we say in English "I will leave tomorrow morning" or "John will write to you." 

When swi is placed before a verb, then the construction conveys an ongoing action in the future, much as we say in English, "I will be waiting for you in the lobby" or "Thomas will be visiting you regularly during the coming month." 

The Conditional Time Particle is: 

zesh 

The Conditional is equivalent to English "would" in such sentences as "I would go with you but I have to finish my homework" or "Mildred would have bought that car but she didn't have enough money." 

The Present Tense is, simply, indicated by the absence of Time Particles! So, where there is only a subject immediately followed by a verb, and NO Time Particle at all, it is clearly the present tense. 

Aspectual Suffixes

Along with the Time Particles, Vayoti verbs frequently, and in all tenses, including the present, take on suffixes that indicate the "aspect" of the action, i.e., whether the action takes a direct object (transitive) or not (intransitive), whether the action is considered as just beginning, or not very far advanced (inceptive/incomplete), whether the action is to be considered fully complete at the present moment (perfective), or whether the action was performed by the subject on itself (reflexive). 

These are the suffixes: 

Default

-zho   Transitive

-zhi    Intransitive

-zha   Reflexive

Emphatic

-zhe    Inceptive/Incomplete

-zhu    Perfective

The three suffixes under "Default" are the "basic" ones; that is, barring a particular, special desire to emphasize the perfected (completed) or inceptive/incomplete nature of the action, it is assumed that the speaker will use one of the three Default suffixes. 

Thus, for example, the combination of the Past Indefinite zhun, before the verb, plus the Perfective -zhu, suffixed to the verb, distinctly conveys the nuance of an English verb in the perfect tense. For example: 

bo zhun brezhu. The verb is "bre" - to shave. This construction conveys, "I have shaved." 

bo zhun brezhi conveys, "I shaved", i.e., myself. 

Yes, using the emphatic -zhu instead of the reflexive -zhi seems to deprive the verb of its reflexive aspect, but the meaning would be clear from context. The absence of the reflexive -zhi does not require that the verb be understood transitively! 

On the other other hand, were one to say: 

bo shan brezho, 

the hearer would naturally ask "Who?", meaning "You were shaving who?", because the ending -zho distinctly conveys the action was carried out by the speaker on somebody, or something, else! 

When must an Aspectual Suffix be used? 

Answer: ALWAYS (including the present tense!), with these eleven exceptions: 

1. The infinitive (i.e., when you are saying "to eat, to take, to see," etc.) So, in a sentence like, "I want to eat", there would be no Aspectual Suffix attached to "to eat" (later we will see how to form the infinitive). The Aspectual Suffix is not attached even when the infinite takes an object ("I want to eat the cake now"). 

2. The imperative ("Do this! Take that! Tell him!")

3. The subjunctive ("The judge ordered that he pay a million dollars.")

4. It is never added to the verb To Be (or other Triplet Verbs).

5. It is never added to -ala verbs; these are verbs ending in -ala and they indicate state or condition; e.g., pikala means "to be beautiful", and wirtla (the -ala ending is truncated here) means "to become". 

6. It is never added to "Triplet Verbs" (To Be is also one of these). Triplet Verbs are a very small category of verbs (to do, to go, to come, to have) which have distinct, different forms for each tense; for example, "to come" is gweam in the present, atean in the past, and tarr in the future. 

7. It does not need to be added (though it can, to add nuance) to any verb that is followed by a preposition. The preposition can be either immediately after the verb ("I looked through the telescope") or immediately after the verb's direct object ("He pushed the stalled car along the road"). The preposition must directly modify the verb/action. A preposition arising shortly after the verb but not related directly to the action is not covered by this rule ("He painted the fence next to the house"--note, in this instance, "next to" is telling us where the fence was, and not how he painted; thus, in this case, the Aspectual Suffix, probably -zho, would be mandatory). 

8. With the verbal particle ye, which translates (with the assistence of Time Particles) as "there is/are/was/were/will be/would be." ye is quite unique, not only in that it can never take an Aspectual Suffix, but also in that, unlike all other nouns, the Time Particle follows ye, does not precede it! Thus, ye zhun means "there was/were" and ye zwe means "there will be" and ye zesh means "there would be." ye shan conveys something like "there was (continually, or 'going on')" and ye swi something like "there will be (continually, 'going on', i.e., 'there will be being'). 
9. They are not added to Adverbial Participles or Perfective Adjectival Participles (but they ARE added to Continuous Adjectival Participles!). For Participles, see below.  
10. They are not only not added to an infinitive (meaning, after ste), but they are also not added to a verb before ste. In this respect, ste may be considered as affecting the Aspectual Suffix in precisely the same way as a preposition; i.e., obviating the need for the Aspectual Suffix. Thus, "I want to stop" in Vayoti is bo votel ste penedu. No Asp. Suff. is added either to "want"/votel (because it is followed by ste) nor to "stop"/penedu (because it is an Infinitive here). 
11. -tri verbs. The Vayoti suffix -tri connotes something very like English "-ize" or "-fy", i.e., to "make something something", like "the rain made my shoes wet" (i.e., it wet my shoes) or "he makes me angry" (i.e., he angers me). So, in the Vayoti version of a sentence like "The rain made my shoes wet", which in Vayoti would be formulated like "The rain wetted my shoes," the verb "to wet" (blekhtri) would be formulated as zhun blekhtri, using the past indefinite Time Particle, but no Aspectual Suffix. 

At this point we will not go into great detail concerning the variety of nuances that can be created by various possible combinations of Time Particles and Aspectual Suffixes. Suffice to say, they are many. We will note just this one rather remarkable use of one of the Time Particles, a usage the reader would not likely have anticipated: 

The perfective suffix -zhu, when used in the present tense (that means there is NO Time Particle in front of the verb), creates what we call the Dramatic Present, as in "Tonight we paint the town red!" or "This year I lose thirty pounds!" It is also the kind of "storytelling" Present Tense we encounter in a play script's stage directions ("Bob walks up to Gene, grabs the document from his hand and slaps him in the face")  

Adjectival and Adverbial Participles

This combined category includes four verbal forms we commonly use in English, as in these sentences: 

(Adjectival) 
I watched the dancing bear. (Continuous)
We looked at the ruined painting. (Perfective)
(Adverbial)
Whistling, he walked all the way home. (Continuous) 
Having finished, I put away my tools. (Perfective)

In the first two sentences, the participles modify (describe) nouns (the bear and the painting), so they are adjectival. In the next two, the participles modify verbs (that is, they create the conditions for the main verbs in the sentences--"walked" and "put away"), so they are considered adverbial. 

Here, in order, is how they are formed: 

A.  The Continuous Adjective Participle, in Vayoti, is created simply by adding ste+verb after the noun. Thus, "a dancing bear" in the Vayoti construction would be "a bear ste dance-zhi". 

Thus, this construction inserts the particle ste before the verb, and includes the Aspectual Suffix. 

It does NOT convey "a bear that dances"; it means "a dancing bear." (There is a different Vayoti word to use when you wish to communicate something like "the bear that is dancing".)

Note carefully that this construction INCLUDES the Aspectual Suffix. Why? Because if it didn't, then ste before the verb would create an Infinitive, and that would be nonsense: "the bear to-dance." Therefore, the presence of the Aspectual Suffix is critical for differentiating between an Infinitive and a Continuous Adjectival Participle.  

Note the flexibility of the Vayoti particle ste: it denotes an Infinitive, it marks a Continuous Adjectival Participle (in other words, it transforms a simple verb in the indicative INTO an Adjectival Participle), and, as will be seen in the section on Modifiers, it marks adjectives generally. 

Consider these examples: 

The man is thinking: to vretra mnrazhi (verb: mnra)
The man who/that is thinking: to vretra gu mnrazhi (gu:who/that)
The thinking man: to vretra ste mnrazhi
The pensive man: to vretra ste mnravasek (mnravasek: pensive)


Thus, the whole difference between "The man is thinking" and "the thinking man", in Vayoti, hinges on the insertion of ste. 

B. The Perfective Adjectival Participle

In English this form is typically found in the third column of verbal forms, like: 

see    saw   seen
bring   brought   brought
finish    finished    finished
sing   sang   sung
take   took    taken

It is this third form that we use in English for two purposes: 
a) in the Perfect tenses, together with the helping verb "have", as in "I have sung; She has finished; They have taken; We have seen." 
b) as an adjective, as in "the finished work; the taken items; the seen figures; the brought material." 

In Vayoti the Perfective Adjectival Participle DOES NOT serve the first of these two purposes. As demonstrated above, the Perfect Tense in Vayoti is expressed through the proper combination of Time Particle and Aspectual Suffix (i.e., zhun + -zhu). 

The Vayoti Perfective Adjectival Participle DOES, however, serve the second of these purposes, i.e., it is an adjective. 

This participle is formed simply by adding -tu to the verb. It is always unaccented. 

Thus, "shaved" ("a shaved face") is bretu. 

The Aspectual Suffix is NEVER added to the Perfective Adjectival Participle; you cannot say bretuzhi. 

As for ste (which marks adjectives), it is OPTIONAL. Usually, ste is used before this participle when the noun+participle phrase ("a beloved child; the wrecked car; a drenched dog") is the conclusion of a thought ("I looked at the drenched dog"--in Vayoti, the concluding construction would be "dog ste drenched"). 

If, though, the sentence goes on to indicate either who carried out the action, or other conditions, like where, when, why, etc., then ste is generally omitted. Thus, in "We are loved by God", there would be no ste after "loved". The sentence looks like this: 

bwip prigartu ipra edwo.
bwip=we-are; prigartu=loved; ipra=by; edwo=God

"I am a deceived man" would be: 

bwib jon vretra ste wolnatu
bwib=I-am; jon=a; vretra=man; ste=adj. marker; wolnatu=fooled;deceived (wolna=fool, deceive)

BUT! 

"I was deceived by the messenger" is: 

bo fwi wolnatu ipra to gweltiz
bo=I; fwi=was; wolnatu=deceived; ipra=by; to=the; gweltiz=messenger

C.  The Adverbial Participles

Again, these forms in Vayoti correspond in their function to the verbal forms shown here in bold font: 

Whistling, he walked all the way home. (Continuous) 
Having finished, I put away my tools. (Perfective)

In the first sentence, the continuous adverbial participle "walking" defines the action, on the part of the subject, that accompanied the subject's primary action/verb, "walked." 

In the second sentence, the perfective adverbial participle (consisting of two words) "Having finished" defines the action the the subject had completed that creates the premise for the subjects primary action/verb, "put away." 

An Adverbial Participle "describes" or "modifes" the sentence's main verb, in the sense that its establishes the premise, answering the question "When?" or "Under what circumstances?" or even "Why?" or "How?" 

1. The Continuous Adverbial Participle

In Vayoti, the Continuous Adverbial Participle is expressed by prefixing gdu- to the verb. Thus, mnra means "think" and "gdumnra" means "thinking" or "while thinking" or "when thinking", strictly as an adverbial participle. 

Note, gdumnra does NOT mean "thinking" in any of these other senses of the English -ing form: 
"He is thinking" (present continuous tense, which in Vayoti is, di mnrazhi)
"the thinking child" (adjectival participle)
"Thinking is very important." (gerund, i.e., the -ing form as a noun)

This verbal form is STRICTLY a Continuous Adverbial Participle, and it makes sense only in sentences like: "Thinking about them, I laughed." In this sentence, the opening clause would be: 

gdumnra   da  tri
thinking  about  them

In translation, gdumnra could be interpreted as "thinking; while thinking, when thinking". 

2. The Perfective Adverbial Participle

In Vayoti, the Perfective Adverbial Participle is expressed by prefixing zhdu- to the verb. Thus, mnra means "think" and "zhdumnra" means "having thought" or "after having thought," strictly as an adverbial participle. 

Note that in English this grammatical construction requires two words: the auxiliary (helping) verb "have" and then the "actual" verb (action) in mind, in its perfect participial form (the "third column" in verb charts). In Vayoti, this grammatical construction is accomplished with only one word! 

The Perfective Adverbial Participle establishes that a certain action has or had been completed, setting the stage or grounds for the primary verb/action of the sentence: 

Having fired all the old managers, I began recruiting new personnel. 

In other words, I was able to begin recruiting new personnel precisely because I fired the old personnel. 

NOTE: Adverbial Participles NEVER take Aspectual Suffixes. You cannot say "zhdubrezhi" for "having shaved". 

The Particle-Verb ye

ye, already mentioned above, is a verb in a class all its own. It performs the same function as our English formula "there is" in all of its possible variations relative to tense, person and mood (there is/are/was/were/will be/would be). 

In Vayoti this construction, no matter the tense, person or mood, always begins with ye. 

The Time Particle follows ye, contrary to the pattern with all other verbs. Thus: 

ye = "there is/are"
ye zhun = "there was/were/has been/have been/had been"
ye shan = "there was/were (always, continually, as a rule, etc.)"
ye zwe = "there will be"
ye swi = there will be (continually/'there will be being...')"
ye zesh = "there would be/would have been"

ye never takes Aspectual Suffixes. 

The NEGATIVE of ye (there isn't, wasn't, won't be, etc.) is formulated simply by changing ye to banye. So, banye zwe means "there won't be." And banye all by itself means "there isn't/aren't" 

The verb To Be

This verb, like "to go, to come, to have, to do" may be considered a Triplet Verb (see Triplet Verbs below), even though, actually, it has four forms! There is a distinct form for each of the three usual tenses, plus a fourth for the Conditional. To Be requires no Time Particle, a feature it shares with the other Triplet Verbs (with the exception that the others require the Conditional Time Particle), and, like all Triplet Verbs, To Be takes no Aspectual Suffix. 

Along with the features To Be shares with the other Triplet Verbs, there are features unique to the verb To Be: 

1. The verb may be omitted from assertions of fact in the present tense. In this respect, Vayoti treats this verb much as languages like Russian or Hebrew do. Thus, to say "I am here" in Vayoti, it is necessary only to say, "I here" (though the verb may be included for emphasis: "I am here"). Similarly, "I American" means "I am (an) American." (Note that the use of the indefinite article is similarly optional here.) Again, this feature relates exclusively to the present tense. In past and future tense assertions the verb must be articulated. "I there" can never mean "I will be there"! Speakers of languages such as Hebrew or Russian will find this quite familiar. 

2. In all tenses, To Be may be utilized without articulating the pronoun before it. This is the only Vayoti verb that allows such a thing (not counting ye, but that is a very different concept and, in any case, doesn't relate to "person"). The reason for this is, the subject is indicated by the pronominal ending of the verb. Thus, the b at the end of bwib (I am) reflects the pronoun bo (I), and the f at the end of bwif reflects the pronoun fe (it). The t in tasre (they will be) reflect the pronoun ti (they). 

3. In the past tense only, the verb may be articulated without its pronominal ending, e.g., fwit(they were) may be articulated as ti fwi. Take note, if fwi is articulated as such, without any pronominal ending, then the pronoun  must be expressely stated before it. The practical outcome of this is, there are three ways to say, for instance, "you were": fwik; ka fwik; ka fwi. 

4. The verb To Be is the ONLY Vayoti verb that expresses itself in the Conditional as a "self-contained" form, i.e, without being preceded by the Conditional Time Particle zesh. Not even the other Triplet verbs do this--they require zesh (see Triplet Verbs). 

Here is the full conjugation of the verb To Be. I will not include the pronouns here, but remember that this does not mean they must be omitted before To Be! Remember, too, that in the Present Tense the pronominal suffix (e.g., bwib; bwik) is mandatory, but in the Past Tense it may be dropped  as long as the full pronoun is expressed beforehand.In all tenses, actually, the pronoun may be omitted before the verb To Be, as long as (in the Past Tense particularly) the pronominal suffix is present.  

Present Tense

bwib   I am
bwik   You are (both singular and plural, like in English!)
bwid   He/She is
bwif    It is
bwip   We are 
bwit    They are (animate: people, animals)
bwiv    They are (inanimate: objects)

PRONUNCIATION NOTE: contrary to normal Vayoti pronunciation, which shuns diphthongs, in the Present and Past Tenses of the verb To Be Vayoti speakers tend to insert an extremely subtle schwa (undefined, very short vowel) just prior to the pronominal suffix; if you were to "stretch out" the effect, you would get something like "bwee-it, bwee-ik, bwee-ip, bwee-iv"; this assists in distinguishing the suffix--for instance, making it distinctly audible that the speaker has pronounced "v" (bwiv) and not "f" (bwif). Remember that this effect is very, very subtle and quick--the word ought not to come across blatantly as two crisp syllables! 

Past Tense

fwib   I was
fwik   You were (sg. and pl.)
fwid   He/She was
fwif    It was
fwip   We were
fwit    They were (animate)
fwiv   They were (inanimate)

Future Tense (note, in all these forms the accent is on the first syllable)

basre   I will be
kasre   You will be  (sg. and pl.)
dasre   He/She will be
fasre    It will be
pasre   We will be
tasre    They will be (animate)
vasre    They will be (inanimate)

Conditional Tense (note, in all these forms the accent is on the second syllable)

bazhwe   I would be
kazhwe   You would be (sg. and pl.)
dazhwe   He/She would be
fazhwe    It would be
pazhwe   We would be
tazhwe    They would be (animate)
vazhwe   They would be (inanimate)

Triplet Verbs

This is a small category of verbs that have a unique form for each tense (for an analogy in English, consider present tense "go" and past tense "went"; these two forms actually derive from completely different etymological roots). Because the verb form expresses the tense (time), the need for a Time Particle is almost fully obviated. Thus, you usually do not place zhun, zwe, shan, or swi in front of these verbs. The exception is the Conditional Time Particle zesh; this is placed in front of a Triple Verb in the Future Tense in order to convey a conditional sense. 

May other Time Particles ever be placed before Triplet Verbs? The answer is yes.  If the speaker particularly wants to emphasize that, for instance, he was doing something, rather than that he did it, he may opt to place the Continuous Time Particle shan in front of the Past Tense form of "do". 

Here are all the Vayoti Triplet Verbs (excluding To Be, presented above), in all their tenses. In all forms, the stressed syllable will be underlined.  

To Come
Present Tense: gweam
Past Tense: atean
Future Tense: tarr
Conditional zesh tarr

(Thus, bo gweam = I come/am coming; di atean = he/she came; ka tarr = you will come; opo zesh tarr = we would come)

To Go
Present Tense: g'hal
Past Tense: elel
Future Tense: sh'dol
Conditional: zesh sh'dol

To Do
Present Tense: magu
Past Tense: danu
Future Tense: agu

Conditional: zesh agu

To Have
Present Tense: fal
Past Tense: imt
Future Tense: kapo
Conditional: zesh kapo

Take note: The Present Tense of each Triplet Verb serves as its lexical form and the Infinitive is created with the Present Tense form preceded by ste. Thus, ste gweam  = to come; ste fal = to have. 
The Imperative likewise is expressed via the Present Tense form. 
Also: The Perfective Adjectival Participle is created by suffixing -tu to the Past Tense form of the Triplet Verb. Thus danutu = done, and imttu = gone. 

The Imperative

To express a direct command in the second person (Work! Eat! Come here!) or, in the first and third persons, an indirect "command" (Let's go! Let her wait! May I always be faithful!), the Vayoti construction is very simple. It consists of, first, the verb without any Time Particle or Aspectual Suffix, followed by the subject (the one expected to carry out the action). 

In a second-person command, this, just as it is in English, is quite sufficient (Leave! Sit! Return!). 

In the first and third persons, it is necessary to articulate the subject (whether a noun or pronoun) AFTER the verb. Thus, "Let him wait!" is articulated in Vayoti as "Wait he!" "May I always be faithful" is articulated in Vayoti as "Be I always faithful!" 

"Read they the book!" expresses something between "Let them read the book" and "They must read the book", i.e., it is a "command" expressed in the third person (they). 

In English grammar the "third-person command" may be considered a kind of subjunctive more than a true imperative, but in Vayoti the Imperative, as a grammatical form or category, embraces all three grammatical persons: "Go (you)! Go I! Go he! Go we! Go they!" 

The Subjunctive

The Subjunctive is that grammatical form in English that expresses the expectation or imposition of the performance of an action. 

Conceptually, it differs from the Imperative in that the "action-verb" is preceded by a verb expressing an expectation, desire, preference or command on the part of the sentence's true grammatical subject. 

Thus, "Do this!" is a true Imperative, and the (understood, though absent) subject is "you." But in "The judge ordered that Joe be in court at noon on Tuesday", the sentence's grammatical subject is "The judge", the direct verb related to the subject is "ordered" (i.e,, what the judge did), and the verb "be" is in the Subjunctive—which is why it is "be" and not "is" ("...that Joe is..." would make no sense at all). 

Another, and increasingly prevalent, way to express the Subjunctive in English is with the modal verb "should"—"The judge ordered that Joe should be in court at noon on Tuesday." 

A third grammatical construction that, for the purposes of Vayoti study, we will consider "Subjunctive" in English, and which actually is Subjunctive in many other languages, is the construction that begins with a subject, then a verb expressing some kind of desire, need or expectation, followed by the Infinitive. Like this:

I want you to finish quickly. 

She expects me to arrive in the morning. 

They need us to help them. 

And so, in this section we will find out how, in Vayoti, to formulate sentences that are grammatically equivalent to such constructions in English as:

The king decreed that every male subject wear green.

The king decreed that every male subject should wear green.

The king wanted every male subject to wear green. 

          

A. Let's start with the last of these first, as it should be the most familiar and easy to the English-speaker.  

In such constructions, Vayoti employs precisely the same grammatical formula as English! That is, the Vayoti construction is "I—want—you—to-do—this" for English "I want you to do this."

Take careful note, however. The Vayoti word for "you" in that sentence is not the Subject (nominative) Form ka. It is the Object Form kra. It is, in fact, exactly the same form a speaker would use if he were saying just, "I want you." In English, "you" is "you", but in Vayoti there is ka (Subject Form) and kra (Object Form). In fact, though we don't "feel" the difference, even when in English we say "I want you to do this", we are using the "object you", not the "subject you".  

And so, the structure of an "I want you to do this" type sentence, in both English and Vayoti, is:

Subject (e.g., I) + Verb (e.g., want) + Noun or Pronoun in the “object” form (e.g., Larry, or him) + Infinitive (e.g., to finish).

Thus, “I want you to shave” would be: bo votelzho kra ste bre.

votel is "want", "-zho" is the transitive Aspectual Suffix, kra is "you", ste is the Infinitive Marker, and bre is the verb "shave."

Remember that the Vayoti Infinitive is formed by placing ste before the verb.

On the other hand,  "I want to shave you" would be: bo votel ste bre kra.

Remember that the Aspectual Suffix (-zho) drops off in front of an Infinitive. 

It does not drop off, however, in bo votelzho kra ste gno = I want you to know. 

B.  Now let's look at the Subjunctive in sentences like "The king decreed that every male subject (should) wear green.

Such sentences can be formed in two ways.

            1. The simplest way (in a sense, the way around it) is to use exactly the same construction as just described, so that the sentence would come out like, "The king commanded every male subject to wear green." Or, "The judge ordered us to be here at noon on Wednesday."

            2. The other way, closer in sense to a true English Subjunctive, i.e., "ordered that he be…" or "decreed that they wear…", is this:

            It requires the preposition iteste, which means something like “so that; to the end that”, followed by the word order used in the Imperative (verb-subject). Thus (inserting iteste into the English example), the construction goes like this:

            "The king decreed iteste wear every male subject green." (Remember that a pure Infinitive would be "Wear he green!")

            Or, "The judge ordered iteste bwi po (iteste be we) here at noon on Wednesday."

C. Virtually the same construction as in "A" above ("I want you to know"—bo votelzho kra ste gno) is used , as well, in sentences of this sort: It's silly for you to complain; It's impossible for us to finish in time; It's vital that you convey this to her; It's important for you to rest. In Vayoti such a sentence begins with the pronoun "it" (fe), then the verb "be" (though in the present tense this is optional), and the remainder of the sentence follows the pattern of the "I want you to know" type sentence.

So, "It is impossible for us to memorize this" is constructed in Vayoti as "It impossible us [object form] to memorize this. Note the absence of any Vayoti word directly translating "for"; that nuance is included within the object form "us".

Here it is in Vayoti (though "impossible" will still be in English):

"fe impossible pro ste mnratri sif."

fe means "it"; then "impossible"; pro means "us/to us"; ste marks the Infinitive; mnratri is the verb "memorize", and sif means "this."

The sentence could be formulated without fe at the beginning.