In the Circassian languages, as in all Northwest Caucasian languages, morphology is the most important part of the grammar. Circassian is polysynthetic and the bulk of its grammatical machinery is concentrated in the verb. The branch has two literary standards: Adyghe (West Circassian) and Kabardian (East Circassian, also called Kabardian-Cherkess). They share the great majority of their verbal morphology; where a category is expressed slightly differently in the two standards, this article presents the forms side by side.

A Circassian word, besides having its own lexical meaning, can by the set of morphemes it is built of, and by their aggregate grammatical meanings, reproduce a whole sentence. A verb can express the person, number and place of its subject and objects, as well as tense, mood, manner of action, direction, location, causation, negation and many other categories. For example, Adyghe "I will not bring it for you" consists of the morphemes , literally "from there (къы) you (п) for you (фэ) I (с) bring (хьы) will (future tense – щт) not (эп)". A Kabardian form such as likewise packs more than a dozen morphemes into a single word that would require an entire clause to translate into English.

The morphemes are grouped here by their position relative to the root: verbal prefixes (before the root — argument relations, version, voice, deixis and direction), verbal infixes (inside the verb complex, most notably the negator ), and verbal suffixes (after the root — tense, aspect, mood and derivation). A large and characteristic class of prefixes, the positional (locative) preverbs, is treated in its own section because of its systematic conjugational behaviour.

Structure of the verbal complex

Adyghe (West Circassian) and Kabardian (East Circassian) are closely related Northwest Caucasian languages whose verbs are built on a single, highly templatic polysynthetic model. In both languages the verb root is surrounded by a rigid sequence of prefixal and suffixal slots, numbered here from −12 (leftmost prefix) through 0 (the root) to +7 (rightmost suffix). The prefixal slots form an argument-structure zone, in which the verb cross-references its absolutive, oblique (indirect-object) and ergative (agent) participants, followed by a smaller set of pre-stem elements; the suffixal slots encode categories such as aspect, tense, mood, negation and plurality. The two languages largely share this template and differ mainly in the phonological shape of individual affixes, as set out below.Arkadiev, P. M., & Letuchiy, A. B. (2011). Prefixes and suffixes in the Adyghe polysynthetic wordform: Types of interaction. In V. S. Tomelleri, M. Topadze, & A. Lukianowicz (Eds.), *Languages and Cultures in the Caucasus* (pp. 495–514). Otto Sagner.

Slot template (overview)

+ Order of slots in the verb (negative = prefix, 0 = root, positive = suffix) Prefixes Root Suffixes −12 −11 −10 −9 −8 −7 −6 −5 −4 −3 −2 −1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 Abs Cisl/Transl Manner/Fact IO(Obl) Appl Loc Prep Agt(Erg) Dyn Opt/Juss Neg Caus √ROOT Rep Pot Tense Real Pl Dyn Mood/Neg

Markers filling each slot

+ Combined structure of the Adyghe (ady) and Kabardian (kbd) verbal complex Slot Category Adyghe Kabardian Gloss / meaning −12 Absolutive с- 1SG у- 2SG 1PL 2PL ∅ 3 (no overt marker) −11 Cislocative / Translocative къ- hither (cislocative) — toward (translocative) −10 Manner / Factive the way that…; factive −9 Indirect object (Oblique) с- 1SG у-, п- 2SG 1PL 2PL е- 3SG а-, я- 3PL −8 Applicative for (benefactive) against (malefactive) дэ- with (comitative) −7 Locative щы- at −6 Prepositional (locative preverbs) те- on under хэ- within / among дэ- in пы- on / attached to и- in(side) behind Ӏу- at / near beside — beside / next to within / inside −5 Agent (Ergative) с- 1SG у- 2SG 1PL 2PL 3SG а-, я- 3PL −4 'Dynamic' prefix мэ- 3rd person positive present −3 Optative / Jussive рэ- optative / jussive −2 Negation мы- negation (preverbal NEG) −1 Causative гъэ- causative (CAUS) 0 Root [verb] verb stem +1 Repetition again (re-) +2 Potential can / be able to +3 Tense past (PST) future (FUT) imperfect (IMPF) past perfect (PP) +4 Realization / Completion -х realization / completion +5 Plural 3rd person plural absolutive (PL) +6 Dynamic suffix -рэ dynamic suffix +7 Mood / Negation negative (NEG) -мэ conditional (COND) -ми concessive (CONC) — interrogative (Q) negative interrogative (NEG.Q) -и and (additive) adverbial (ADV)

Verbal prefixes Circassian verbal prefixes fall into several functional groups: causative and voice prefixes, which change the verb's argument structure; version prefixes (benefactive, malefactive, involuntative, instrumental), which add an affected participant; deictic direction (motion toward the speaker or addressee); and a large set of positional/locative preverbs, treated separately in the section. Except where noted, the two standards use cognate or identical prefixes. In the Adyghe tradition these are divided into directional prefixes (expressing the direction of the verb) and informative prefixes (adding location, reason or participants).

Causative (гъэ-) The causative prefix (Kabardian ), identical in both standards, marks that the subject causes, forces, makes, orders, allows or enables the action; it derives transitives from intransitives, raising valency by one, and can stack to form a double causative. Every verb class — intransitive, transitive, even ditransitive — can be causativised, and also forms transitive verbs from nouns and adjectives.

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning → → "eat" → "to feed (make eat)" → → "go" → "to make (sb) go" → → "speak" → "to make (sb) talk" → → "sleep" → "to put (sb) to sleep" → → "hot" → "to heat (it)" (deadjectival)

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "Let me watch the film." "The mother put the child to sleep." "I am making the girl feed the little boy" (double causative)

Causative reflexive (зыгъэ-) A causative whose causee is the subject acting on itself; the prefix (Kabardian ) is identical in both standards.

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning → → "hot" → "to warm oneself" → → "pretty" → "to make oneself pretty" "to rest oneself" "to prepare oneself"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "Don't let the boy fool you."

Reflexive (зы-) The reflexive prefix marks an action the subject performs on itself: Adyghe / (usually with the suffix ), Kabardian /.

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "to look at oneself" "to kill oneself" "to wipe oneself" "to look about oneself" "to drag (something) to oneself"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "Look at yourself in the mirror."

Reciprocal (зэ-) The reciprocal prefix (Kabardian ) forms verbs in which participants act on each other; Adyghe also uses for reciprocals of transitives.

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "to see each other" "to fight each other"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "The boy and the girl are kissing each other." "You and I, we see each other."

Reciprocal and reflexive of transitives ( / ) With transitive verbs Adyghe distinguishes a reciprocal ("to each other") from a reflexive ("ourselves, oneself"); both occur only with transitive stems. The infinitive (masdar) carries no dynamic/person prefix — "to kill each other" — whereas the finite present adds a personal prefix: "we kill each other". The reciprocal and reflexive contrast minimally — "we kill each other" versus "we kill ourselves". Kabardian forms the reciprocal with ( "we … each other").

+ Reciprocal — "(to) each other" Adyghe — infinitive Adyghe — present (1 pl.) Kabardian — present (1 pl.) Meaning "(to) kill each other" "(to) see each other" "(to) know each other"

+ Reflexive — "ourselves" Adyghe — present (1 pl.) Kabardian — present (1 pl.) Meaning "we kill ourselves" "we see ourselves" "we know ourselves"

Comitative (дэ-) The comitative prefix (Kabardian ) marks an action done jointly with, or staying with, somebody. It is a homophone of the locative/positional ("in an enclosed area").

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning → → "eat" → "to eat with somebody" → → "is going" → "is going with somebody"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "The boy is going with the girl." "The boy is working with the men."

Sociative / joint action (зэдэ-) The prefix (identical in both standards) marks an action done collectively, together (reciprocal with a comitative nuance).

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "to joke with one another" "to work together" → → "to walk" → "to walk together"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "We will eat together in my house."

Benefactive ( / ) The benefactive prefix (Adyghe , Kabardian ) marks an action done for somebody's benefit or sake. The two standards differ by the regular correspondence Adyghe ↔ Kabardian .

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning → → "is going" → "is going for somebody" "to do work for somebody" "to buy a book for somebody"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "The boy is going to the shop for his mother." "Today (s)he bought trousers for himself/herself."

Malefactive / against one's interest ( / ) The malefactive (adversative) prefix (Adyghe , Kabardian ) marks an action against somebody's will or interest, or taking an object or an opportunity away from them. The forms differ by Adyghe ↔ Kabardian .

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning → → "to go" → "to go against somebody's wish" → → "to eat" → "to eat (something) to another's detriment" → → "steals it" → "steals it from him"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "The boy is eating the apple against my interest." "The girl is taking the apples away."

Involuntative / unintentional ( / ) The involuntative prefix marks an action done unintentionally or accidentally — a notable feature of Circassian, which encodes accidentality directly in the verb where many languages would use an adverb. The forms are cognate: Adyghe ≈ Kabardian . Not listed in Jaimoukha's book; the Kabardian forms are otherwise sourced.

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "The dog slaughtered the fox (unintentionally)." "I accidentally killed you." "The boy made the old man accidentally kill the thief." "My computer switched off unexpectedly on me." "I wrote a lot of letters unintentionally." "I ate the apples unintentionally."

Instrumental ( / ) Adyghe marks the tool/instrument used. Kabardian uses the cognate prefix / alongside the instrumental case suffix .

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning → → "is going" → "is going with/on it" → → "is eating" → "is eating with it"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "You (pl.) are writing with a pencil."

Cislocative (къэ-) The prefix (Kabardian , identical) primarily marks motion toward the speaker ("hither") and occurs with both dynamic and static verbs. With many dynamic verbs it loses the directional sense and instead adds an aspectual/resultative nuance — making the verb more definite or changing its lexical meaning outright — and it marks arrival. See also .

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning → → "to go" → "to come here" → → "to carry" → "to bring here" → → "to speak" → "to deliver a speech" (resultative) "come (here)!"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning "The train has arrived."

Translocative () Kabardian marks motion toward the addressee ("thither", the deictic opposite of ), and the carrying-through of an action to its endpoint. This translocative use is specific to Kabardian; Adyghe has no productive preverb here (the element survives only in "to reach"), so the Adyghe column below is empty.

+ Verb forms Adyghe Kabardian Meaning — "to finish sewing" — "to finish reading, to read to the end"

+ Example sentences Adyghe Kabardian Meaning — "He went to you."

Temporal ()