The last piece of the verb puzzle is the Verb Prefix. In reality, there are many many verbal prefixes in Mingo. Each of the verbal prefixes can be classified as belonging to one of three classes of verbal prefixes: Pronominal prefixes, Modal prefixes or Prepronominal prefixes.
The Agent prefixes give you information about the subject, or the "doer" of the action. For instance, take the verb katáwë which means I'm swimming. The /k/ at the beginning of that verb is an Agent Pronominal prefix. It tells you that I am the subject, that I am the one who is doing the swimming.
Patient prefixes, on the other hand, give you information about the object, or the "undergoer" of the action. In the verb akekanyë it has bitten me, the /ake/ at the beginning is a Patient Pronominal prefix. It tells you that it's me who was bitten.
Lastly, there are the Interactive prefixes. These give you information about both the subject and the object at the same time. For instance, in the verb köya'tihsás I am looking for you, the /kö/ at the beginning is an Interactive Pronominal prefix. It tells you that I am the subject (I'm the one doing the searching) and you are the object (you're the one that's being looked for). If it were the other way around, and you were looking for me, we would have to say skya'tihsás you are looking for me, with the Interactive prefix /sk/ at the beginning instead of /kö/.
There are two importanat points to be made about Pronominal prefixes. Firstly, you will notice that in Mingo, we don't need to have separate words like "I", "you", "him", "us" or "they" in order to tell us who is involved in some action. The verb itself provides us with that information. Secondly, although we have said that Agent prefixes mark the subject and that Patient prefixes mark the object, but this is not really true. In fact, knowing when to use which of these types of Pronominal prefixes is one of the trickiest points of Mingo grammar, especially since you can't really rely on English notions like "subject" and "object" to always get you the right prefix in every case. We will be discussing all the intricacies of this later on in the grammar, but for now you can at least remember that Agent prefixes are like subjects and Patient prefixes are like objects... but be prepared to have to toss aside that convenient fiction later on.
You use the Factual prefix on verbs when you want to state for certain that what you are saying has occurred (or, in some cases, is definitely occurring right now). As such, it is most often translated into English as a Past Tense form. For instance, in the verb o'kheyaôtô' I asked her, the /o'/ at the beginning is the Factual Modal prefix. It testifies to the fact that I really and truly did ask her.
The Future prefix is similar to the Factual, except that instead of saying something certainly did happen, it says that something certainly will happen, at some point in the Future. In the verb ëkheyaôtô' I will ask her, the /ë/ at the beginning is the Future Modal prefix. It indicates that I most certainly will be asking her at some point to in the future.
Lastly there is the Optative prefix. The Optative is similar to the Future, in that it refers to some point in the Future, but instead of indicating that you are sure that something is going to happen, it indicates that you are less certain, maybe even doubtful, that a certain event will take place. For instance, in aakheyaôtô' I might/could/should ask her, the /aa/ at the beginning is the Optative Modal prefx. It indicates that my asking her is not a definite thing, but that there's at least the possibility of it happening sometime in the future. The Opatative gets translated into English in a number of different ways, often using words like "might", "could", "should" or "would".
That completes our Introduction to Verbs in Mingo. There is much much more to learn, of course, but if you understand the basics as presented in these past few pages, you will be ready to tackle the more complicated points of grammar when you come across them later in your studies. For now, once you feel comfortable with your knowledge of verbs so far, you can move on to the Introduction to Nouns in Mingo.