verbs are translated to other languages as simple verbs because the inchoative meaning requires a compound that may be awkward or unnatural in a language that lacks this aspect. (գողանալ - to steal, lit. become thief). This convention does not extend as broadly to the past tenses, where the aorist past has to be translated as an inceptive verb in order to distinguish it from imperfect tenses (e.g., հիւանդանում է may be translated as "he is sick" rather than "he becomes sick," but for հիւանդացաւ, "he became sick" is more precise than "he was sick," which can also be հիւանդ էր, հիւանդանում էր, հիւանդացել է, etc.) It remains a very productive grammatical feature, and almost any adjective and some nouns can be made inchoative verbs simply by the addition of the suffix -անալ / -նալ. արագ "quick, fast" > արագանալ "to speed up, become fast" բարկ "furious" > բարկանալ "to get angry" կոյր "blind" > կուրանալ, կոյրնալ "to become blind" անօթի "hungry" > անօթենալ "to become hungry" տաք "hot" > տաքանալ, տաքնալ "to get hot" արթուն "awake" > արթնանալ, արթննալ "to wake up, become alert" քար "rock" > քարանալ "to harden, petrify" ծանօթ "friend, acquaintance" > ծանօթանալ "to meet, get to know" There are verbs that have a similar form to the inchoative verbs but are different. The similarity may be derived from the similar sounding but grammatically different verbal ending -ենալ, especially in Western Armenian dialects, where dropping the weak penultimate vowel merges -ենալ and -անալ into -նալ. In other cases, the ն derives from an irregular root that belongs to the third conjugation or was subsumed into the third conjugation because of phonetic similarity. The latter category can be recognized by the irregular past tense forms that drop the ն. մօտնալ < մօտենալ "to approach, get close to" ճանչնալ < ճանաչել "to meet, acquaint" դառնալ "to turn, to become" > դարձայ "I turned" բանալ "to open" (transitive) > բացի "I opened" իյնալ "to fall" > ինկայ "I fell" (Eastern Armenian uses derivation ընկանել) տեսնալ "to see" > տեսայ "I saw" (standard տեսնել < տեսանել) Germanic languages The Germanic languages historically formed inchoative verbs with the suffix -n-. Verbs derived with this suffix belonged to the distinct fourth class of weak verbs in Gothic, while in most other Germanic languages they belonged to the second weak class. The suffix survives in English as -en, and is still somewhat productive