Lower Sorbian/Grammar/Introduction to the conjugation

  • In Lower Sorbian on the basis of the ending of 2. pers. sg. present tense we can identify 3 conjugations:
  1. –iš (yš)
  • In every conjugation verbs have 6 grammatical tenses: (a) present tense, (b) past tense, (c) future tense, (d) imperfect, (e) aorist, (f) plusquamperfect.
  • Verbs have 3 moods - indicative, imperative, conditional - in 3 numbers - singular, plural and dual - as well as in 3 persons
  • Verbs form following impersonal forms: (a) infinitive, (b) verbal noun, (c) supine, (d) present active participle, (e) past active participle, (f) past passive participle.
  • Grammatical tenses are divided into simple and complex ones. Passive voice is formed descriptively.

Present and past stems edit

(a) present stem is formed of 2. pers. sg. present, by cutting ending, e.g. wuknjoš> wuknjo-

(b) past stem:

  • of verbs with infinitive ending with is formed out of infinitive, by cutting ending, e.g. wuknuś > wuknu-
  • of verbs with infinitive ending with -č, -c is formed out of 1. pers. sg. present, by cutting the ending -u, e.g. njasć, njasu >

njas-

Negation edit

Negation is formed by adding a prefix nje- to the verb.