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

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(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

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