Learning Latvian (Posts about verbs)

Verbs: Reflexive

Cori Rozentāle — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:24:17 GMT

Eric requested this one today, so if you were curious about how reflexive verbs worked and were wondering when I'd get around to posting about it, you can thank him for requesting it! :)

Up until now, I've only talked about four classes of verbs in Latvian: the three conjugations (short, long and mixed) and the irregular verbs. There is another "class" called the reflexive that is sort of an "add-on" to the regular classes of verbs. (Well, I think of it as a class. This is not grammatically correct, but it works for me because it is another set of endings for me to remember.)

What are Reflexive Verbs

Reflexive verbs are verbs that reflect their action back onto the doer. Generally speaking, anyway. This can be specific to the definition and I've found that some of them don't really "fit" that "reflective" action in my mind.

To create a reflexive verb (or identify one), you add -ies to the infinitive of the regular verb.

Here's a very common one: mācīt -> mācīties

How does it work? Adding the reflexive ending does not change the conjugation the verb falls in. It only causes the action the verb would take to reflect back onto the subject.

So, we have mācīt , a third (or mixed) conjugation verb, which means to teach. If we add -ies to the end of it, we get mācīties , still a third (or mixed) conjugation verb. Mācīties still indicates the concept of teaching, but since we have to reflect the action back to the subject, it means to teach oneself. If you teach yourself, that would mean you are learning. Thus mācīties means to learn.

Let's see them in action:

Es mācu latviešu valodu. -> I am teaching Latvian.
Es mācos latviešu valodu. -> I am learning Latvian.

The reflexive verb changed the entire meaning of the sentence, yet it is not used any differently. This is because a reflexive is just a verb with a different jacket on.

Not all verbs have reflexive forms and not all reflexive verbs have standard forms.

Domāt , for example, means to think. Domāties, which I think makes perfect sense as "to think about oneself", is not a word. Apparently, because you can use domāt to think about yourself, domāties is considered unnecessary.

Viņš domā par futbolu. -> He thinks about soccer.

Iedomāties , which means to imagine , can be parsed from ie + domāt + ies = into + to think + reflexive. Iedomāt, on the other hand, is not a real word because imagining something externally to yourself is basically impossible outside of fiction.

Viņš iedomājās futbola maču. -> He imagined a soccer match.

Reflexive verbs don 't always correspond to their non-reflexive counterparts' definition.

Let's look at atminēt , a second conjugation verb, which means to guess or to solve a riddle. Add -ies to the end and you get atminēties.

Now, does it make sense if we look at it from the perspective of reflecting it back to the subject to say "to guess about oneself"? Not really. This is where the "reflecting" part of reflexives tends to break down.

What atminēties actually means is to remember or to recall. There is a very tenuous connection there, but frankly, I wouldn't have guessed from just the ending!

Reflexives should always reflect back to a person or thing capable of performing the action.

You may already know pārdot or to sell , an essential verb to know (along with my essential shopping noun: izpārdošana - clearance sale)

Applying pārdoties (to sell itself/oneself) to an item being sold instead of the seller is considered a classic mistake because reflexives should refer to a person or object capable of performing the action. Items being sold are not generally considered capable as they are sold by someone rather than themselves.

Now, in English, we think of this as a great thing - if an object "sells itself", the money should be rolling in! However, in Latvian, some one should be selling that thing because pārdot/pārdoties discuss the act of receiving money for an item. An object can't take money for itself. (Colloquially, a vending machine could be used as the subject but the can of Coke could not be.)

Usage

So, I've talked a lot about what reflexives are and aren't. Now, how do you use them?

Very simple: exactly like every other verb. There is no difference in usage. You can still drop the pronoun, you can still find the verb anywhere in a line of poetry, it still must agree with its subject, it still has tense, voice and number. The 3rd person forms are still identical. It still follows the same rules for conjugation and identification. In short, it is a verb.

Reflexives do, however, have their very own special set of endings to add onto the verb.

Interestingly, they don't change much. I think this is why you don't see very much in-depth discussion in the books about them. Just because the definition of a reflexive might indicate that the action reflects back does not make the verb itself function differently.

Generally speaking, the endings are added on to the standard verb 's plural endings and replace the singular endings. If doing so would result in a doubled vowel, a -j- is inserted to prevent it.

The reflexive 's endings are the same across past, present and future tenses. The reflexive ending just shows you that it is reflexive. It doesn't show you what the verb is doing as far as tense goes and offers little in the way of person or number information. You will likely rely on the underlying verbal structure for tense, person, and number information.

The endings are as follows:

Pronoun	Ending	Example
Es	-os	Es ceļos
Tu	-ies	Tu atminies
Viņš/Viņa	-ās	Viņš mostās
Mēs	-ies	Mēs iedomājamies
Jūs	-ies	Jūs mācāties
Viņi/Viņas	-ās	Viņas rotājās

Unsurprisingly, I find that these can be somewhat difficult to tell apart from nouns on vocabulary I don't know yet.

How to Conjugate

Here's how to conjugate a reflexive in comparison to its non-reflexive counterpart in present, past and future. You can also find this on the conjugation chart.

Example shown: mācīt vs. mācīties

| mācīt | || | mācīties | | tagadne | pagātne | nākotne | || | tagadne | pagātne | nākotne
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
Es | mācu | mācīju | mācīšu | || | mācos | mācījos | mācīšos
Tu | māci | mācīji | mācīsi | || | mācies | mācījies | mācīsies
Viņš/Viņa | māca | mācīja | mācīs | || | mācās | mācījās | mācīsies
Mēs | mācām | mācījām | mācīsim | || | mācāmies | mācījāmies | mācīsimies
Jūs | mācāt | mācījāt | mācīsiet
mācīsit | || | mācāties | mācījāties | mācīsieties
mācīsities
Viņi/Viņas | māca | mācīja | mācīs | || | mācās | mācījās | mācīsies

Giving Orders

Cori Rozentāle — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:17:49 GMT

We hear orders every day:

"Pick that up!"
"Come here!"
"Buy now!"

Sometimes there's a "please" attached, but it's still an order.

Orders are in the imperative case. My mnemonic for this originally was: "it's imperative that you remember." It's something that must be done.

In English, we form an imperative by dropping the pronoun from the 2nd person form of the verb. (Not that English has many forms for verbs to begin with…) It changes from a statement ("You call this number now.") to an order ("Call this number now.").

In Latvian, it's pretty similar. No pronoun is used , unless it's really important for emphasis or direction. If you're addressing one person , use the 2nd person singular form, if addressing many people , use the 2nd person plural form. With the plural , you should change the - at ending to - iet , however. Don't be surprised if you hear a native speaker use -at instead, it happens. Of course, this also means that if you forget, you'll still be understood!

Of course, the formality rules also apply, so use the 2nd person plural imperative when necessary even when speaking to only one person. (More on formality later.)

Here are some examples:

Tu nāc (you come) -> Nāc! (come!)
Jūs nākat (you all come) -> Nākiet! (come!)

Reflexives, as always, have their own little rules. (By the way, reflexive verbs usually mean that the action is reflected back onto the subject.) So, for those, we change the -at to -iet for plurals and leave the singular forms alone, just like with the regular verbs, but we must add the reflexive -ies to the end too to signify the reflexive meaning.

Using skatīties (to look), we can look at the following:

Tu skaties (you look) -> Skaties! (Look!)
Jūs skatāties (you all look) -> Skatieties! (Look!)

Verb Stems

Cori Rozentāle — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:00:30 GMT

[toc]

I've already told you that I think it's important to learn verbs with three forms: the infinitive, 1st person present singular, 1st person past singular. Here's why:

With these three forms, you can create the three stems necessary for building any verb form and type. Those are the infinitive stem, present stem and past stem. You also know the conjugation itself and can then conjugate it correctly.

Infinitive Stem

To form the infinitive stem, drop the -t/-ties ending from the infinitive form. Latvian infinitives always end in -t or -ties.

Drop the -t from domāt to form domā.

Drop the -ties from rotāties to form rotā.

You can now construct:

the infinitive
the simple future
the subjunctive
the past passive participle (-ts)
the -dams participle

Present Stem

Form the present stem by dropping the -u ending from the 1st person present singular form.

Short: Nāku becomes nāk.

Long: Domāju becomes domāj.

Mixed: Sveicinu becomes sveicin.

You can now construct:

the simple present
the debitive
the imperative
the relative
the present active participle (-ošs)
the present passive participle (-ams)
the -ot participle
the -am participle

Past Stem

As with the present stem, we form the past stem by dropping the -u from the 1st person past singular from.

Short: Nācu becomes nāc.

Long: Domāju becomes domāj.

Mixed: Sveicināju becomes sveicināj.

You can now construct:

the simple past (indicative)
the past active participle (-is)

In Conclusion

You can see how knowing the three forms shows you that domāt is a long conjugation verb while sveicināt is a mixed conjugation verb.

Reference: Baltic Online: Lesson 8

[slider title="Vocabulary in this post:"]
rotāties : long : to play
nākt : short : to come
sveicināt : mixed : to greet
[/slider]

Learning Verbs

Cori Rozentāle — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:42:00 GMT

I just read an article the other day about someone who was working towards learning French and had some interesting points regarding verbs. During her studies, she learned the present form of a verb first, then the past and future, then later on, the subjunctive. At each point, she had to stop and relearn the verb rather than learning it in a single package.

Honestly, this is what really frustrates me with learning modern languages. All of the materials seem to want to teach this way. You're always going back to a verb and having to essentially relearn it with more data.

Now, my case may be a little different than most. I started out my language studies with Latin in college and used the Wheelock book, which I still think is one of the best language studies books ever. I was taught to learn my verbs as a packet, like so with "to love": amo, amare, amavi, amatum.

What this actually does is teach the 1st person singular present, present infinitive, 1st person singular past and perfect passive participle forms all in one. I may not have known what or how to use the perfect passive participle at first, but by the time I got there, I had the form memorized for dozens of verbs. I could move forward immediately, without having to go back and re- memorize verbs because the relationship between the forms is not necessarily discernable. Those four forms allowed me to build verbs however I needed to. It was so easy.

But if you learn each tense separately, you're going to have to go back and relearn them at some point because modern books aren't usually going to go back and teach you the new form for all those verbs they've been showing you so far. Here's the thing. Without that past singular form, it is impossible to know how to conjugate most verbs, you can only guess.

In Latvian, there are three verb stems you have to know in order to build verbs in any tense: the infinitive stem, the present stem and the past stem. If you know all of these, you can do anything you need to do with verbs. They are built on the infinitive, 1st person present singular and 1st person simple past forms. Knowing the present and past forms also ensures you know which conjugation the verb falls in as well and you can conjugate it to your heart's content. (And should.)

So here's my way of doing things, brought over from Latin to Latvian. Learn verbs with the infinitive and 1st person present/past forms.

No, dictionaries won't list all the stems - they will only list the infinitive - so you need to use a spelling dictionary to get it going. But if you have those forms memorized, you will build atop your knowledge, not rip it down and start over every time a new tense is introduced.

Infinitives

Cori Rozentāle — Sun, 30 May 2010 16:38:51 GMT

The infinitive of every non-reflexive Latvian verb ends in -t.

The infinitive of every reflexive Latvian verb ends in -ties.

So you could also say that to make a verb 's infinitive form reflexive, you just add -ies to the infinitive.

What is an infinitive?

One of my professors liked to say that the infinitive form is the " dictionary form " because it is the form you would look up in the dictionary when translating into English.

It is the basic form of the verb used to construct all of the other verbal forms and is translated with " to " prepended when being used as a " full infinitive."

You can read a lot more about infinitives at Wikipedia, but technical grammar is not my strong point so I'm going to stop here. When you translate into English, you'll pretty automatically know whether or not to leave the "to" on or off because it will either make sense and sound right or it won't.

Examples:

būt : to be
domāt : to think
mācīt : to teach
lasīt : to read

Latvian Conjugations

Cori Rozentāle — Sat, 29 May 2010 13:06:59 GMT

Latvian has three conjugations for verbs: Short , Long and Mixed. They can also be referred to as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd conjugations, respectively, but that nomenclature isn’t always consistent.

To determine whether a verb fits into the short, long or mixed conjugation, apply the following rules:

If the infinitive form has one syllable , it is a short conjugation verb.
If the infinitive form has more than one syllable and the first person present form is identical to the first person simple past form, it is a long conjugation verb.
If the infinitive has more than one syllable and the first person present is different from the first person simple past form, it is a mixed conjugation verb.

However, you also have to remember that prefixes , such as ap, at, pie , etc., do not count as syllables. So, pienākt is a short conjugation verb because it is nākt plus a prefix.

Even though reflexive verbs add an - ies to the end of the infinitive, they still follow the rules. You can drop the -ies to help you determine whether the infinitive is one syllable (ceļties -> ceļt) and look at the first person present and past forms. If they are the same, the verb belongs to the long conjugation.

The Irregulars

Cori Rozentāle — Sat, 29 May 2010 13:06:03 GMT

There are only three truly irregular verbs: būt , iet , and dot.