The Verb: General Information

stasya | 18.11.2012 | 0

The verb (дієслово /dijɛslowo/) — is a part of speech which describes the state or action of an object. It answers the questions: що робити?/що зробити? (what to do?).

Ukrainian verbs have such grammatical forms:

  1. Infinitive.

  2. Finite verbs.

  3. Adjectival participle.

  4. Adverbial participle.

  5. Non-finite verbs.

Ukrainian verbs have such grammatical categories:

Infinitive

The infinitive of a verb is its basic form (all verbs in the dictionary are infinitives).

Ukrainian infinitives end with a suffix -ти (-ть), after which there can be used suffix -ся.

Example:

дума-ти (to think), чита-ти (to read), смія-ти-ся (to laugh).

As a basic form of a verb infinitive bare only some of the verb's general categories (i.e. aspect, transivity and voice). On the other hand they do not have person, number, tense, mood or gender.

In sentences infinitives can function as:

Finite verbs

Finite verbs in Ukrainian language can express several grammatical categories (listed above).

One verb can express almost all of them at once, for example:

Вона написала листа. — She wrote a letter.

The verb написала has perfective aspect, active voice, indicative mood, past tense, singular number, feminine gender and is transitive (though it does not state a specific person, as написала can be used with the first (I), second (you) or third (she) singular person).

Adjectival participle

Adjectival participle, or nominal form of the verb, expresses the character of an object by action. It is inflected by gender, number and cases which are the same as the noun it modifies.

In sentences they function as modifiers.

Example:

Написаний ним вірш не сподобався нікому. — Nobody liked the poem written by him.

Adverbial participle

Adverbial participle is an unchanging form of the verb that expresses an action or state as a definition of another action or state and bares qualities of both the verb and adverb.

In sentences they function as adverbials.

Example:

Прийшовши додому, він одразу подзвонив другові. — After he came back home he immediately phoned his friend.

Non-finite verbs

Non-finite verbs in Ukrainian are called безособові which means they do not have person. These verbs end with -но, -то and express action without reference to the actor. In sentences they function as independent words and are predicates in sentences with no subject.

Example:

Тут написано, що завтра вихідний день. — It is written here that tomorrow is a day off.

Цю сукню пошито на замовлення. — This dress is tailor-made. (This dress is sewn on request.)

, , , , ,