Appendix:Lower Sorbian conjugation

Lower Sorbian, like most Slavic languages, has a relatively complex system of conjugation. Some forms are inflected, while others are built periphrastically.

The present tense is formed by inflection. The endings found in the present tense are as follows:

There are four conjugation classes, defined by the final letter of the third-person singular:

• o-conjugation, e.g. wuknuś (“to learn”), third-person singular present wuknjo
• i-conjugation, e.g. groniś (“to say”), third-person singular present groni

  The i-conjugation includes those whose third-person singular present ends in y, e.g. licyś (“to count”) – licy.

• a-conjugation, e.g. cytaś (“to read”), third-person singular present cyta
• j-conjugation, e.g. dejaś (“should, ought to, must”), third-person singular present dej

The preterite is found only in the literary language, and is formed by inflection. The endings found in the preterite are as follows:

The perfect is formed periphrastically by means of the present tense of byś plus the past active participle (or ł-form) of the main verb. It can have either a present perfect or a simple past meaning, e.g. ja som studował (“I studied; I have studied”). The participle agrees with the subject for number (singular, dual, or plural) and, in the singular only, for gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter). The perfect of wuknuś (“to learn”), for example, is:

The perfect is the ordinary past tense of the colloquial language.

The pluperfect is found in the literary language and is formed with the preterite of byś plus the past active participle (or ł-form) of the main verb. The pluperfect of wuknuś (“to learn”), for example, is:

The future is formed periphrastically by means of the future tense of byś (one of the few verbs to have an inflected future) plus the infinitive of the main verb. For example, the future of cytaś (“to read”) is:

Besides byś, the verbs hyś, jěś, and měś have inflected futures, formed by adding a prefix (pó- for the first two, z- for the third) to the present tense.

The conditional is formed periphrastically by means of the invariable verb form by plus the past active participle (or ł-form) of the main verb, e.g. the conditional of groniś (“say”) is as follows:

The imperative is formed only in the second person. The endings are as follows:

The passive voice can be formed in a variety of ways. The most common methods are to use the reflexive pronoun se, as in Dom se pśedajo (“The house is being sold”, literally “The house is selling itself”), or to use the third-person plural impersonally, as in Su pśedali dom (“The house was sold”, literally “They sold the house”).

In a highly literary style, the passive of byś can be combined with the past passive participle of the main verb to form a past-tense passive, for example Dom bu pśedany (“The house was sold”). The complete table of forms is as follows:

In a very casual, colloquial style, the any tense of verb wordowaś (“to become”) can be combined with the past passive participle of the main verb, for example Dom wordujo pśedany (“The house is being sold”), Dom jo wordował pśedany (“The house was sold”), Dom buźo wordowaś pśedany (“The house will be sold”). This practice is a calque of the German passive construction with werden.

Lower Sorbian has three participles:

• Present participle, formed by adding -cy to the third-person plural present form, e.g. cytaju (“they read”) → cytajucy (“reading”).
• Past active participle, also called the ł-form, formed by replacing the -ś of the infinitive with -ł, cytaś (“to read”) → cytał (“having read”).
• Past passive participle, formed by replacing the -ś of the infinitive with -ny or -ty chytaś (“to throw”) → chytany (“thrown”), znaś (“to know”) → znaty (“known”).

Verbs whose infinitive does not end in -ś form the past active and past passive participle in various irregular ways.

The infinitive is the lemma form of the verb; most verbs have an infinitive ending in -ś, though some end in -sć or -c. The infinitive is chiefly used in conjunction with modal verbs, e.g. ja dejm hyś (“I ought to go”).

The supine, which is found in the spoken language only in dialects spoken north of Cottbus, and otherwise only in the literary language, is formed by replacing the -ś, -sć, or -c of the infinitive with -t, -st, or -ct respectively. The supine is used after verbs of motion or where motion is implied, e.g. Jědu k nanoju woglědat (“They’re going to visit their father”), Smej nakupowat (“We are (going) shopping”).

The verbal noun is formed by replacing the -ś of the infinitive with -nje or -śe, e.g. spiwaś (“to sing”) → spiwanje (“singing”), znaś (“to know”) → znaśe (“knowing, knowledge”). In some cases, both types are attested for the same verb, often with different meanings gójś (“to heal”) → gójśe (“healing”) and gójenje (“cure”).

Verbs are generally negated by means of the prefix nje-, which attaches to finite forms, e.g. wuknjo (“(s/he) learns”) – njewuknjo (“(s/he) does not learn”). The verbs byś (“to be”) and hyś (“to go”) take the variant njej- (njejsom (“I am not”), njejźom (“I do not go”)); the verbs móc (“can”) and měś (“to have”) take the variant nja- (njamógu (“I cannot”), njama (“(s/he) does not have”)); and the verb kśěś (“to want”) takes the variant njo- (njoco (“(s/he) does not want”)). The verb hyś (“to go”) takes njej- also in the imperative: njejźi (“don’t go”). The other verbs all take nje- in the imperative.