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Gerund form equivalent in Croatian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4669 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 1 of 7 15 April 2012 at 3:39am | IP Logged | ||
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According to what I have read so far, in the Slavic languages such as Russian and Croatian, there is no progressive gerund form like in English (-ing) or in Spanish (-ando, -iendo). In Croatian for example, the basic present tense suffices in expressing a present continuous action. For example "Ya pijem" can mean "I am drinking".
However, in Western European languages like English and Spanish for example, the same verb form can play an adjectival role, and depending on the context, it can also display a nuance of reason or causality, like a weak "because". I would like to know if there is an equivalent to these in Croatian and Russian. An example of a adjectival role would be: "Y vino un hombre, queriendo conocer la verdad" (Esp) "And a man came, wanting to know the truth" (Eng) Here the verb in the progressive for in a way functions like an adjective modifying the noun "man". An example of a causality nuance would be: "Queriendo conocer la verdad, el hombre vino y comenzó a estudiar con nosotros" (Esp) "Wanting to know the truth, the man came and began to study with us" (Eng) These sentences are practically the same as: "Como/porque el hombre quiso conocer la verdad, vino y comenzó a estudiar con nosotros" "Because the man wanted to know the truth, he came and began to study with us" Could someone please explain to me how one can express these constructions in Croatian and Russian? I would like to be taught the Croatian and Russian equivalents. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5277 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 2 of 7 15 April 2012 at 6:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the case in Serbian would be the same as in Croatian, but can't say for sure. I have no idea about Russian.
In Serbian, there are some things called verbal adverbs that have both present and past forms. The verb videti (to see) has a present verbal adverb of videći and a past verbal adverb of videvši. Videći ga u avliji, mi ga pozovemo. (Seeing him in the courtyard, we call him). This is the simple present tense, so it uses the present verbal adverb. Videvši ga u avliji, mi ga pozvasmo. (Seeing him in the courtyard, we called him). This is the aorist past tense, so it uses the past verbal adverb. So yes, this would be the closest to what you were asking about. As for gerund, a true gerund doesn't exist, but many of its functions are taken over by the fact that verbs are split into perfective and imperfective pairs, anyway. Prodam (from prodati) = I sell Prodavam (from prodavati) = I am selling 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7160 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 7 15 April 2012 at 7:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Here's a fairly non-technical explanation of gerunds in BCMS/SC.
That's funny. I always thought that gerunds existed in Slavonic languages usually in the form of -nie / -nje (e.g. zabranjeno pušenje) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Danac Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5352 days ago 162 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, Serbo-Croatian, French, Russian, Esperanto | Message 4 of 7 15 April 2012 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||
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There is certainly a form of the present gerund (perhaps I'd say "present participle
active" as well) in Croatian, formed by taking the third person plural form in the present of an imperfective verb and finally adding the ending -ći. Željeti (imp.) (to want), 3.p.p. žele (they want) = želeći (wanting) Znati (imp.) (to know) 3.p.p. znaju (they know) = znajući (knowing) itd. to translate your examples (or to try, at least): Došao je covjek, želeći znati istinu. Želeći znati istinu, došao je čovjek, i počeo je studirati s nama. Incidentally, there's also a past gerund, which is to be translated more or less as "Having done something..." etc. It is basically formed by taking the infinitive of a perfective verb, removing the -ti and adding the ending -vši. umrijeti (pf.) (to die) - remove -ti, add -vši = umrijevši. (having died) početi (pf.) (to begin) - same as above = počevši (having begun) For verbs with an infinitive ending in -sti or -ći, it's a bit more difficult. It's actually based on the so-called "infinitive stem". Sadly, this isn't necessarily apparent at first hand. Examples: reći (pf.) (to say, tell) becomes "rekavši" (having said) ispeći (pf.) (to bake) - ispekavši (having baked) pomoći (pf.) (to help) - pomogavši (having helped) It might be helpful to think of the L-participle (past participle active) here, since it has the same consonant (rek-ao, ispek-ao, pomog-ao). A na kraju: Dobar uspjeh! EDIT: I guess I was writing while people were answering - I still hope it'll help, though... Edited by Danac on 15 April 2012 at 6:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5277 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 5 of 7 15 April 2012 at 7:59am | IP Logged | ||
I at first totally misread this post and answered the wrong question. Yes, it may correspond to "ing" endings in English and perhaps infinitives in Spanish, but it really behaves as a noun rather than a verb. It can't be used with a to be verb or in the sense that the verbal adverbs can be used. Another problem is that in many cases this "gerund" (not really the same thing in English, so I'm not sure I would even call it that) gets a life of its own. Pitanje, znanje, misljenje, pecenje are so utterly disconnected from the verbs they came from that I would never consider them gerunds of those verbs. Pitanje = question, znanje = knowledge, misljenje = opinion, pecenje = roasted meat; and in my mind they are stand-alone nouns that have little association with pitati (to ask), znati (to know), misleti (to think), and peci (to roast). Edited by Merv on 15 April 2012 at 8:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4669 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 6 of 7 15 April 2012 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Thankyou so much. Your post explained what I wanted to know perfectly. Now I would like to know how to do the same in Russian as I have thought about retaking on Russian some time in the future. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6601 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 7 15 April 2012 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are деепричастия in Russian. They have some limits, for example the subject has to be the same - a common example of a mistake is "подъезжая к станции, с меня слетела шляпа" - "approaching the station, my hat fell off".
The forms are делая, сделав...there might be some others too lol. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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