The Infinitive or infinitiv

 

The infinitive is the basic form of a verb, the one that you find in a dictionary: to be / ser / essere and so on. That's essentially the name of virtually any verb. In Serbian and Croatian there are two types of infinitives: the ones that end in –TI (biti, raditi, učiti) and the ones that end in –ĆI (ići, doći, naći).

 

The Present Tense or prezent and the Three Groups of Verbs

 

Based on the Present Tense stem, which can be the same as the infinitive stem but can also differ significantly, we have three main groups of verbs:

 

  1. –I– stem verbs,
  2. –A– stem verbs, and
  3. –E– stem verbs.

 

Infinitive

ŽIV(J)ETI

P(J)EVATI

JESTI

Present stem

Živi-

P(j)eva-

Jede-

       

Ja

Živ-i-m

P(j)ev-a-m

Jed-e-m

Ti

Živ-i-š

P(j)ev-a-š

Jed-e-š

On, ona, ono

Živ-i-

P(j)ev-a-

Jed-e-

Mi

Živ-i-mo

P(j)ev-a-mo

Jed-e-mo

Vi

Živ-i-te

P(j)ev -a-te

Jed-e-te

Oni, one, ona

Živ-e

P(j)ev -a-ju

Jed-u

 

 

These are the basic patterns that will help you conjugate any verb. Bearing in mind that there are some exceptions, I'd like to call your attention to several facts. When you see a verb ending in –m, you will allways know that it reffers to ja. If you see a verb ending in –mo, you will allways know that it talks about mi. Similarly, –š and –te terminations reffer to ti and vi respectively. If you look closely, you will notice that the third person singular is the same as the Present Tense stem. That leaves us with the third person plural, which is somewhat tricky to remember and use properly.

 

Let me list here the two most important exceptions or irregular verbs: ht(j)eti (to want) and moći (to be able).

 

Infinitiv

HT(J)ETI

MOĆI

     

Ja

Hoć-u

Mog-u

Ti

Hoć-

Mož-

On, ona, ono

Hoć-e

Mož-e

Mi

Hoć-emo

Mož-emo

Vi

Hoć-ete

Mož-ete

Oni, one, ona

Hoć-e

Mog-u

 

You will have readily noticed that the first person singular strangely ends in –u, but if I remind you that it's the normal way they conjugate in Russian (Я буду, Я иду) and in some Montenegrin dialects, it will probably look less strange.

 

The Future Tense or futur

 

Verb ht(j)eti (to want, to will) is a very important one because it acts as an auxiliary verb as well to help us construct the Future Tense. To do that, we will use short forms of this verb and simply add the infinitive to it:

 

HT(J)ETI

Short forms

A random infinitive

     

Hoć-u

ću

učiti

Hoć-

ćeš

učiti

Hoć-e

će

učiti

Hoć-emo

ćemo

učiti

Hoć-ete

ćete

učiti

Hoć-e

će

učiti

 

 

HT(J)ETI

Short forms

Negative forms

A random infinitive

       

Hoć-u

ću

neću

učiti

Hoć-

ćeš

nećeš

učiti

Hoć-e

će

neće

učiti

Hoć-emo

ćemo

nećemo

učiti

Hoć-ete

ćete

nećete

učiti

Hoć-e

će

neće

učiti

 

This is all you need in the beginning. Just make sure that you put a word before the short forms, because they are clitics, and more precisely enclitics--this means that they tenaciously cling to the second position in a sentence because they need a word (or a syntagma) to attach themselves to.

 

  • Danas ćeš učiti srpski. Danas nećeš učiti španski.
  • Moj brat će sutra doći kod tebe. Moja sestra neće sutra doći kod tebe.
  • Oni će prekosutra gledati film. Mi prekosutra nećemo gledati film.

 

The Past Tense or perfekat

 

To construct the Past Tense we need the other auxiliary verb: biti (to be). Actually, there is a dispute among the experts concerning this controversial verb.

 

One group of grammaticians argues that the verbal forms jesam, jesi, jeste... and their shorter variants sam, si, je... are forms of a distinct verb, separate from the verb biti (budem, budeš, bude...), and call it the verb jesam. The others follow the ancient etymology and track its roots in the verb biti, considering the two different forms as perfective and imperfective aspects of this one verb. That is why in some textbooks and grammar books you will find this verb listed under the name jesam, and in the others under the name biti.

 

Since the meaning of the verb is simply to be, we are going to agree with the second group and we will consider all these to be forms of a single verb by the name of biti.

 

Apart from these forms of the verb biti, we need a form of the main verb that we want to conjugate. That is the verb that carries the actual meaning. The form that we use is a kind of participle, but in our case it is actually a verbal adjective, and it acts like an adjective: it always concords with the subject.

 

How do we get this verbal adjective? Simply by going back to the infinitive form, from which we will remove the –ti, and add the following endings: –o for masculine and –la for feminine, –li for masculine plural and –le for feminine plural.

 

  • Marija je radila, a Petar nije radio.
  • Marija i Jelena su radile, a Petar i Jovan nisu radili.

 

Verbs in –ći are mostly compounds of ići; their participles follow the same pattern:

 

  • ići – ja sam išao/išla
  • doći – ja sam došao/došla
  • naći – ja sam našao/našla

 

And that's it! That is all that you need to know for now! I only have one last important piece of advice to give you: when learning a new verb, make sure that you always memorise both its infinitive and its present stem, because they can differ significantly, and we have seen here how important both of them are. That is precisely why every worthwhile Serbian or Croatian dictionary will list the verbs mentioning both forms, like this:

 

  • jesti, jedem;
  • zvati, zovem;
  • piti, pijem.

 

Never trust a dictionary that doesn't give you that!

 

Image Sources

 

Hero image by Florian Richter (CC BY 2.0)

 

Magdalena Petrovic is a teacher at italki who many students have described as “excellent” and “fun.” Did you like her article? Keep reading her blog, or access more interesting materials for Serbian learning here.