Latvian Verbs

• Person: first, second, third person
• Number: singular vs. plural
• Tense: present, past, future
• Conjugation classes: 1st conjugation, 2nd conjugation, 3rd conjugation
• Irregular verbs
• Reflexive verbs
• Complex tenses: complex present, complex past, complex future
• Participles: declinable, partially declinable, indeclinable
• Mood: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, etc.
• Voice: active vs. passive

Person

In grammar, the term person describes who is speaking, or who is spoken to. For example:

In the English sentences above, the person is indicated by the subject pronoun I, you, he, she or it. Latvian also has subject pronouns (es, tu, viņš, viņa), but, in addition, person is marked by endings on the verb. Take a look at the following Latvian sentences, and notice the verb suffixes (which are separated by dashes from the verb root):

There are exceptions, but for many Latvian verb forms, the suffix -u marks a first person singular subject, the suffix -i marks a second person singular subject, while the suffix -a marks a third person subject.

Number

There are several things to notice here:

1. The 3rd person singular and 3rd person plural forms of the verbs are identical. This is true for all Latvian verbs
2. The first person plural form always ends in -m
3. The second person plural form always ends in -t
4. The third person form doesn't always end in -a. Sometimes there is no ending to mark the third person

būt 'to be', dabūt 'to get', darīt 'to do', dot 'to give', dziedāt 'to sing, dzirdēt 'to hear', dzīvot 'to live, ēst 'to eat', iet 'to go', just 'to feel', kļūt 'to become', lietot 'to use', likt 'to put', mācīt 'to teach, mazgāt 'to wash', nākt 'to come', ņemt 'to take', patikt 'to like', redzēt 'to see', sacīt 'to say', taisīt 'to make, trūkt 'to lack', vajadzēt 'to need', varēt 'to be able', zināt 'to know'.

Notice that in English the infinitive is marked by the preposition to, while in Latvian it is marked by the suffix -t.

Tense

As you can see from these examples, the only difference between the three Latvian sentences is the form of the main verb. Compare this with English which requires the use of a helping verb or phrase (such as 'm going to or will or 'll) to mark the future, and often uses a helping verb and suffix for the present tense (e.g. 'm or am plus -ing).

Let's take each of these simple tenses individually, starting with the future:

Future tense

Notice that the future tense is always marked by a suffix -š, -s, or -si. In order to form the future tense of a verb, you add one of these suffixes to the verb stem, and then add the person and number suffix (-u '1st p. sg.', -i '2nd p. sg.', etc.). Here is a chart of the endings:

Past tense

As you can see from these examples, some verbs have a long vowel (ā, ē, ī) or diphthong (o) which follows the verb root and precedes the other suffixes. This is called a thematic vowel or theme vowel.

What good is it? Acually, it means nothing whatsoever. There is really no reason for one verb to have a theme vowel -ī (as in mīcīt 'to knead', sacīt 'to say', rādīt 'to show', etc.) and for another to have the theme vowel -ē (as in stāvēt 'to stand', tecēt 'to flow, run', sēdēt 'to sit', etc.). It's just an accident of history.

(Note: O.K. Once in a while it actually makes a meaning difference as to which vowel occurs, as in mācēt 'to know (how to do something)' vs. mācīt 'to teach'. But this is pretty rare, so just memorize which theme vowels are part of which verbs. OK?)

Present tense

As you can see from these examples, the thematic vowel does NOT show up in the present tense, but does occur in the past tense. The past tense forms also have the consonant [ j ] after the thematic vowel, but this doesn't mean anything; the [ j ] is present merely to break up the sequence of vowels which would otherwise result. In other words, it's something like this: lasīu → lasīju.

So this means that the thematic vowel always shows up in the past tense, but never in the present tense, right? WRONG!. Here are a few more verbs to look at (also in the first person singular form, except for the infinitive):

As you can see, the past and present tense forms are identical! What good is that? How do you tell the difference? From the context. So, if someone asks you: "What did you do yesterday?" and you answer: "Es ogoju" &mdash it means 'I picked berries". On the other hand, if someone calls you up and says: "So, what are you doing today?" and you answer: "Es ogoju" &mdash it means 'I'm picking berries". Clear?

So this means that it's only in some verbs that the thematic vowel disappears to mark the present tense. This leads us nicely into conjugation classes. Conjugation Classes What does conjugation (konjugācija) mean? If you list several forms of the same verb, you are said to be conjugating that verb. For example, take a look at the following list:

• I walk
• you walk
• he/she/it walks
• we walk
• you walk
• they walk

I grow, I grew, I will grow

We have just conjugated the verb 'to grow' in the first person singular in all three simple tenses. This is all well and good, but what does it have to do with conjugation classes? We group verbs into different classes depending on how they conjugate. Here's an example from English:

It's pretty clear that the first three verbs conjugate differently than the second set of three. Specifically, the verbs highlighted in yellow change the vowel (i ~ a ~ u) to mark a difference in meaning (infinitive, past tense, perfect tense), but the verbs highlighted in pink add the ending -ed (to mark either past or perfect tense). Clearly each group of verbs should be placed in a different conjugation class. Right?

O.K. Now, what about conjugation classes for Latvian verbs? Click here → Latvian Conjugation Classes