Latvian Verbs (Part VII)

• 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

Participles

Participles in Compound Tenses

In the same way, the past active participle can form a complex tense in Latvian; in the following sentences the helping verb is shown in gold, and the participle in orange:

1. Raimonds ir nomazgājis visus traukus. 'Raymond has washed all (the) dishes.'
2. Parīt Anna būs nokrāsojusi visas sienas. '(By the) day after tomorrow Anna will have painted all (the) walls.'
3. Vakar vakarā, es jau biju uzrakstījusi visas vēstules. 'Last night, I had already written all (the) letters.'

Participles as Adjectival Modifiers

1. Lidojošs putns parādījās. '(A) flying bird appeared'.
2. Dālijs gleznoja kūstošus pulksteņus. 'Dali painted melting clocks'.
3. Nekustējoša roka palika. '(An) unmoving hand remained'.
4. Ilga redzēja peldošu cepuri. ' Ilga saw (a) floating hat.'

All of the above participles are present active participles, which are declined just like adjectives. The suffix on the participle (-ošs, -oša, etc.) indicates the gender, number, and case of the noun it modifies.

Latvian has quite a few participles; the following sections describe the different types of participles:

Fully Declinable Participles (lokāmie divdabji)

Present Active Participle: -ošs, -oša

The present stem of a verb is the form it takes in the simple present tense but without the person/number endings. The following chart illustrates how this is formulated:

To focus on a specific example, take a present tense form, such as the first person singular present tense form skrienu 'I am running', and remove the first person singular suffix -u; what remains (skrien-) is the present stem.

To form the present active participle, add the suffix -oš, and then the appropriate gender/number/case ending. Thus, in order to form the masculine accusative plural form of this participle, one would derive it something like this:

skrien- → skrien-oš- → skrien-oš-us

This is how it would appear in a sentence: Hermanis redzēja skrienošus zirgus. 'Herman saw (some) running horses.'

As mentioned earlier, the participle agrees with its following noun in gender, number, and case. Thus, the form skrienošus 'running' is in the masculine accusative plural case, since the noun it modifies (zirgus 'horses') is in the accusative plural case and is a masculine gender noun. Participles functioning as adjectives are declined in exactly the same way as as adjectives. Here is a chart showing what the indefinite adjective endings would look like for a present active participle:

Since adjectives also have definite endings, so do participles. Compare the following two sentences, paying particular notice to the difference in the endings of the participles:

1. Hermanis redzēja skrienošus zirgus. 'Herman saw (some) running horses.'
2. Hermanis redzēja skrienošos zirgus. 'Herman saw the running horses.'

1. Roberts ir uzzīmējis bildi. 'Robert has drawn (a) picture.'
2. Sešos Rita būs atbildējusi visus jautājumus. '(By) six (o'clock) Rita will have answered all (the) questions.'
3. Aprilī vai jūs jau bijāt izlasījuši visu bībeli? '(By) April, had you (plural) already read (the) whole Bible?.'

Let's focus on a specific example: take a past tense form, such as the first person singular past tense form cēlu 'I was lifting', and remove the first person singular suffix -u; what remains (cēl-) is the present stem.

To form the past active participle, add the suffix -uš, and then the appropriate gender/number/case ending. In other words, to form, for example, the feminine dative plural form of this participle, one would derive it something like this:

cēl- → cēl-uš- → cēl-uš-ām

This will handle most of the past active participial forms. However, the nominative singular forms are unique; they are: -is (masculine) and -usi (feminine). Otherwise, the participle forms are quite regular, and use the ordinary adjectival endings. Here is a chart showing what the indefinite adjective endings would look like for a past active participle:

The following example sentences illustrate this adjectival function; the participles which function like adjectives are shown in dark red, and the nouns that they modify are in olive green:

1. Mājas priekšā stāvēja seši pārauguši krūmi. 'At (the) front of (the) house stood six overgrown bushes'.
2. Hermanis izglāba sasalušu kaiju. 'Herman rescued a frozen seagull.'

So far we have only looked at participles functioning like indefinite adjectives. They can also function like definite adjectives, as in the following example sentences:

1. Mājas priekšā stāvēja pāraugušie krūmi. 'At (the) front of (the) house stood the overgrown bushes'.
2. Hermanis izglāba sasalušo kaiju. 'Herman rescued the frozen seagull.'

The past active participle uses exactly the same definite endings as adjectives do. For more information on this, see: Definite & Indefinite Adjectives.

Finally, the participle can also be formed from reflexive verbs; here are a couple of example sentences using the reflexive verb piedzerties 'to get (oneself) drunk':

1. Anna izskatījās kā piedzērusies lelle. 'Anna looked like (a) drunken doll.'
2. Piedzērušies studenti gulēja uz zāļāju. 'Drunken students were lying on (the) lawn.'

Please note that dative and locative forms do not exist for the past active participle of reflexives. Here is a chart showing the endings for past active participles formed from reflexive verbs:

To see more information on Latvian participles, click here → Latvian Verbs (Part VIII).