By Linas
Welcome back!
So we had galvoti-galvoja-galvojo, turėti-turi-turėjo, and valgyti-valgo-valgė. Think, have, eat.
We also learnt that the by-participle is added by adding nt instead of ing, and there’s a small glitch with the ont turning to an ant.
We also learnt that geriau was better.
Excellent so far!
Let’s just try to get one more example in for repetition. Do you remember the word for to go (usually with the meaning: to walk):
What about:
Right! So we can use that and say it is better to think while walking.
All good, and all impersonal.
How do we make it personal?
Well, one simple way would be to add the pronouns for me, for you, etc. That actually works. For example, how would you say:
Or:
Let’s see if you can get this tricky one (hint: the word order in Lithuanian is the same as before and you just add one very short word):
Just like you say for you you could say for somebody else. For that, you would use the dative case (naudininkas) in Lithuanian.
So for example the dative of your father (thus in English: for your father) is tavo tėvui.
How would you ask:
Cool! So we have learned one way to make the by-adjective personal. We will go back to this.
But for now, let’s talk about something else. We can also take this by-participle and make it into an object (have it refer to a person: either he or she).
How do we do it? Simple: just add the ending!
To have the by-participle (padalyvis) refer to a person, you just add the appropriate ending to it: is for masculine and i for feminine.
That’s it! That’s dalyvis (participle) for you.
I guess it loses it’s by-nature and becomes more concrete.
So if he has is turi, the while having (the by-participle) would be turint, and the one who is having (participle) would be turintis (masculine) or turinti (feminine).
The participle dalyvis form essentially means one who is X (one who is having, one who is doing).
You can use this dalyvis as an adjective.
So for example, if the word for person is žmogus (it is masculine) then how would you say:
Good!
A girl would be mergaitė, how would you say:
Simply:
While it is somewhat unusual, it is technically possible to use these present participles with the past and future.
So, for example, you could I will be eating by saying it as I will-be one-who-is-eating (use the masculine for now). How would you say that:
This is possible to say, although you could just as well (and usually would) say simply aš valgysiu.
How would you use a participle to say (this will be three words, which more literally mean she is one-who-is-walking):
Yes!
There is another thing to keep in mind about the dalyvis:
Lithuanians sometimes just shorten the anti or inti in the masculine form of participles and make them ą or į instead. Just for the masculine.
I guess you could call it the anti-anti movement.
So, for example, instead of einantis you could say einąs.
How would you say this for turintis:
What about (using the ą form):
Both "galvojantis" and "galvojąs" are equally okay. Depends on whether you want to speak short or long.
Other than that, that’s it about dalyvis. It basically just turns a by-participle into a participle by tying it to a personhood (either he or she).
We’ll learn more in the next lesson.