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Introduction to Lithuanian Topic- Participles:
Lesson 7

By Linas

In the last lesson, we learned that half-participles pusdalyviai do not have a future or past form, they have only the one dam form.

We also learned that by-participles and participles of the future are formed by adding the appropriate ending nt or m (and, for active participles, a masculine/feminine ending is / i, or for passive participles the ending as and a) to the future rather than the present form of the verb.

Except, since the future form always ends in an s, you also add ia before the nt or i before the m to make the word flow better. Hence we can have forms like būsiant, turėsiant, galėsiant and their participles būsiantis, turėsianti, galėsiantis, etc.

Okay! Let’s talk about the past. Part participles are actually interesting because you often have them in English and other Germanic languages too.

It’s not that hard to form them, but the order is somewhat reversed. You are used to forming the by-participle first and then the participle from it, but that’s not how it works in the past.

If you used the present form of the verb for the present participle and the future form for the future participle, guess which form you will use for the past participle (answer: the X form)?

which form of the verb will you use for the past form of the participle?

Answer: the past form
Not correct. Please try again.

Duh.

For the masculine past participle, you take the past form of the verb and add ęs instead of the final vowel.

So, for example, if "he ate" is valgė, then the participle "one who ate" would be "valgęs".

What about:

he thought

Answer: jis galvojo
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one who thought

Answer: galvojęs
Not correct. Please try again.

And:

he said

Answer: jis sakė
Not correct. Please try again.

one who said

Answer: sakęs
Not correct. Please try again.

Also try:

he was

Answer: jis buvo
Not correct. Please try again.

one who was

Answer: buvęs
Not correct. Please try again.

Alright. Now there is a reason why the past forms are quite useful.

That is because, just like in English you have perfect forms with past participles (like: "I have thought"), you can also do so in Lithuanian.

For example, to say "he has been" you could say "he is one-who-was". How would that work:

he has been

Answer: jis yra buvęs
Not correct. Please try again.

What about this (literally: "I already am one-who-said"), and have in mind that "already" is "jau":

I have already said.

Answer: Aš jau esu sakęs.
Not correct. Please try again.

Because of this, these forms become incredibly useful in Lithuanian when forming the various tenses.

The word for wake up is pabusti, its present form is pabunda and its past form is pabudo.

How would you say (in one word, masculine):

one who has woken up

Answer: pabudęs
Not correct. Please try again.

And now, given that "tomorrow morning" is "rytoj ryte", say literally, "tomorrow morning, I already will-be one-who-has-woken-up":

Tomorrow morning, I already will have woken up.

Answer: Rytoj ryte, aš jau būsiu pabudęs.
Not correct. Please try again.

Hopefully you now see why these forms are useful! And they are not so hard to make: you simply use the past form of the verb and change the last vowel to ęs.

What about the feminine?

For the feminine past participle, you take the past form of the verb and add usi instead of the final vowel. If the final vowel is an ė, you also add an i before the usi.

So, for example, we had "sakė" for she said. We would form the past participle by taking away the ė and adding an i (since it is an ė) and then usi, thus we get sakiusi for "one who has said" in the feminine.

How would you say:

she was

Answer: ji buvo
Not correct. Please try again.

For the next phrase you will be saying literally "she is one-who-was":

she has been

Answer: ji yra buvusi
Not correct. Please try again.

What is:

she did

Answer: ji darė
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she has done

Answer: ji yra dariusi
Not correct. Please try again.

Can you guess:

she will have done

Answer: ji bus dariusi
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Okay, so we have the formation of both the participles.

What about the past by-participle?

Well, you’re in the luck!

The past by-participle is the same as the feminine participle minus the last i.

So, how would you say:

while having done

Answer: darius
Not correct. Please try again.

Or:

while having eaten

Answer: valgius
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This can also be used widely. For example:

Lithuanian for "to tell" is pasakyti. Its present is pasako and past is pasakė.

How would you say (in the feminine):

one who has told

Answer: pasakiusi
Not correct. Please try again.

And what about:

while having told

Answer: pasakius
Not correct. Please try again.

Exactly! This could be translated as "having told" or "while having told" (depending on the context), but it is the past by-participle.

Lithuanian for "briefly" is trumpai.

Say:

briefly told

Answer: trumpai pasakius
Not correct. Please try again.

And that is an expression used quite a bit in Lithuanian. Now you know it uses the past by-participle.

Let’s finally go to the last lesson where you learn the remaining important bits.