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Verbal adjectives

Aktualisiert: 17. Juli 2023

There are the following categories of verbal adjectives:

  • active adjectives, where the noun is the subject of an action

    • present adjectives, where the action happens simultaneously to the actual time frame

    • past adjectives, where the action happened before the actual time frame

    • future active adjectives, where the action is to happen later

  • purposive adjectives, which describe the purpose of the noun

  • passive adjectives, where the noun is the direct object of an action.

    • future passive adjectives


Present adjectives

The present active adjectives can only be formed for imperfective and habitual verbs. Add the soft adjectival ending () to the masculine transgressive. The -í from the transgressive shortens to -i.


Eg.

tláčicí pučka - a crying girl

rabejicí izorabek - a working machine

vlajicí baba - sleeping grandpa

pocalka šelčicí Querítelu - the sister who lives in Querítel

gradicí vládcov - the lawyer who tells the truth

devča čávicí robuhu - a woman who uses to drink coffee


As in transgressive, the reflexive pronoun is prefixed:

izusmúgajicí crpľapka - a student (feminine) who makes mistakes

izaportlečicí mlétek - a teacher who concentrates himself


Past adjectives

The past adjectives are formed from the past participle by adding the suffixes -iv, -iva, -ivó, etc. and express that the action happened before the actual time of reference. It can be formed in all aspects.


Eg.

tláčlivá pučka - a girl which cried

izasmúgneliví crpľabek - a student who made a mistake

gňaňe venek lbáliv drúbcov - that fighter who defended the town well


Future active adjectives

Are formed by adding the suffixes -n, -na, -nó, ... to the masculine transgressive (the í shortening applies).

izusmúgajicná crpľabka - a student, which is going to make a mistake

devča čájicná robuhu - a woman, who is going to drink coffee


Purposive adjectives

Purposive adjectives are formed from the active imperfective adjectives by replacing the -c- in the ending with -č-. They express that the purpose of the noun is the action of the verb, or that the noun is the instrument of the verb.


Eg.

vlajičí gozba - sleeping medicaments

mléjičí čerň - text book (a book for learning)

gozbičí čátec - a healing drink


Passive adjectives

These are formed by adding the hard adjective endings (-, -a, -ó, etc.) to the passive participles of all aspects, but only from transitive verbs. They express, that the noun is the direct object of the verb. The action is seen as simultanous to the actual time frame if the aspect is imperfective. For perfectives, the action is seen as preceding.


Eg.

vláté vrilkó - a child which has been put to sleep

crpľeňiní crpľabek - a student which is being examined

robuha sajňe čává - a coffee, which is drunk a lot


Passive future adjectives

Are being formed by adding an -n- infix before the adjective ending of the passive adjective in the perfective and the habitual. For the imperfective, the habitual form is used. The meaning of passive future adjectives shifts to necessitative, i.e., the action is to be done, is necessary (comp. german "die zu erledigenden Aufgaben" - the tasks which have to be done).


hajstvitné oľičke - buildings which must be torn down

crpľeňitní crpľapci - students which must be examined

lbávní venci - cities, which must be defended


Syntactical note

If the verb, which is turned into an adjective, had complements, such as direct or indirect object, adverbs etc., they remain in the same form after the transformation. If the adjective is placed before the noun, the complements come before the adjective; if it stands after the noun, they are moved after the adjective.


Eg.

Vrilčetá pomíliva gňaňe i trúbi dovéla nej klimčke. The children who behaved good at school have got toys.

Mama zbruše brčelňe tlačící nežu. Mom is calming down her daughter, who is crying terribly.

Gúre neži posečku v crpľapkú crpľenitníh peši. Bring me the list of students which are to be examined today.



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Transgressive

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Purposive

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