Czech The form of the Czech transgressive (
přechodník) is distinctive within the
Slavic linguistic family and among
converbs in general. Nowadays it is used only occasionally for
artistic purposes and in set phrases and idioms. Transgressives were still used quite widely in the literary language at the beginning of the 20th century. For example,
Jaroslav Hašek's
The Good Soldier Švejk contains many of them. The Czech language recognizes present and past transgressives (there are future transgressives as well). The present transgressive can express present or future action depending on the
aspect of the verb from which it is derived.
Examples •
Usednuvši u okna, začala plakat. (Having sat down by the window, she began to cry.) – past transgressive •
Děti, vidouce babičku, vyběhly ven. (The children, seeing grandma, ran out.) – present transgressive •
Pořídí si psa, aby byla, přijdouc domů, přivítána. (She will get a dog, in order to be welcomed by someone when coming home.) – future transgressive •
Nedbaje svého zdraví, onemocněl. (Not having taken care of his health, he has fallen sick.) – transgressive used as a preposition •
Bůh – takříkajíc Pánu našemu. (God – being the name of our Lord.) – transgressive used as an adverb
Slovak In Slovak, only the present transgressive form exists, and it does not inflect for gender or number.
Polish In Polish, transgressives are usually called "adverbial participles" (
imiesłowy przysłówkowe) and do not inflect for gender or number. There are two kinds of such participles: anterior (only from perfective verbs) and contemporary (only from imperfective verbs). The anterior participle (related to the Czech past transgressive) expresses an event earlier than the event described by the main clause, while the contemporary adverbial participle expresses an event simultaneous with the event described by the main clause. Nowadays, especially the anterior participle is unused in the spoken language and rare in the written language. The contemporary adverbial participle can be derived by adding the ending
-c to the third-person plural present form of an imperfective verb (or by adding the ending
-ąc to the present stem of an imperfective verb): •
jeść "to eat (imperf.)" > 3pl
jedzą "[they] are eating" >
jedząc "(while) eating" •
nieść "to carry (imperf.)" > 3pl
niosą "[they] are carrying" >
niosąc "(while) carrying" •
czytać "to read (imperf.)" > 3pl
czytają "[they] are reading" >
czytając "(while) reading" •
kupować "to buy (imperf.)" > 3pl
kupują "[they] are buying" >
kupując "(while) buying" The verb
być "to be" is the only exception – its contemporary adverbial participle is
będąc and corresponds to its future form
będą "[they] will be" rather than to its present form
są "[they] are". The anterior adverbial participle can be derived by replacing of the ending
-ł in the third-person singular masculine past form of a perfective verb with the suffix
-wszy (after a vowel) or
-łszy (after a consonant): •
zjeść "to eat (perf.)" >
zjadł "[he] ate" >
zjadłszy "having eaten" •
przynieść "to bring (perf.)" >
przyniósł "[he] brought" >
przyniósłszy "having brought" •
przeczytać "to read (perf.)" >
przeczytał "[he] read" >
przeczytawszy "having read" •
kupić "to buy (perf.)" >
kupił "[he] bought" >
kupiwszy "having bought" •
pchnąć "to push (perf.)" >
pchnął "[he] pushed" >
pchnąwszy "having pushed"
Serbo-Croatian In all varieties of
Serbo-Croatian, the transgressive forms are called "verbal adverbs" (
glagolski prilozi, singular:
glagolski prilog). They are common in literature and other written works, while in spoken language
simple present or past tense constructions are usually used instead. They are formed similarly to the Czech and Polish transgressives. Examples are given in
Gaj's Latin alphabet and
Ijekavian pronunciation.
Examples The present verbal adverb (
glagolski prilog sadašnji) is formed by adding the ending
-ći to the third-person plural present form of an imperfective verb: •
pjevati "to sing" (imperf.) > 3pl
pjevaju "[they] sing/are singing" >
pjevajući "(while) singing" •
ljubiti "to kiss" (imperf.) > 3pl
ljube "[they] kiss/are kissing" >
ljubeći "(while) kissing" The past verbal adverb (
glagolski prilog prošli) is formed by adding the ending
-vši to the infinitive stem of a perfective verb: •
otpjevati "to sing" (perf.) >
otpjeva- infinitive stem >
otpjevavši "having sung" •
poljubiti "to kiss" (perf.) >
poljubi- infinitive stem >
poljubivši "having kissed" Some perfective verbs have irregular past verbal adverbs, for example
doći "to come (perf.) >
došavši "having come". The auxiliary verbs can be both perfective and imperfective. The verb
biti "to be" has the present verbal adverb
budući and the past verbal adverb
bivši, and the verb
htjeti "to want" has the present verbal adverb
htijući or
hoteći and the past verbal adverb
htjevši or
hotjevši. The past verbal adverb can also be used to describe a way how something was done, for example for the verb
baciti "to throw", the past verbal form
bacivši can mean "by throwing", for example
počinio je samoubojstvo bacivši se sa zgrade "he committed suicide by throwing himself off the building".
Russian In
Russian, the transgressive (or verbal adverb, adverbial participle) (деепричастие) is considered a participial form, which functions adverbially. It is common in written and spoken language. It indicates a
secondary action, performed concurrently with the primary action. Syntactically the transgressive is felt as relating to the
manner of the primary action, as
adverbs of manner do. Formation of the transgressives bears similarities to the transgressives of other Slavic languages. The transgressive can be formed from a perfective or an imperfective infinitive verb lemma. The imperfective transgressive can be in the present or past tense. The perfective transgressive is in the past. The transgressive has no other inflection (beyond the tense inflection for the imperfectives).
Examples • Imperfective lemma прыгать ('to jump', imperfective): прыгая — 'while jumping' (present), прыгав/прыгавши — 'while jumping (in the past)' (past). • Perfective lemma прыгнуть ('to jump', perfective): прыгнув/прыгнувши — 'having jumped' (past) For some of the most frequent verb lemmata, formation of the transgressive exhibits some morphological variation and irregularity, with no simple rules: • Lemma быть ('to be'): будучи — '(while) being' (present), бывши — 'having been' (past), etc. The above transgressive forms of
to be can be combined with the passive participle to form periphrastic passive transgressives, though such usage is more rare.
Ukrainian Like all verb forms, the transgressive in Ukrainian has an aspect category: perfective and imperfective. Perfective past tense transgressives express an additional action that occurred before or simultaneously with the main action (answers the question having done what?). For example: Закінчивши лекцію, викладач пішов на перерву. (The professor first finished giving the lecture, and only then went on a break.) Imperfective present tense transgressives denote an additional action that occurs simultaneously with the main action (answers the question while doing what?): Сніг іде і, сяйво розсіваючи бліде, зволожує афіші і обличчя (Iryna Zhylenko). The snow is both falling and spreading pale light at the same time. Imperfective past tense transgressives express an additional action that occurred in the past simultaneously with the main action (answers the question while having done what?): Слухавши вірші про кохання, він завжди згадував її. (He was listening and remembering at the same time.) ==Baltic languages==