LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 33, No.1 - Spring 1987 Editor of this issue: Antanas Klimas ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1987 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

THE LITHUANIAN PARTICIPLES: THEIR SYSTEM AND FUNCTIONS

ANTANAS KLIMAS
The University of Rochester

I. General Introduction

The participle is a rather peculiar part of speech. From the point of view of most pedagogical/prescriptive grammars, the participle is not even a separate part of speech, but is usually included in the verb system. This seems to be due to the fact that, for the last few centuries, the participle was considered, primarily, as a basic part of the so-called compound tenses of the verbal system. Since most grammars of Latin treated the participle like this, the grammars of most of the other Indo-European languages followed this classical example, as in so many other instances. Another reason why the participle was relegated to the subsidiary role in the verbal system of most Western languages is the fact that most of the modern Indo-European languages have a strictly reduced number of participles. E.g., modern English has only two participles left: the so-called present active participle in -ing (sitting, working, believing, translating) and the past (passive) participle (sat, worked, believed, translated). A similar situation can be found in most other Germanic languages as well as in most modern Romance languages.

However, more archaic languages such as Latin, Classical Greek, Sanskrit had more participles, both active and passive. Very peculiar in this sense is the Lithuanian participial system: it has, all told, THIRTEEN participles. This is rather unusual because this goes against the basic tendencies of the development of the Indo-European languages: in most of them, the inherited participial systems were reduced both in scope and in their functions, but in Lithuanian the opposite trend can be easily observed: not only did Lithuanian keep all the inherited Indo-European participles, but it expanded their system. Thus, we have, as we have just mentioned above, thirteen participial forms. Let's take a quick glance at this system.

We shall use, here, the old inherited verb būti 'to be' and dirbti 'to work':1

būti - 'to be'
esąs - 'being' (present tense active participle)
buvęs - 'been' (past tense active participle)
būdavęs - frequentative past active participle
būsįas - future active participle
esamas - present tense passive participle
būtas - past tense passive participle
būsimas - future tense passive participle
buvus - past tense active adverbial participle
būdavus - past frequentative active adverbial participle
būsiant - future active adverbial participle
būdamas - special active adverbial participle
būtinas - participle of necessity

dirbti - 'to work'
dirbąs - '(the one who is) working'
dirbęs - '(the one who had) worked'
dirbdavęs - 'the one who used to work'
dirbamas - 'the thing which is being worked'
dirbtas - 'the thing which has been worked'
dirbsimas - 'the thing which is going to be worked'
dirbant - 'while working'
dirbus - 'after having worked'
dirbdavus - 'after having worked frequently'
dirbsiant - 'having to work (yet)'
dirbdamas - 'while working'
dirbtinas - 'one which still has to be worked'2

II. The Formation of the Lithuanian Participles

Although, as we shall see later, historically some of these participles may be older than the so-called principal parts of the Lithuanian verbal system, for practical purposes we can now easily devise a system of derivations, or word formation formulae by which these thirteen participles can be easily derived.

The principal parts of the Lithuanian verbs are as follows: 1. the infinitive, 2. the 3rd person present tense,3 and 3. the 3rd person of the simple past. E.g., dirbti 'to work' (the infinitive); dirba '(he, she, it/they) work'; dirbo '(he, she, it/they) worked.' All the verbal tenses, all the verbal derivative forms can be derived from these three basic forms. To make matters very clear, we will give here the schematic, as it were, presentation of the derivational processes.4

For this illustration, we shall take one verb from each of the three conjugations:5

1st conjugation: dirbti 'to work;'

2nd conjugation: mylėti 'to love; to be in love;'

3rd conjugation: skaityti 'to read'

SUMMARY OF THE PARTICIPLES AND GERUNDS

A. The Active Participle* (dìrbti 'to work'; mylẽti 'to love'; skaitýti 'to read')

B. The Passive Participles (mùšti 'to beat', mylẽti 'to love', skaitýti 'to read')

N.B. There is no passive participle of the frequentative past. 

C. The Gerunds (the Adverbial Participles or the Participial Adverbs)

(mùšti 'to beat', mylẽti 'to love', skaitýti 'to read')

 D. The Special Adverbial Active Participle.

E. The Special Participle of Necessity.

There is one single exception to this scheme presented here. This concerns the very irregular6 verb būti 'to be.' The principal parts of this verb in Modern Lithuanian are as follows:

būti - 'to be' (the infinitive)
yra - 'is/are' (third person singular/plural)
buvo - 'was/were' (3rd person singular/plural).

Now, if we were to follow the rules we have outlined in the schematic presentation of the derivations of the Lithuanian participles, we would get the present active participle as * yrąs, and the present passive participle as * yramas. Theoretically, this could have happened since analogy is one of the greatest forces in language change.7 But since practically all natural languages have preserved some older forms, some older relics, some older derivations, this has happened in Lithuanian as well. As we have seen in the Introductory chapter, the present active participle of the verb būti 'to be' is esąs, and the present passive participle is esamas. For the plausible explanation of the seeming irregularity, we have to turn to the older form of the present tense of the verb būti. Let us compare:

Apparently, the present day forms (esąs/esamas) were derived, a long time ago, from the older, almost Indo-European, forms.9 Here, like in some other complicated and complex matters, there still remains one unsolved problem: since the basic form from which these two participles have been derived, is esti, one would, again, expect something like *estąs/*estamas, rather than esąs/esamas. Nobody has yet come up with an acceptable explanation, and all we can suggest here that some kind of haplology may have taken place here.10

III. The Inflection of the Lithuanian Participles

Of the thirteen participles of Lithuanian, four are not inflected. The reason is fairly obvious: in a strict sense, they are no longer participles, but almost pure adverbs. One could call them a special type of Lithuanian gerundives.11 We shall discuss this fact further on, in the chapter on the syntactic structure of these participles (Chapter IV, see below). In Lithuanian, they are called padalyviai, we have chosen to call them special gerunds: special present tense gerund (i.d., mušant, mylint, skaitant); special past tense gerund (i.e., mušus, mylėjus, skaičius); special frequentative past tense gerund (i.e. mušdavus, mylėdavus, skaitydavus), and the special future tense gerund (i.e. mušiant, mylėsiant, skaitysiant). But, since, from the point of view of classical Latin grammars, they are neither true gerunds, nor true gerundives, one could, perhaps, call them the Adverbial Participles, or, conversely, Participial Adverbs. Thus, mušant could be called either a Special Gerund, a Special Gerundive, or a Special Present Tense Adverbial Participle, or even, a Special Present Tense Participial Adverb. In spite of this terminological confusion,12 these four forms are considered to be part of the verbal system of Modern Lithuanian since they can express, basically, an action very closely related to the basic meaning of the basic verb. E.g., take sentences like the following:

(1) Man skaitant šią knygą, mano draugai negali man telefonuoti.
'While I am reading this book, my friends cannot call me up.'

(2) Saulei nusileidus, lakštingalos pradėjo čiulbėti.
'After the sun went down, the nightingales started singing.'

Very interesting is the fact that the Special Present Tense Active Adverbial Participle (i.e., mušdamas, mylėdamas, skaitydamas) can be used only as a, what we may want to call, representative subject, in the true subject clauses, and, therefore, it may be used only in the nominative case (i.e., mušdamas '(while) beating' masculine singular; mušdama, feminine singular; mušdami, masculine plural; mušdamos, feminine plural). In reality, from the syntactical point of view13 these special participles can form a complete clause by themselves, indicating the doer of the action with all the grammatical categories available to this kind of participle, e.g.,

(3) Miegodamas knygos neparašysi. '(While) sleeping you cannot write a book.' The underlying meaning is the following: because you sleep too much, you will never be able to produce a book.

The Special Participle of Necessity (i.e., muštinas, mylėtinas, skaitytinas) is inflected exactly like the regular adjective of the first adjectival declension; see below.

Since a full inflectional pattern of all Lithuanian participles is hardly available, in full, in any school and even scientific grammars of Lithuanian, here we shall present a full scheme, including the so-called definite form of the four active and the three passive participles as well as that of the Special Participle of Necessity:14

Present active participle.

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

2nd conjugation: mylẽti 'to love'

3rd conjugation: matýti 'to see'

Present active participle (definite form).

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The definite participle is declined just like the definite adjective. The method of formation from the verb is the same as for the corresponding indefinite participle. The declension is the same for all conjugations.

Past active participle.

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

2nd conjugation: mylẽti 'to love'

3rd conjugation: matýti 'to see'

Past active participle (definite form).

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The definite participle is declined just like the definite adjective. The method of formation from the verb is the same as for the corresponding indefinite participle. The declension is the same for all conjugations.

Frequentative past active participle.

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The declension is the same for the 2nd and 3rd conjugations, the endings -davęs, -davusi, etc. being added directly to the infinitive stem, e.g. (2nd conjugation) nom. sing. masc. mylėdavęs, nom. sing. fem, mylėdavusi, etc. or (3rd conjugation) nom. sing. masc. matydavęs, nom. sing, fem. matydavusi.

Frequentative past active participle (definite form).

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The definite participle is declined just like the definite adjective. The method of formation from the verb is the same as for the corresponding indefinite participle. The declension is the same for all conjugations.

Future active participle.

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The declension is the same for the 2nd and 3rd conjugations, the endings -siąs, -sianti, etc. being added directly to the infinitive stem, e.g. (2nd conjugation) nom. sing. masc. mylėsiąs, nom. sing. fem, mylėsianti, etc. or (3rd conjugation) nom. sing. masc. matysiąs, nom. sing. fem. matysianti, etc.

Future active participle (definite form).

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The definite participle is declined just like the definite adjective. The method of formation from the verb is the same as for the corresponding indefinite participle. The declension is the same for all conjugations.

Present passive participle.

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

2nd conjugation: mylẽti 'to love'

3rd conjugation: matýti 'to see'

Present passive participle (definite form).

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The definite participle is declined just like the definite adjective. The method of formation from the verb is the same as for the corresponding indefinite participle. The declension is the same for all conjugations.

Past passive participle.

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

2nd conjugation: mylẽti 'to love'

3rd conjugation: matyti 'to see"

Post passive participle (definite form).

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The definite participle is declined just like the definite adjective. The method of formation from the verb is the same as for the corresponding indefinite participle. The declension is the same for all conjugations.

Future passive participle.

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The declension is the same for the 2nd and 3rd conjugations, the endings -mas, -ma, etc. being added directly to the 2nd singular of the future tense, e.g. (2nd conjugation) nom. sing. masc. mylėsimas, nom. sing. fem. mylėsima, etc. or (3rd conjugation) nom. sing. masc. matysimas, nom. sing. fem. matysima, etc.

Future passive participle (definite form).

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The definite participle is declined just like the definite adjective. The method of formation from the verb is the same as for the corresponding indefinite participle. The declension is the same for all conjugations.

Participle of necessity.

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The declension is the same for the 2nd and 3rd conjugations, the endings, -nas, -na, etc. being added directly to the infinitive, e.g. (2nd conjugation) nom. sing, masc. mylėtinas, nom. sing. fem, mylėtina or (3rd conjugation) nom. sing. masc. matytinas, nom. sing. fem, matytina, etc.

Participle of necessity (definite form).

1st conjugation: dìrbti 'to work'

The definite participle is declined just like the definite adjective. The method of formation from the verb isd the same as for the corresponding indefinite participle. The declension is the same for all conjugations.

As it is commonly known,14 there is a group of very old participles such as baltas 'white,' šiltas 'warm,' šaltas 'cold,' which have been completely absorbed, by ancient analogy, into the true adjectival system of the Lithuanian adjectives. This simply means that their declensional patterns are now completely identical with the appropriate adjectives of the first declension, i.e., such as geras 'good,' etc. Some adjectives in -nas could also be considered as belonging to this very same group, such as balnas 'an animal with a white back,' etc.15 But we should mention here that linguists tend to disagree as to the exact origin of such participial adjectives as baltas/balnas: some think that they are truly derived from the appropriate verbs (baltas/balnas, obviously from balti 'to turn white, to whiten'), with the old Indo-European participial/adjectival formants such as -to- (Baltic -ta-) and -no- (Baltic -na-), others are inclined to assume that these participial adjectives go back to very ancient Proto-Indo-European times when the formants — to-/-no- were used to form the old appellatives16 which had survived until our days, and the adjective proper, as we understand it today, was developed later. If that is true — and I am inclined to believe this — then the situation was just reverse: first, we had the type of ancient appellatives developing, and the verbs, being a later development, were derived from them.17 Be it as it may, in the present system of Modern Lithuanian, the ancient participial adjectives such as šaltas have really become a part and parcel of the adjectival system, both in their forms and in their functions.

No matter what their etymological and phonological development, all three passive participles and the special participle of necessity, as far as their inflection is concerned, have also been absorbed by the adjective system, in other words, they all belong, declensionally, to the first adjectival declension in -as/-a. Therefore, there is no longer any difference in the declension of such and adjective as geras 'good'18 and the passive participles such as matomas (present tense), matytas (past tense), matysimas (future tense), and matytinas (special participle of necessity). Their system differs only in some cases from real adjectives in some minor features of their accentuation patterns.

As we have already mentioned above, the Lithuanian pusdalyvis which we called the special active participial adverb, or adverbial participle, the type dirbdamas '(while) working' is used only in the nominative case, singular and plural, masculine and feminine: dirbdamas (masc. sg.), dirbdama (fem, sg.), dirbdami (masc. pl.) and dirbdamos (fem. pl.). The inflectional pattern is exactly like that of the adjective of the first declension, like geras.

All four active participles, i.e., like dirbąs (present tense), dirbęs (past tense), dirbdavęs (frequentative past tense), and dirbsiąs (future tense) are now inflected, for all practical purposes like the adjectives of the third declension, in other words like medinis 'wooden,' except for the nominative masculine/feminine both singular and plural. The latter have retained the consonantal declension.19

There is one puzzling problem concerning the development of the declensional patterns of the Lithuanian (active) participles. Namely, there is no accepted explanation about the development of the nominative masculine plural ending of the four active participles. Various suggestions have been made, including one that these endings, i.e. -ą/-ę (cf. esą, buvę, būdavę, būsią) may have even reflected the original Proto- Indo- European third person plural.20 The most plausible and the most logical explanation is the one suggested by several Lithuanian linguists, namely that this ending reflects the very ancient neuter ending, like in such cases as: nustojo liję 'it stopped raining.'21

Of course, the four special adverbial participles (or: participial adverbs) are not inflected.22

IV. The Syntax of the Lithuanian Participles

7. The Active Participles in Compound Tenses

As in most modern Indo-European languages, some active participles of Lithuanian can be used to form the so-called compound tenses.23 But not all of the four active participles can be so used. The only one that is used in forming all four of the basic compound tenses24 is the active participle of the (simple) past tense.25 Here, we shall present a sample with the active past tense participle of skaityti 'to read:'

The First Compound Tense (the Present Perfect Tense)

aš esu skaitęs/skaičiusi - 'I have read' (masc./fem.)
tu esi skaitęs/skaičiusi
jis yra skaitęs; ji yra skaičiusi
mes esame skaitę/skaičiusios
Jūs esate skaitę/skaičiusios
jie yra skaitę; jos yra skaičiusios

Of course, from the syntactical point of view, the past participle here could be considered nothing but an adjective because, syntactically, there is no difference between a sentence like jis yra senas 'he is old' and jis yra skaitęs 'he is (the one who has) read.' But, semantically, there is a great difference because the participle still retains its verbal characteristics and can govern, on its own, other parts of the sentence, such as a direct and indirect object, etc. E.g., one can expand this sentence indefinitly, like so:

(a) jis yra skaitęs - 'he has read'
(b) jis yra skaitęs tą knygą - 'he has read that book'
(c) jis yra skaitęs ta knyga savo sergančiam broliui -'he has read that book to his sick brother.'

The Second Compound Tense (-the Past Perfect Tense)26

aš buvau skaitęs/skaičiusi 'I had read' masc./fem.)
tu buvai skaitęs/skaičiusi
jis buvo skaitęs; ji buvo skaičiusi
mes buvome skaitę/skaičiusios
jūs buvote skaitę/skaičiusios
jie buvo skaitę; jos buvo skaičiusios

The Third Compound Tense (the Frequentative Perfect Tense)

aš būdavau skaitęs/skaičiusi 'I had read/at intervals . . .'
tu būdavai skaitęs/skaičiusi
jis būdavo skaitęs; jis būdavo skaičiusi
mes būdavome skaitę/skaičiusios
jūs būdavote skaitę/skaičiusios
jie būdavo skaitę; jos būdavo skaičiusios

The Fourth Compound Tense (the Future Perfect Tense)

aš būsiu skaitęs/skaičiusi 'I shall have read' (masc./fem.)
tu būsi skaitęs/skaičiusi
jis bus skaitęs; ji bus skaičiusi
mes būsime skaitę/skaičiusios
jūs būsite skaitę/skaičiusios
jie bus skaitę; jos bus skaičiusios

2. The Present Tense Active Participle in the So-Called Progressive Tenses

The system of progressive tenses has never been fully developed in Lithuanian. It occurs sporadically in various Lithuanian dialects, and in Standard Lithuanian, only three tenses are used: the preterite (or, simple past, imperfect), the frequentative past, and the future. The present progressive tense which would be conjugated something like esu bedirbąs — which occurs sporadically in some dialects, is not used very widely in Standard Lithuanian because it would have the same meaning as the simple present tense dirbu, etc., i.e., 'I am working.'27

We must add here right away that the active present tense participle alone cannot be used in such progressive tenses. In other words, one cannot say*aš buvau skaitąs: the participle has to be made progressive, as it were, indicating the action as still going on. This is accomplished by adding the prefix be- to the participle, thus, instead of skaitąs/skaitanti, if the progressive tense is to be used,28 one has to add the prefix be-; beskaitąs/beskaitanti 'still reading.' Thus, we get the following paradigms:

Progressive past (preterit, imperfect) tense;

aš buvau beskaitąs/beskaitanti 'I was (still) reading' 
tu buvai beskaitąs/beskaitanti '
jis buvo beskaitąs; ji buvo beskaitanti
mes buvome beskaitą/beskaitančios 
jūs buvote beskaitą/beskaitančios 
jie buvo beskaitą; jos buvo beskaitančios

Progressive Frequentative past tense:

aš būdavau beskaitąs/beskaitanti 'I used to be (still) reading'
tu būdavai beskaitąs/beskaitanti
jis būdavo beskaitąs; ji būdavo beskaitant!
mes būdavome beskaitą/beskaitančios
jūs būdavote beskaitą/beskaitančios
jie būdavo beskaitą; jos būdavo beskaitančios

Progressive future tense;

aš būsiu beskaitąs/beskaitanti 'I shall be (still) reading'
tu būsi beskaitąs/beskaitanti
jis bus beskaitąs; ji bus beskaitant!
mes būsime beskaitą/beskaitančios
jūs būsite beskaitą/beskaitančios
jie bus beskaitą; jos bus beskaitančios

3. The Passive Participles Used in the Passive Voice

As we have seen earlier,29 Lithuanian has preserved three passive participles since the passive participle of the frequentative past tense was never developed. The future passive participle is used very seldom, and we shall talk about it in the forthcoming chapters. That still leaves two passive participles: the present tense passive participle and the past tense passive participle. Both of these can be used in all the eight tenses: four simple tenses (present, past, frequentative past, future) and in the four compound tenses (present perfect, pluperfect, frequentative perfect, future perfect). The auxiliary verb to form the passive voice, as it is in English, is the verb būti 'to be.' Since the present passive participle, in the main, denotes the action as still going on, the eight tenses of the Lithuanian passive voice with this participle could be considered as either progressive passive, or, as some grammarians prefer to call them actional passive tenses. On the other hand, since the Lithuanian past passive participle denotes the action as completed, finished, done, the eight passive tenses formed with this participle, could be called the resultative passive, or, simpler, the statal passive. Here we shall present only the present tense in full, for the other tenses, we will give only the first person since the others can be easily derived following the pattern of the present tense.30 For practical purposes,31 we shall use the verb girti 'to praise.' 

4. Participles Used as Separate Parts of the Sentence (The Active Participles)

All four active participles can be used as any of the basic parts of the sentence: as subjects, predicates, direct and indirect objects, as complements, etc. In all these cases they assume at least syntactically and semantically the appropriate "roles" of a noun/pronoun, or "verb," etc.

Some examples:

Subject:
Suaugęs to niekuomet nepadarys — 'A grown-up will never do something like that.'
Tik iš proto išėjęs gali taip sakyti — 'Only an insane person can say something like that.'
Sužeistasis gulėjo gatvėje — 'The injured person was lying in the street.'

Predicate:
Jis norįs namo važiuoti — 'He wants to go home.'33
Jos dažnai sirgdavusios/sirgdavę — 'They used to be sick often.'
Jis man nieko neduosiąs — 'He will not give me anything.'

Direct object (i.e., accusative)
Jis mane sergantį dažnai lankė — 'He visited me frequently when I was ill.'

Indirect object (dative)
Jis man pavargusiam davė valgyti — 'He gave me something to eat when I was tired.'

Complement, etc.
Jis prikimusiai gieda — 'He sings with a hoarse voice.'

5, Participles in Indirect Discourse (Indirect Speech).

One of the most unique features of the two living Baltic languages (Lithuanian and Latvian) is the fact that a true retelling of someone's speech is given in participles.34 Let us look at the following examples:

That is: the present tense of the direct speech is rendered by the present tense active participle in indirect speech, and likewise for the remaining three tenses. Since there are four tenses and four equivalent active participles, the sequence is quite clear, in other words:

This, of course, is quite different from most of the other living Indo-European languages where indirect speech is rendered, mainly, by some form of subjunctive, or some other verbal mood.

As in so many modern Indo-European languages, so in Lithuanian, especially in everyday colloquial language, very often indirect speech is retold, reported, as it were just like direct speech, except for the change of the appropriate pronouns.35

6. Participles Used as Adjectives

a. As attributes

In most modern Indo-European languages (like English, German, Italian, Spanish, French . . . ), although some of them have only a very small number of participles left, they are mainly used as adjectives, outside of the fact that they also form the second half, as it were, of the grammatical compound tenses.36 In case the participles are used as attributive adjectives, grammatically and syntactically they are adjectives, i.e., they will then agree with the noun they modify in number, gender and case. E.g., pailsęs vyras 'tired man' (masc. sg. nom.) pailsusi moteris 'tired woman' (fem. sg. nom.), pailsę vaikai 'tired children' (masc. pl. nom.), pailsusį vyrą 'tired man' (masc. sg. acc.), išdykusiems vaikams 'naughty children' (masc. pl. dat.), etc.

The only "discrepancy" here occurs when the general (masculine) plural form is used, sometimes, with the feminine nouns, e.g., išdykę mergaitės 'naughty girls,' instead of išdykusios mergaitės. Whether this is just a folksy adaptation for shortness, or whether this is a very old inherited feature of Lithuanian, is not clear.37

b. As part of the verbal predicate

In this case, the participle of any kind used as part of the verbal predicate, becomes, for all practical purposes, a true adjective, and like an adjective, it agrees with the subject it modifies, or specifies, in number, gender and case:

Tas vyras yra labai pailsęs — 'That man is very tired' (masc. sg. nominative). Tie vaikai yra labai išdykę — 'Those children are very naughty/spoilt' (masc. pl. nom.). Naturally, since the predicate complement can be used only in the nominative case, only nominatives will occur.

7. The Usage of the Lithuanian pusdalyvis (The special adverbial participle, or the special participial adverb, in -damas/-dama.)

This pusdalyvis (lit.: "half-participle, semi-participle") is peculiar in the sense that although it is derived from the infinitive, it has no real temporal reference, in other words, it could be called participium contemporale: its time reference will always be, in the main, that of the main verb of the entire sentence. To illustrate this point: 

(1) Dainuodamas jis aria dirvą — '(While) singing he is. ploughing the field'
(2) Dainuodamas jis arė dirvą — '(While) singing he ploughed the field'
(3) Dainuodamas jis ardavo dirvą — '(While) singing he used to plough the field'
(4) Dainuodamas jis ars dirvą — '(While) singing he will plough the field'

From the point of view of syntax, the adverbial participle in -damas/-dama forms what amounts to a complete clause, or phrase, in most cases the dependent, or the subordinate clause. However, the action expressed by this half-participle is always much closer to the subject of the entire sentence because the action of the participle is about the subject as he/she/it does something else. That is why the underlying subject of the half-participle will/must always be the same as that of the entire sentence, and this also is the reason why the half-participle is not declined but occurs only in the nominative singular and plural, masculine and feminine.

As in most modern Indo-European languages, if the plural subject is mixed, i.e., if the subject comprises both masculine and feminine nouns, then the masculine ("general," as it were) form is used, e.g., Dainuodami berniukai ir mergaitės ėjo namo — '(While) singing, the boys and the girls went home,' or: 'Boys and girls went home singing.'38

8. The Usage of the four adverbial Active Participles (Lith. padalyvis).

From the historical point of view, all these four participles/adverbs are actually old datives.39 Therefore, whenever a noun or pronoun is attached to them, all these words are then in the dative case. However, with impersonal verbs, no other complement word is used, although in some cases, it could be so used. 

Cf.:

(1) Lyjant jis bėgo per mišką — '(While) it was raining, he ran through the forest.'
(2) Lietui lyjant jis bėgo per mišką — id.

But the dative must be used whenever an attribute is added:

(3) Smarkiam lietui lyjant, jis bėgo per mišką — 'While the heavy rain was coming down, he ran through the forest' or: 'He ran through the forest under the heavy ran').

Although, as we have seen in previous chapters, there are four adverbial active participles, only the first two, i.e., those of the present tense and of the simple past tense are used more frequently. Some examples:

(4) Man rašant šį laišką, jis dar miegojo — 'While I was writing this letter, he was still asleep.'
(5) Man parašius šį laišką, jis atsikėlė — 'After I had written this letter, he got up.'

The remaining two adverbial participles of this kind are very seldom used, usually only to report some event that is not so sure in the speaker's ("reporter's) mind:

(6) Jie tikėjo jį dirbdavus visą naktį — 'They believed he (may) have been working (habitually) all night.'
(7) Tėvai manė jį dirbsiant jų krautuvėje — 'The parents thought he would be working in their store.'

In many Lithuanian dialects the last two forms are practically never used, being replaced with some subordinate clause, or some similar construction. Although almost all Lithuanian school grammars still list these forms, even in Lithuanian belles lettres they occur very seldom.

9. Participles as Clauses/Sentences

From the historical point of view40 most of the participial clauses, or even single participles used as a kind of representation of the dependent/subordinate clauses may be considered as separate sentences/clauses. Naturally, this would exclude participles, both active and passive ones used as attributive adjectives, or, rather, in those cases where the participle can be replaced with an adjective. This will become clearer from the following examples:

(1) Pavargęs Jonas nieko negali skaityti — 'When (he gets) tired, John cannot read anything.' Here the past active participle (pavargęs) can easily be replaced with a full dependent/subordinate clause like the following:

(2) Kai jis pavargsta, Jonas nieko negali skaityti — 'When he gets tired, John cannot read anything.'

(3) Aš ir gulėdamas galiu greitai skaityti — 'Even when lying down, I can read quickly/rapidly.' Here, the present passive participle (gulėdamas) can be replaced with a full dependent clause, as follows:

(4) Jeigu aš kada ir guliu, aš galiu greitai skaityti — 'Even when I am lying down I can read rapidly.'

The difference in meaning between these two sets of sentences is very subtle, but all Lithuanian grammars will tell one that the sentences with participles are closer related, there is the "feeling" that the participle, as it were, "surrounds," or "envelops" the subject of the main clause more than the other kind, i.e., without the participle. That may be one of the reasons why many modern Lithuanian poets use participles very heavily. Although we shall discuss this phenomenon in a separate article,41 we would like to quote here only one rather short poem by Henrikas Nagys:

Mažo uosto švyturys

Į atvertas tavo šviečiančias akis
mirguliuodamas iš lėto puola sniegas.
Nuo žiūrėjimo j šniokščiančias naktis
pavargai. Norėtumei užmerkt akis bejėges.

Nusibodo tau vienodas ūkavimas garlaivių.
Jų smaluotas prakaitas ir aitrūs dūmai.
Ir augštai stiebuos, tarp svyrančių virvių,
girto jūrininko rėkiamų dainų graudumas . . .

Žlegančiom grandinėm kojos prirakintos tau
prie dumbluotų akmenų, susmigusių j jūrų dugną.
Ir tiktai viena svajonė tavo veidą liūdną
nušviečia kasnakt: Tu taip norėtumei išplaukt,

džiūgaujančią vėliavą ugnies iškėlęs vėjam,
nusigėrusiem, putojančia, bekrašte platuma, —
tu norėtumei išplaukt, palikęs persunktą aliejum
uosto vandenį, laivus ir sniegą, kvepiantį žeme.42

_____________

A Lighthouse in a Small Harbor

Into your open shining eyes
dancing very slowly falls the snow.
From looking into the roaring nights
you got tired. You would like to close your eyes.

You are bored by the monotonous booming of the ships.
Their tarred sweat and the acrid smoke.
And up high in the masts, between swaying ropes,
the sadness of the songs belted out by a drunken sailor . . .

Clanging chains keep your feet locked to the
muddy stones, stuck into the bottom of the sea.
And only one dream on your sad face
lights it up every night: You would like so very much to depart,

lifting a flaring flag of joy to the winds,
the drunk winds; on the foaming, endless voyage
you would like to swim out, leaving the water of the
harbor saturated by oil, ships and the snow fragrant with earth.

(Translation — mine, A. K.)43

In the original Lithuanian text, I took the liberty of underlining all the participles used. One can readily see that 18 participles have been used in these 16 lines, which makes it, if one is inclined to use mathematical proportions 16:18, i.e., in sixteen lines of the poem there are 18 participles. This proportion, by the way, is rather high, although Nagys loves to use participles.44 One can say readily here: the participles hold the whole poem together, they give it a complete, coherent feeling. Without the participles, this poem would become a very prosaic description of the poor little lighthouse in a small harbor. In reading the poem aloud in its original Lithuanian, one gets the feeling that, if one single participle were left out, or replaced, the whole poem would fall apart. Thus, the participles are the very strength of this poem.

10. Special Usages of the Participles

One of the rather unique features of the Lithuanian participial system is the fact that some participles can be used in their neuter form to express the very ancient general facts. These constructions most probably go back to Proto-Indo-European times.45 Proto-Baltic,46or even Old Lithuanian may have had regular constructions like that.

Before we go on, I would like to point out that, in Modern Standard Lithuanian, only the three passive participles have neuter forms, and they are limited only to one general case which, for practical purposes, "looks" like the nominative case of the neuter adjectives in -as/-a. E.g., baigtas, baigta, baigta; 'finished:' masc., fem., neuter. Neuter form looks like the feminine form, except that, in many cases, like here, its stress pattern is different: the feminine form is stressed on the ending and the neuter form — on the root.47 I have chosen this verb (baigti — 'to finish') for the simple reason that every native speaker of Lithuanian uses this form very frequently, particularly in such expressions as: Viskas baigta! 'It's all over,' and similar.48

A very different kind of case is the usage of the neuter form of the active participles. This neuter form is, in the surface structure now identical and the same as the plural masculine form. Thus, if we take the four active participles of the verb būti 'to be,' we shall have the following sequence:

We have put the present neuter form in parentheses because it is used seldom, only in such old expressions as, for example: Jis, esą, buvęs turtingas — 'He was, supposedly, rich.' — Some examples for the other forms:

(1) Visko čia buvę — 'All kinds of things did happen here.'
(2) Staiga nustojo liję — 'Suddenly, it stopped raining.'49
(3) Tuomet viskas kitaip būdavę - 'In those days, everything was different.'
(4) Būdavę ir taip - 'Things were like that also.'
(5) Gal taip ir būsią — 'Maybe that's the way things will turn out.'
(6) Nieko ten nebūsią — 'Nobody would be there.'50

V. Reflexive Participles

With a few exceptions, practically all Lithuanian verbs could be used as reflexive verbs.51 In practice, only a small part of the verbs are selectively52 used in their reflexive patterns, and there are, of course, a few verbs in Lithuanian which are used only as reflexive verbs, such as dairytis 'to look around,' džiaugtis 'to be happy about sm..' elgtis 'to behave,' etc.53 On the whole, the reflexive participles are derived in the same manner as those of non-reflexive verbs, with the reflexive particle (-si/-s) attached. But there are also differences: 1) Like in all Indo-European languages, there are only a few passive participles left in the reflexive verbs, and they are used only in certain constructions.54 2) In Lithuanian, the reflexive participles are not inflected in the sense that only the nominative cases, masculine and feminine singular and plural are used. Even this usage is slowly diminishing, except, perhaps, in prefixed reflexive verbs where the participles are like those of the basic verbs, and they are, then, fully inflected, in all cases, in all genders, in all numbers.55

Here is a sample, us it were, of the pure reflexive verb (see above) elgtis 'to behave:'

Active participles:

1. Present tense: elgiąsis/elgiantysi;elgiąsi/elgiančiosi
2. Simple past: elgęsis/elgusis; elgęsi/elgusiosi
3. Frequentative past: elgdavęsis/elgdavusi; elgdavęsi/elgdavusiosi
4. Future: elgsiąsis/elgsiantysi; elgsiąsi/elgsiančiosi

The four adverbial participles:

1. Present tense: elgiantis
2. Simple past: elgusis
3. Frequentative past: elgdavus
4. Future: elgsiantis

The special active present tense adverbial participle

elgdamasis/elgdamasi; elgdamiesi/elgdamosi

As we have mentioned earlier, reflexive verbs do not form many passive participles, and there are no participles of necessity.56

Quite often, if there is a need to use the inflected form in other cases but the nominative, the prefix be- is added. Then, as with all such cases, the reflexive particle -si- comes between the prefix and the main verb, and the participle will be used as a non-reflexive one. E.g.,

(1) Aš jį radau besidžiaugiantį savo laimėjimais — 'I found him enjoying his successes/winnings.'
(2) Jis mane pamatė besidairantį aerodrome — 'He saw me while I was looking around at the airport.'57

1 There were several basic roots, in Proto-Indo-European, to express the semantic idea of being/existing: *es, *wes, *bheu-/*bhou-/*bhu, and, perhaps some more. Clearly, the Lithuanian infinitive, i.e., būti is the inherited root *bheu- although the other inherited roots are also reflected in the total system of the Lithuanian verb 'to be.'
2 The meaning given here seems a little far-fetched and nebulous. We will go into this further on in the article.
3 One of the very interesting and quite unique features — at least among the Indo-European languages — is the fact that Lithuanian has never distinguished between the third person singular and the third person plural. That is, there are different pronouns (jis 'he,' ji 'she,'  jie/jos 'they masc./fem.'), but the verbal forms have never been distinguished. This most probably goes back to very olden times when in Proto-Indo-European there was no person-distinction yet developed.
4 We have taken the principles from our book, Introduction to Modern Lithuanian (Franciscan Fathers Press, 341 Highland Blvd. Brooklyn, N.Y. 11207; 1st edition; 1966; 2nd edition: 1972; 3rd edition: 1980, pp. 277-280). Of course, we have modified it somewhat to fit our purposes in this discussion.
5 From the point of view of Indo-European linguistics, the First Conjugation could be called the a-stem verbs, the Second Conjugation — the i-stem verbs, and the Third Conjugation — the o-stem verbs. This is due to the fact that Proto-Indo-European short o becomes (short) a in Lithuanian, the PIE short i remains (short) i, and the Lithuanian long o, in this particular case, is derived from PIE (long) a.
6 From the point of view of ancient Proto-Indo-European, there is no true irregularity here. We use that term, simply, to describe some linguistic fact which does not follow the complete regularity, or uniformity.
7 Analogy is a linguistic change in which the pre-existing linguistic pattern of any level, any hierarchy — be it the sound structure, or form structure, or semantic, or syntactic structure — causes the rest of the system to conform to one uniform pattern. For example, in Modern German, practically all new verbs fall into one single category: they all end in -ieren, they are all 100 percent regular, and even their stress pattern is completely uniform, cf. telefonieren, multiplizeren, deponieren, dekorieren, etc. etc.
8 I would like to point out here that the Lithuanian form esmi 'I am' is very archaic: it is almost exactly like the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form *esmi 'I am.'
9 For more information on this, cf. Antanas Klimas, "Some Unique Features of Lithuanian," Lituanus, Vol. 30 (1984), No. 3, pp. 51-64.
10 Haplology is described, usually, as follows: "The omission in speech of one or more similar sounds in succession, e.g. when temporary is pronounced (tempri)." (Taken from: Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, compiled by R.R.K. Hartmann and F.C.Stork, ]ohn Wi/ey& Sons, New York-Toronto, 1972, p. 102).
11 That's exactly what they were called in the so-called Vilnius Anonymous Grammar. Really, the first forms, those of the present tense and those of the (simple) past tense were mentioned there. It is not clear why the remaining two, that of the frequentative past tense, and that of the future were not mentioned. Cf. Universitas linguarum Litvaniae — Anoniminė 1737 m. gramatika "Universitas Linguarum Litvaniae," Vilnius, 1981. (Iš lotynų kalbos vertė ir įvadą parašė K. Eigminas), pp. 109, and the appropriate — not numbered — pages of the original Latin text.
12 For more on this, cf. Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, op. cit., pp. 204-213; 277-290; 341-355.
13 These and similar questions will be discussed later.
14 For a more detailed discussion of this problem c.f. Z. Zinkevičius, Lietuvių kalbos istorinė gramatika II (Vilnius, 1981), pp. 157-158. Pranas Skardžius, Lietuvių kalbos žodžių daryba, Vilnius, 1943.
15 It is definitely established that the formant (or: suffix) -to- is Proto-Indo-European. The formant -no- may be somewhat later, but it does occur in several branches of the Indo-European language family.
16 Cf. Antanas Klimas "Lietuvių kalbos veiksmažodžių daryba ir indoeuropiečių prokalbė" ("The formation of verbs in Lithuanian and Proto-Indo-European"), in: Lietuvių Katalikų Mokslo Akademijos Suvažiavimo Darbai, X tomas, Roma, 1984, pp. 189-198.
17 Some linguists, ancient and modern, consider that almost all inherited adjectives were derived, one way or another, from some verbal roots.
18 Most scholars agree that the adjective geras 'good' is derived from ancient Proto-Indo-European root/*/ger-/*gor-*gr- which may have meant something like 'to praise, to cherish, to admire . . .' If that is true, then the PIE root *ger- with an extension -b, or -bh- gave Lithuanian gerbti, the PIE root *gor- (the normal o-grade) is reflected in Lithuanian garbė 'honor,' and the PIE root *gr- (the zero grade) is reflected in Lithuanian girti 'to praise.' Geras is a derivative of this root, too, and the original meaning of geras might have been 'praiseworthy, laudable.' Cf. Ernst Fraenkel, Litauisches etymologisches Worterbuch, and other etymological sources.
19 For more details, cf. Z. Zinkevičius, Lietuvių kalbos istorinė gramatika II, pp. 142 ff.
20 Cowgill, Warren, "The Nominative Plural and Preterit Singular of the Active Participles in Baltic," in: Baltic Linguistics, edited by Thomas F. Magner and William R. Schmalstieg, The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park and London, 1970, pp. 23-37.
21 Cf. Z. Zinkevičius, Lietuvių kalbos istorinė gramatika, op. cit., pp. 150 ff.
22 More about this, see the chapter on the syntax of these participial adverbs.
23 These so-called compound tenses could also be called periphrastic tenses, or even tense-like phrases. Their origin might go back to late Proto-Indo-European times, but, they were, apparently, developed separately in various branches and languages.
24 By this, we simply mean the very basic four simple verbal tenses of Lithuanian: the present tense, the simple past tense, the frequentative past tense, and the future tense. (In Lithuanian: esamasis laikas, būtasis kartinis laikas, būtasis dažninis laikas, būsimasis laikas).
25 For the reasons why this did happen in Lithuanian, cf. our further discussion of this question in this chapter. From the practical point of view, this Lithuanian participle approaches, as it were, in the practical application the Modern- German past participle as well as the English past participle, but in the latter two languages the past participles can be both used, really, as an active (cf. Germ, ich habe das Buch gelesen, Eng. I have read the book) participle, or as a passive one: cf. Ger. Das von mir gelesene Buch liegt auf dem Tisch; Eng. This bestselling book was read by nearly everybody.
26 For a complete view, see Introduction to Modern Lithuanian op. cit., pp. 340-345. Cf. also the Academic Grammar of Lithuanian — Lietuvių kalbos gramatika, vols. l, II, and III, Vilnius, 1965, 1971, 1976.
27 In spite of the fact that it is practically never used, some Lithuanian school grammars give this present progressive tense, like follows: aš esu berašąs, tu esi berašąs, 'I am/still/writing/ etc.
28 More on this and other verbal prefixes, cr. Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, op. cit., pp. 378-386
29 See the first chapter. Cf. also Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, op. cit., Lesson 26, Lesson 35, and the Grammar Appendix.
30 At this point, I would like to remind the reader that only transitive verbs can form a true passive. Even in the case of transitive verbs, many are, in practice, never used in passive, or used only very selectively.
31 By this ("For practical purposes,") we simply mean that a verb such as girti 'to praise' may conceivably occur in all these aspects of the passive voice.
32 Lithuanian school grammars will usually list only FOUR main tenses in the Lithuanian verbal system: the present tense, the simple past tense, the frequentative past tense, and the future tense. They are called the vientisiniai laikai, i.e., simple tenses consisting of a single verbal form; all the other tenses are called the sudurtiniai laikai, i.e. the compound tenses which really could be considered as short sentences. That is the reason why we discuss them in the chapter on syntax.
33 These sentences could be considered as indirect discourse, or indirect speech. But, since they can be used without any introductory phrases, syntactically they can also be considered as independent sentences.
34 For a much more detailed discussion of this question, cf. Lietuvių kalbos gramatika, op. cit., Vol. Ill, pp. 538 ff.
35 Most of the other living Indo-European languages, in the most formal style, or code, employ subjunctive, or some remnants of the (formerly) conditional moods in such indirect speech/indirect discourse. Cf. any good introductory school/college grammar of the appropriate language.
36 From a pure syntactical point of view, these compound tenses where the second element is a participle, in practically all modern Indo-European languages, could be considered as simple short phrases, or sentences where the participle is nothing else than an adjective. E.g., Jonas, yra drąsus 'John is courageous,' and Jonas yra pavargęs 'John is tired;' Jonas buvo drąsus 'John was courageous,' Jonas buvo pavargęs 'John was tired,' etc.
37 One thing is clear, however; only the so-called masculine form can be used with the feminine nouns, or subjects, and not the other way around. In other words, one can say: Išdykę mergaitės, or mergaitės išdykę, as well as išdykę berniukai/berniukai išdykę 'naughty/spoilt boys,' but not: *išdykusios berniukai.
38 For more on this, cf. Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, op. cit., pp. 210-214, 275-280, 348-356.
39 This means that these forms, really old datives, could go back to earlier times than the late Proto-Indo-European. They could possibly reflect, as it has been suggested, the so-called ergative stage of early Proto-Indo-European.
40 For the best treatment of these problems, cf. Vytautas Ambrazas, Lietuvių kalbos dalyvių istorinė sintaksė, Vilnius, 1979. ("Historical Syntax of the Lithuanian Participles.")
41 To be published in some future issue of Lituanus, or somewhere else.
42 Henrikas Nagys, Saulės laikrodžiai, Chicago, 1952, p. 26.
43 This translation is, more or less, a true textual rendering, without any pretense for a poetical rendering of the original. But even in this unpoetical translation one can notice the multitude of the participles.
44 In this book (Saulės laikrodžiai, 1952), there is not a single poem — and the 45 poems in it are of varied length — without a participle. We have, in haste, checked several other poets of approximately the same period (Kazys Bradūnas, Leonardas Andriekus, Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas, Jonas Aistis), and found that in their poetry of that time, there are several poems in each collection without the participles. This, of course, needs much more and deeper investigation. In Nagys' book cited above, the ratio of LINE: NUMBER of participles is: 813 lines: 457 participles, or, if lines are taken as 100 percent, then we get the following proportion: 100 percent: 56 percent.
45 We have no time to go deeper into this problem. For all the basic historical questions, cf. the Ambrazas book, see Footnote No. 40.
46 For more views on this, cf. Zigmas Zinkevičius, Lietuvių kalbos istorinė gramatika, Vol. 2, op. cit., pp 142 ff. and by the same author. Lietuvių kalbos kilmė: Lietuvių kalbos istorija l, Vilnius, 1984. (Cf. also the review of this book in Lituanus, Vol. 32 (1986) No. 3, pp. 88-93.
47 This happens according to the historical/etymological origin of these forms.
48 Strictly speaking, by the grammatical category, the word (it is a pronoun) viskas is here masculine, not neuter, but it carries the neuter meaning semantically. Syntactically, this is an anological replacement because the real neuter form should be visa 'all.'
49 A very awkward but literal translation of this phrase would give something like this: "Suddently ceased to have rained."
50 Strictly speaking, this last phrase could be considered as some kind of indirect discourse/indirect speech, i.e., in certain situations this phrase may imply: "Someone has said/there is talk going around: nobody would be there."
51 For a short discussion of the Lithuanian reflexive verbs, see: Antanas Klimas, "Some Remarks on the Lithuanian Reflexive Verbs," Lituanus, Vol. 31 (1985), No. 2, pp. 63-72.
52 There is a noticeable tendency in all modern Indo-European languages to gradually reduce and diminish the use of the reflexive verbs. For a more detailed discussion, see the article given in Footnote 51, above.
53 A full list of these reflexive verbs is given in the article cited in Footnote 51, above.
54 The origin of the reflexive verbs in Indo-European languages has not been explained uniformly. There are many unsolved questions. Be that as it may, the reflexive verbs are connected, generally, with the development of the medial and the passive voice. The problem of the reflexive passive participles will be dealt with in a separate article.
55 That is, if the reflexive particle (-si/-s-) is used before the main verb, then the verb, from the morphological point of view is non-reflexive, although its meaning is.
56 The participle of necessity (such as būtinas, from būti 'to be') is really passive by its very nature, something like "something that still has to be done."
57 In many Lithuanian dialects, the participle system is much simpler than in Standard Literary Language. The western dialects, primarily Samogitian, use the participles more, while their use is reduced in the eastern High Lithuanian dialects.