# BCS, other Slavic: -azati > -azam? -ažem?  -asati > asam? ašem?



## kishe

The verbs kazati and mazati produce the predictable conjugations of kažem and mažem, yet the verb bazati produces bazam.  

I considered pitch accent, but kázati and bázati have the same pitch, with mȁzati as the odd one out.  This leads me to think that bazati, a relatively recent borrowing from (Ottoman) Turkish, behaves a little differently, with the root's consonant "preserved."

But looking at another word - basati, from a similar Turkish root, conjugates as basam.
So bȁsati > basam and bázati > bazam.  

Looking at pasati:

pàsati > pasam (from Italian passare)
pȁsati > pašem (from German passen)
pȁsati > pašem (from pas "belt")

So, foreign words' roots are not necessarily preserved.   The root pas- can yield pas-ati or paš-em, as we see in Italian versus German.

Yet -ȁsati does not guarantee -ašem: pȁsati does yield pašem, but bȁsati yields basam.   (I'm making the not-very-bold assumption that the difference between b and p has no significance here.)

So, is there a pattern to predicting the conjugation?
Is there a rule or are we looking at tendencies and inclinations, i.e. (newer) foreign words are more likely to keep the root intact, while native and older words more likely to have the predictable consonant shifts?

Or does it have nothing to do with word origin and more to do with stress, with my few examples being some exceptions?

How is the case in other Slavic languages?


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## Karton Realista

In Polish kazać and mazać produce każę and mażę (they probably mean different things than your examples).
Foreign verbs usually end on -wać, and they end on -uję, -aję, -wam, the latter mostly or maybe exclusively for words of Slavic origin.
When it comes to word rzezać, it makes rzezam. It's also of perfectly Slavic origin. Present tense - so also imperfective.
There's a similar Russian word наре*з*ать, which declinates as наре*ж*у, etc.


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## Panceltic

I can offer a bit of insight into Slovene which is probably similar to BCS.

The -ati verbs are classified into groups:

1) the old, usually irregular stems, they take -em etc. in present: brati > berem
2) where -ati is contracted from earlier -ajeti, they take -am etc. in present: delati > delam
3) some of them take -jem etc. in present, which makes for all sorts of sound changes: kazati > kažem, kopati > kopljem
4) where -ati is from earlier -ěti (after č, š, ž, j), they take -im etc. in present: slišati > slišim

I believe you are interested in groups 2 & 3. The reconstructions look like this:

delajeti > delajem (later contracted to delati > delam) - the -j is still preserved in the imperative (delaj!)
kazati > *kazjem (kažem)

Based on the above, I would assume that verbs including contracted vowels (which should still be long but unstressed in BCS) don't have sound changes in present, whereas the others do.


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## Zec

Hello, kishe

Unfortunately, there is no rule to predicting conjugation - for each verb, it's infinitive and present have to be learned separately. As for tendencies, they do exist, and are exactly as you guessed: verbs in -ati, -am are the most regular conjugation class, and nearly every new verb is conjugated that way. There is no way to predict conjugation according to accent or sounds - verbs that conjugate the same way can have completely different accent patterns.

That said, Panceltic's classification is correct for Croatian as for Slovenian - and can be helpful. I will present them in more detail.

It is probably easier to predict infinitives from the presents, than to predict presents from infinitives. That way, you actually can rely on some rules:

Verbs in -am all have infinitives in -ati, as already said.

For verbs in -im: they can have infinitives in -ati only if they end in č, ž, š or j. In all other cases, they will have infinitives in -iti or -jeti. In addition, these verbs (-im, -ati) generally denote states, such as ležati, ležim "to be lying down", stajati, stojim "to be standing", etc.

For verbs in -jem: they all have infinitives in -ati. The trick is to recognize them - which is easy, since they all end in a palatal consonant created by the underlying -j. One only needs to be careful with verbs in č, ž and š, since some do not belong to the -jem class, but to the -em class: to see which is which, look at their 3rd person plural form - verbs in -jem, -ati will still have č, ž, ,š in there: skakati, skačem, skaču (to jump), mazati, mažem, mažu; pasati, pašem, pašu. Verbs in -em, on the other hand, will have k, g, h in their 3rd person plural form instead of č, ž, š, and, as a rule, infinitives in -ći: pečem, peku, peći (to bake).

For verbs such as brati, berem (to pick up), there is no such rule to help you derive the infinitive from the present. here the infinitive is more helpful: when you remove -ati, there will be no vowel left.

So, my suggestion is, for each verb, after you learn their infinitive and present separately, focus on remembering their 3rd person plural form, from which the infinitive can be most accurately guessed.

I hope this helps.


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## kishe

Thank you so much, Panceltic and Zec.   Your explanations have been immensely helpful.


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## Awwal12

kishe said:


> How is the case in other Slavic languages?


In modern Russian the most productive models for foreign stems are stem + -ovat' and stem + -irovat', which naturally aren't very helpful here.
The old verbs all show palatalization, regardless of the origin of the stem and the time of formation (parusit'>parušu, see парус; buzit'>bužu, see буза, etc.) - at least in the literary language; some South Russian dialects would disagree, but they tended to level the paradigm in ALL verbs. In the modern slang, however, where the model «stem + -it'/-at'» is pretty productive, there is à tendency to avoid the original palatalization in the newly formed verbal forms (and put the usual soft s'/z' instead). Google indicates that variants like "foršu", "paršu" or "pofikšu" are several times more rare than "fors'u", "pars'u" or "pofiks'u".
In the same time, other old alterations look more stable: defit' > defl'u (*Bją>*Bl'ą) and almost never def'u; zafrenžu and apgrejžu (*dją > žą) are more frequent than zafrend'u and apgrejd'u.


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## bibax

Panceltic said:


> The -ati verbs are classified into groups:
> 
> 1) the old, usually irregular stems, they take -em etc. in present: brati > berem
> 2) where -ati is contracted from earlier -ajeti, they take -am etc. in present: delati > delam
> 3) some of them take -jem etc. in present, which makes for all sorts of sound changes: kazati > kažem, kopati > kopljem
> 4) where -ati is from earlier -ěti (after č, š, ž, j), they take -im etc. in present: slišati > slišim
> 
> I believe you are interested in groups 2 & 3. The reconstructions look like this:
> 
> delajeti > delajem (later contracted to delati > delam) - the -j is still preserved in the imperative (delaj!)
> kazati > *kazjem (kažem)


I doubt that the infinitive delati is contracted *delajeti. IMHO delajeti never existed (compare with Russian).

In Czech:

2) inf. *děl-a-ti*, pres. *děl-á-š* < *děl-a-je-š (á is long, not stressed)
the present stem is formed by adding the suffix *-je-* to the infinitive stem *děl-a-*, the result *dělaje- is contracted to *děl-á-*

3) inf. *maz-a-ti*, pres. *maž-e-š* < *maz-je-š
the present stem is formed by adding the suffix *-je-* to the root *maz-* (not to the infinitive stem maz-a-): *mazje- > *maže-
*
The infinitive stem forms in groups 2 and 3 are formed similarly: *dělal, mazal*

However in contemporary Czech many verbs of the group 3 (mazati) often form the present stem according to dělati by analogy:

tesati: *tešeš* as well as *tesáš* (although *tes*aje*š never existed, only *tes*je*š)
orati: *ořeš* as well as *oráš
*
The original forms are often archaic/bookish, or regional, new forms prevail:

trestati: tresceš (arch.) - trestáš
dýchati: dýšeš - dýcháš
řechtati: řechceš - řechtáš
kloktati: klokceš - kloktáš
létati: léceš - létáš
etc.


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## Panceltic

Oh yes, of course, that was a mistake on my part.

There are also pairs like this (klepetaš/klepečeš) in Slovenian.


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## Zec

I can't recall any such pairs in standard Croatian, but dialects (especially Kajkavian) often have -jem presents where the standard has -am presents. For example, "to bath" is kupati, kupam in the standard language, but kupati, kupljem in my local dialect - in these cases Slovenian probably also has -jem presents.


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## Panceltic

There is

kopáti - kópljem - kôpal (to dig)
kópati - kópam - kópal (to bathe)


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## Zec

Thanks,

In this case, the conjugations are reversed - it probably differs on a word to word basis, between dialects as well as languages.


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## Panceltic

Yes, this example is a separate thing. Now when thinking of it, also kópati - kópljem - kópal is OK for 'to bathe' ... But kopáti cannot be *kopam. Interesting!


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## ilocas2

bibax said:


> řechtati: řechceš - řechtáš



It's written řehtat, not řechtat.

pravidla.cz


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