# All Slavic languages: Significant agents of modernization



## xinelo

I would be very grateful if people could provide translations into *any* Slavic language for the following sentences:

[1a] They have become significant agents of modernization.
 [1b] They have become significant agents of modernization.

... knowing that, in sentence [1a], *they* refers to only women, and in sentence [1b] *they* refers to only men. 

It's not the quality of the translation what I care about, but knowing whether the translation would provide two syntactically different sentences or two syntactically identical ones. I'm especially interested in differences realized in the verb (if the verb ending change according to the subject's gender).

The verb conjugation is not important either, that is, I would equally happy with a translation of the following sentences... 

[2] They will become significant agents of modernization.
[3] They became significant agents of modernization.
[4] They become significant agents of modernization.
[n] x

... as long as the translation depends formally on the referent of *they*.

I hope I made myself clear (I tried to explain the issue in an understandable language for non linguists). I'll be very thankful for any answer. 

xinelo


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## Jana337

Hello and welcome! 

Here is a Czech translation:
1a - Staly se významnými nositelkami modernizace.
1b - Stali se významnými nositeli modernizace.
2a + 2b - Stanou se významnými nositelkami/nositeli modernizace.
3a + 3b - like 1a and 1b (we do not distinguish past simple and past perfect)
4a + 4b - Stávají se významnými nositelkami/nositeli modernizace.

The verb is "stát se/stávat se" (the perfective aspect is used in 1-2, the imperfective one in 3).

As you see, only the forms for the past differ. 
he - on se stal 
she - ona se stala
it - ono se stalo
they (masc.) - oni se stali
they (fem.) - ony se staly
they (neutr.) - ona se stala

Hope this helps. Please do not hesitate to ask. 

Jana


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## _sandra_

Hi there,

In Polish :

[1a] Stały się ważnymi nośnikami modernizacji.
[1b] Stali się ważnymi  nośnikami modernizacji.
[2a] Staną się ważnymi nośnikami  modernizacji.
[2b] Staną się ważnymi nośnikami modernizacji.
3a + 3b -->  Same as in 1a, 1b
[4a] Stają się ważnymi nośnikami modernizacji.
[4b] Stają się ważnymi nośnikami modernizacji.

As you noticed the difference between the verbs appears only in [1a]/[1b] - so in the past. 
/In future and present tense verbs do not differ/

The verb is: Stawać się

In the past:
* she /ona =  stała się
* he/ on =     stał się
*  it/ ono =    stało się
* they (virile)/oni  = stali się
* they (non virile)/ one =   stały się

Ps.  Sorry for my poor translation (nośniki modernizacji - sounds inappropriate when refered to people), but I decided to post it because you were interested in the differences between verbs. (If any Pole finds this post - please feel free to correct it 

Hope to help
Sandra


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## Thomas1

_sandra_ said:
			
		

> In Polish :
> 
> [2a] Staną się ważnymi nośnikami modernizacji.
> [2b] Staną się ważnymi nośnikami modernizacji.
> 
> [4a] Stają się ważnymi nośnikami modernizacji.
> [4b] Stają się ważnymi nośnikami modernizacji.
> 
> In future and present tense verbs do not differ


Just to clarify Sandra's good explanation since the above may be confusing a little. 

In some cases (this depends on the cojnugated verb) you may use present tense conjugation with future meaning but not the other way around, for instance:
_Idę._
_I go. _
_I will go._  
but
_Pójdę._
_I'll go. _
_I go. _

IMHO you cannot use the present tense form of _stać się_ (become) as a future equivalent.
_Staje się. _
_He/She becomes. _
_He/She will become._ 

You may also put the future tense this way:

_Oni będą stawać się..._
_One będą stawać się..._

This is just the longer form of future tense, however, the endings remain unchanged.

In case of any doubts, dont' hesitate... 


FWIW, 

Thomas


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## cyanista

Hello!

Here's a Russian version
I won't translate this sentence because it isn't really necessary, I'll only say that  3rd person plural in Russian/Belarussian does not have any "gender implications", so it's the same pronoun and verb form for 'they've become' talking about women and 'they've become' meaning men. This is true for all verb tenses.

Greetings


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## Dorsai

Hello!
Russian translation - just to give a visual proof to what was said above:

1a) Они стали важными факторами модернизации - Oni stali vajnymi factorami modernizatsii. (translitered for your convenience)
2a) Idem

Best wishes!


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## xinelo

Jana, Sandra, Thomas, Cyanista and Dorsai: you are WONDERFUL!! ) Thank you so much for your excellent explanations! This was all I really needed. Hummm, this looks like a good forum... 

 Some doubts still remain so I won't hesitate  

 a) 

 Jana, you said: 
* stát se*, perfective, sentence 1
* stávat se*, imperfective, sentence 3

 This puzzled me as you said that sentences 1 and 3 would render identical translations. If they're identical, how come the aspect is perfective in 1 and imperfective in 2? Maybe you meant imperfective in sentence 4... 

(By the way, my native language is Galizan-Portuguese, in which, unlike Spanish or Catalan, you don't distinguish either simple past from present perfect. We just have a simple past form in both cases, other nuances might be conveyed by means of a verbal periphrasis. )

 b) 

 Second doubt: Am I right to suppose that *se*/*się* is a reflexive pronoun? Or is it part of the verb? 

In any case (and this is not part of the question, but a reflection), it's funny to see how, at least in Czech, the position of se/się is after the verb when the subject is elliptic but it's between the verb and the personal pronoun when the subject isn't elliptic. Anyway, this is not important for my research. 

 c) 

 Another question, and this is out of curiosity: Does *nositel(kam)i* mean _"agents"_ in Czech? If so, unlike in Polish, the masculine form is the non-marked one, isn't it?

 d)

 Sandra, I assume Polish verbs don't need to be written with a initial capital, meaning that* stawać* would be correct. 

e) 

Dorsai: Is the subject pronoun  (e.g. *Они*) compulsory in Russian? (as *they* in English) Or can it be omitted just like in Czech and Polish?

f) 

One last thing. Could you please check I've understand what each word stands for? For instance, if I take sentence 1a (I use underscores because spaces are removed when I send the post): 

       ________Staly se___významnými___nositelkami__modernizace.
________Stały się__ważnymi______nośnikami____modernizacji.
Они_____стали______важными______факторами____модернизации.
 (They)__became_____significant__agents of____modernization.

--

I think after this I'll have to start learning a Slavic language! I'll try to get hold of one of the Teach Yourself books, unless you could recommend other better materials. 

  One again, thanks a lot! Děkuji mnohokrát, dziekujemy, спасибо (I hope I'm not saying anything wrong). Graças. 
xinelo


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## natasha2000

Serbian:

1. One su postale važni faktori modernizacije. (Women)
2. Oni su postali važni faktori modernizacije. (Men)

As you see, the only word that is different is pronoun:
One (They - women)
Oni (They - men)

The rest is the same. The sentence is in past.

Saludos de Barcelona,
Natasha


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## xinelo

Thank you so much, Natasha, mercès per la teva resposta. Doubts:

You say: _As you see, the only word that is different is pronoun: one (they - women) oni (they - men)_​However I see *postale* and *postali *are also different. Are these words part of the pronoun? 

One more question: are the pronouns compulsory? Or could you say (1a) "Su postale važni faktori modernizacije"? (maybe "Postale su važni faktori modernizacije").

By the way: Am I right about the following? 

One___su postale__važni________faktori______modernizacije.
  They__became______significant__agents of____modernization.

 Hey, I'm also based in Barcelona! I'll let you know when we run a party at home  Sorry guys for those of you who right now are in Poland, Czechia, Russia, etc. 

 Cheers, xinelo


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## Jana337

xinelo said:
			
		

> Maybe you meant imperfective in sentence 4...


You are absolutely right - a stupid typo, sorry. 


> Second doubt: Am I right to suppose that *se*/*się* is a reflexive pronoun? Or is it part of the verb?


It is a reflexive pronoun but the usage of reflexive pronouns in Slavic languages does not entirely reflect the reflexive nature of the verb: Some verbs that should not be reflexive "logically" are in fact reflexive in Slavic languages. To become is one example. One only feels it after learning another language. 


> In any case (and this is not part of the question, but a reflection), it's funny to see how, at least in Czech, the position of se/się is after the verb when the subject is elliptic but it's between the verb and the personal pronoun when the subject isn't elliptic. Anyway, this is not important for my research.


This is the case - at least in Czech. Polish seems to be different. The word order in Czech sentences is totally random from the viewpoint of learners. Indeed, you can manipulate it in many ways in order to stress a particular part of the sentence. However, some combinations do not sound good.
Marie se ptá. - Marie is asking.
Ona se ptá. - She is asking.
Ptá se. - He/she is asking.

I will complete the reply later because this computer does not have a Czech keyboard. 
I am back, and I see that Roman already provided a reply, so I will just add a couple of details.


> Another question, and this is out of curiosity: Does *nositel(kam)i* mean _"agents"_ in Czech? If so, unlike in Polish, the masculine form is the non-marked one, isn't it?


I am not quite sure what "non-marked" refers to.
Nositel/nositelka is not actually a usual translation of "agent" but alternatives would grate in the sentence. "Nosit" - to carry, i.e. people who carry the modernization.

Now I am curious. I thought you were a student of a Slavic language who is working on a comparative problem. But you refuted it. Could you shed some light on what you need this information for? 

Jana


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## Tchesko

Wow!!!

How can you understand all this without already learning a Slavic language? Really amazing!



			
				xinelo said:
			
		

> a)
> 
> Jana, you said:
> *stát se*, perfective, sentence 1
> *stávat se*, imperfective, sentence 3
> 
> This puzzled me as you said that sentences 1 and 3 would render identical translations. If they're identical, how come the aspect is perfective in 1 and imperfective in 2? Maybe you meant imperfective in sentence 4...


You're quite right, the imperfective is in sentence 4.



			
				xinelo said:
			
		

> b)
> 
> Second doubt: Am I right to suppose that *se*/*się* is a reflexive pronoun? Or is it part of the verb?
> 
> In any case (and this is not part of the question, but a reflection), it's funny to see how, at least in Czech, the position of se/się is after the verb when the subject is elliptic but it's between the verb and the personal pronoun when the subject isn't elliptic. Anyway, this is not important for my research.


Once again, you are right. *se*/*się* is a reflexive pronoun. And in Czech, its position does change...



			
				xinelo said:
			
		

> c)
> 
> Another question, and this is out of curiosity: Does *nositel(kam)i* mean _"agents"_ in Czech? If so, unlike in Polish, the masculine form is the non-marked one, isn't it?


Yes, it means "agents".
The female form, *nositelkami*, is the instrumentative (7th case) plural, the nominative (1st case) being *nositelky*. The male form, *nositeli*, is also an instrumentative plural and the nominative is *nositelé*.
This comes from the fact that the verb "to become" is followed by the instrumentative (at least, in Czech; as far as I can guess, it is the same in Polish and Russian).
In singular, the male form is *nositel* and the female *nositelka*. So, the masculine is the non-marked one, as you said.



			
				xinelo said:
			
		

> f)
> 
> One last thing. Could you please check I've understand what each word stands for? For instance, if I take sentence 1a (I use underscores because spaces are removed when I send the post):
> 
> ________Staly se___významnými___nositelkami__modernizace.
> ________Stały się__ważnymi______nośnikami____modernizacji.
> Они_____стали______важными______факторами____модернизации.
> (They)__became_____significant__agents of____modernization.



This is almost exact. In fact, it should be "agents____of modernization" instead of "agents of____modernisation".
"Of + noun" is expressed by the genitive (2nd case) of the noun. Hence, "of" is included in the second word (modernization).



			
				xinelo said:
			
		

> One again, thanks a lot! Děkuji mnohokrát, dziekujemy, спасибо (I hope I'm not saying anything wrong). Graças.
> xinelo


As far as Czech is concerned, it is excellent.

After all this, I can only encourage you to learn a Slavic language! 

Roman

PS - Not fast enough, I see. Jana, how do you do this???


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## natasha2000

xinelo said:
			
		

> Thank you so much, Natasha, mercès per la teva resposta. Doubts:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You say:_As you see, the only word that is different is pronoun: one (they - women) oni (they - men)_
> 
> 
> ​However I see *postale* and *postali *are also different. Are these words part of the pronoun?
> 
> One more question: are the pronouns compulsory? Or could you say (1a) "Su postale važni faktori modernizacije"? (maybe "Postale su važni faktori modernizacije").
> 
> By the way: Am I right about the following?
> 
> One___su postale__važni________faktori______modernizacije.
> They__became______significant__agents of____modernization.
> 
> Hey, I'm also based in Barcelona! I'll let you know when we run a party at home  Sorry guys for those of you who right now are in Poland, Czechia, Russia, etc.
> 
> Cheers, xinelo


 
jejeje... you are completely right.... When one talks and analyzes their own language, many thigs pass by unnoticed... Sorry.

Le me see, how to explain... 

su postale (postali) is perfect. sam is the verb to be, and postao(le) is lets call it, participle. In Serbian, participle in perfect tense depends on the gender and number. I will change for you the They became (or better to put it also in perfect in English, for the better comparison) so you can see it more clearly:
*singular*:
ja sam postao (m.) (postala (f.)) (I have become)
ti si postao (postala) You have become)
on je postao (He has become)
ona je postala (She has become)
*plural*:
mi smo postali (postale) (we have become)
vi ste postali (postale) (you have become)
oni su postali (They have become- male)
one su postale (They have become - female)

And yes, it is possible to avoid the pronoun and then the word order is a little bit changed.

Postao sam važan faktor modernizacije.
Postala sam važan faktor modernizacije.
Postali smo važan faktor modernizacije.
Postala je važan faktor modernizacije.

As you see, in this case, you use first participle and then auxiliarz verb to be. The other waz around is not correct. If zou said su postale the native speaker would ask you "Who? Obviously, something is missing... But if you use first participle, then it is perfectlz clear.

When you will use first or second way? It depends on context and on importance of the pronoun. If it is important to say They (ONE, ONI) then you say it, if not, then zou use rather the second version.


Your third question:
It depends on the context, too. va-an faktor (važni faktori) modernizacije reffers to women. Now if you see women as a group then zou will use singular
One su postale važan faktor modernizacije.
If you consider women as manz individuals,ie. that everz and each of them became different type of modernization, then you will use važni faktori - plural.
One su postale važni faktori modernizacije.

Hope I cleared your doubts... It is difficult, I know...  So many things that change... But at least, each letter is pronounced *always* in the same way, so at least with reading one shouldn't have problems...

Salut, amic, i bona nit.
I understand catalan pretty well, but I cannot speak it, although I would like to learn it, but somehow I am always short of time...


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## xinelo

Roman, 



> How can you understand all this without already learning a Slavic language? Really amazing!


 I just figured it out, with a bit of logic, and checking a couple of times one of those (unreliable) online dictionaries. 

I wasn't aware there was a instrumentative case in Czech but I should have imagined you do use cases, at least the genitive was obvious. You see, I did not understand everthing. And that's why I couldn't find some words in the dictionary, they should have been in nominative case and not any other. 

Anyway, thanks a lot, Roman, I understood everything you said. And I've just learned a lot! 


> After all this, I can only encourage you to learn a Slavic language!


  Thanks. Indeed, I'd like to be one day posting comments to this forum in Czech or any other  And now I know who I could address my questions to along the learning process... 

Take care, xinelo


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## natasha2000

xinelo said:
			
		

> I wasn't aware there was a instrumentative case in Czech ...
> Take care, xinelo


 
Well, Serbian also has instrumental case and it responds to the question With who (company) or (by) what - medium.... As a matter of fact, Serbian has seven cases, one more than latin!

I think it is really great that you're having interest in Slavic languages... Apart that it is really rare...


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## xinelo

Jana: 

Word order: ok. In fact, it doens't seem too different from Spanish or Portuguese. It depends on the part of the sentence you want to emphasize.

Reflexives: in fact, it does make sense that _become _is reflexive in Czech, by the sight of things I think I won't be too wrong if I think  of the Czech verb for _become _as meaning something like "to turn oneself into". 



> I am not quite sure what "non-marked" refers to.


 Sorry about that, I should have explained (although it's not easy). _Non-marked_ grosso modo means that no special suffix or case is used. I know nothing about cases in Czech, but in Turkish, for instance, if I'm not wrong, the nominative case has no special ending of its own. For example, _ev_ is Turkish for 'house' (in nominative). Other cases (I add the hyphens for clarity): accusative _ev-i_, genitive _ev-in_, directive _ev-e_, locative _ev-de_ and ablative _ev-den_. So you see, the nominative is the non-marked case. Regarding grammatical gender, in all the languages that I know the marked forms refer to females. You might be familiar with German's masculine _ Lehrer _vs. femenine _Lehrer-in. _

I'm by no means an expert in markedness so if I'm not being accurate, please someone correct me.



> Now I am curious. I thought you were a student of a Slavic language who is working on a comparative problem. But you refuted it. Could you shed some light on what you need this information for?


 That's the problem with asking too much, but I like curious people  The thing is: I'm analyzing English corpora in search for sentences which can pose problems for translating them into Catalan. I'm working with these two languages, but as to explain how my analysis can be further developed I'd like to provide examples of problematic translation into other languages. I've been reading about gender in several languages and needed to get answers from native speakers in order to confirm my intuitions. Is it clear? 

Thank you again so much for your help. Really wonderful. 
xinelo


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## Jana337

xinelo said:
			
		

> Sorry about that, I should have explained (although it's not easy). _Non-marked_ grosso modo means that no special suffix or case is used. I know nothing about cases in Czech, but in Turkish, for instance, if I'm not wrong, the nominative case has no special ending of its own. For example, _ev_ is Turkish for 'house' (in nominative). Other cases (I add the hyphens for clarity): accusative _ev-i_, genitive _ev-in_, directive _ev-e_, locative _ev-de_ and ablative _ev-den_. Or you might be familiar with German's masculine _ Lehrer _vs. femenine _Lehrer-in. _So you see, the nominative is the non-marked case. Regarding grammatical gender, in all the languages that I know the marked forms refer to females.


OK, I see. In Czech, -ka is a very common suffix for female names.
Nositel --> nositelka
Moderátor --> moderátorka 

Please do not be confused: Polish does generally use different forms for masculine and feminine. In this particular case, a female form hasn't taken roots. 


> I've been reading about gender in several languages and needed to get answers from native speakers in order to confirm my intuitions. Is it clear?


 Absolutely, many thanks. 


> Thank you again so much for your help. Really wonderful.
> xinelo


Hope to see you around more often!

Jana


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## _sandra_

Hi xinelo, hi eveybody!



			
				xinelo said:
			
		

> b)
> Second doubt: Am I right to suppose that *se*/*się* is a reflexive pronoun? Or is it part of the verb?
> In any case (and this is not part of the question, but a reflection), it's funny to see how, at least in Czech, the position of se/się is after the verb when the subject is elliptic but it's between the verb and the personal pronoun when the subject isn't elliptic. Anyway, this is not important for my research.





			
				Jana337 said:
			
		

> This is the case - at least in Czech. Polish seems to be different. The word order in Czech sentences is totally random from the viewpoint of learners. Indeed, you can manipulate it in many ways in order to stress a particular part of the sentence. However, some combinations do not sound good.


 
As confirmed above it's a reflexive pronoun. Actually it's the same thing with Polish when it comes to its position. We say: *Stały się nośnikami modernizacji *; but we can change the position of the pronoun when the subject's not elliptic; *One się stały nośnikami modernizacji* or *One stały się nośnikami modernizacji* -- interchangable, but in some situations one way can be better than other : 

On się zgubił He got lost
On zgubił się He got lost (- in this case 'się' sounds not too good to me at the end of the sentence..)

On zgubił się *wczoraj* ___ He got lost yesterday (yesterday -emphasised)
On *się zgubił *wczoraj ____ (got lost - emphasised)
-- Of course a lot depends on the voice tone...

Oh, sorry for getting into details


			
				xinelo said:
			
		

> Another question, and this is out of curiosity: Does *nositel(kam)i* mean _"agents"_ in Czech? If so, unlike in Polish, the masculine form is the non-marked one, isn't it?


Also in Polish very often the masculine form is non-marked and the feminine has the *-ka* suffix. I really couldn't thought of any other translation for 'agents' better than 'nośnik' which is the same in masculine/feminine and as I said sounds not too good here... (not often refered to people)
While reading Jana's translation similar Polish word - 'nosiciel' came to my mind (inappropriate though, because used mainly in the meaning of disease carrier), but if it would fit -- masc. nosiciel / fem. nosiciel*ka *; moderator - moderator*ka* and so on 


> Sandra, I assume Polish verbs don't need to be written with a initial capital, meaning that* stawać* would be correct.


Correct, sorry for that! 


> One again, thanks a lot! Děkuji mnohokrát, *dziekujemy*, спасибо (I hope I'm not saying anything wrong). Graças.
> xinelo


It's 1st person plural So I guess you wanted to say 'dziękuję'. My pleasure!

Take care,
Sandra


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## Thomas1

> Sorry about that, I should have explained (although it's not easy). _Non-marked_ grosso modo means that no special suffix or case is used. I know nothing about cases in Czech, but in Turkish, for instance, if I'm not wrong, the nominative case has no special ending of its own. For example, _ev_ is Turkish for 'house' (in nominative). Other cases (I add the hyphens for clarity): accusative _ev-i_, genitive _ev-in_, directive _ev-e_, locative _ev-de_ and ablative _ev-den_. So you see, the nominative is the non-marked case. Regarding grammatical gender, in all the languages that I know the marked forms refer to females. You might be familiar with German's masculine _Lehrer _vs. femenine _Lehrer-in. _
> 
> I'm by no means an expert in markedness so if I'm not being accurate, please someone correct me.


I think I may know what you mean, it is called _zero affix_ (or _morphological zero_, less often) and is marked with Ø, it is represented by the absence of a morpheme, e.g.:

Let’s conjugate an English verb (I think it’s going to be easier to get the gist)
_to mark_
I mark Ø
you mark Ø
he mark -s 
we mark Ø
they mark Ø

pt/pp mark –ed

gerund mark -ing

To give an example of a noun in English:
_sing_ trap Ø _pl_ trap –s
tomato Ø tomato -es

_masculine _steward Ø _feminine_ steward –ess
lion Ø lion –ess

The remnants of English declension also show the existence of zero affix, e.g.

_nominative_ who Ø 

_dative & accusative_ who –m 

_genitive _who -se




> Second doubt: Am I right to suppose that *se*/*się* is a reflexive pronoun? Or is it part of the verb?
> 
> In any case (and this is not part of the question, but a reflection), it's funny to see how, at least in Czech, the position of se/się is after the verb when the subject is elliptic but it's between the verb and the personal pronoun when the subject isn't elliptic. Anyway, this is not important for my research.


Talking about Polish, I would like to add some more info on that to what Sandra wrote.

_Się_ is a reflexive pronoun as Sandra wrote but it sometimes is a part of a verb as well. It depends of course on a verb and in such cases it doesn’t add any additional meaning to the verb, for example:
wahać się 
uśmiechać się 
rozrosnąć się 
prześlizgnąć się 
rozpłynąć się 
stawać się 
śmiać się 
wślizgnąć się
bać się 
odezwać się 
rozglądać się
wgryźć się
obyć się
wyślizgnąć się
zrosnąć się
obślizgnąć się
osunąć się
przyjrzeć się
rozlecieć się
rozleźć się
rozstać się
etc.

I think (but I may be wrong since this is based upon my observation and a little bit of logic ) that similar situation exists in other Slavic languages, compare (as an example I took the verb _to smile_):

in Russian it is the reflexive verbal particle –ся
улыбаться

in Czech reflexive se
usmivat se 

in Ukrainian it’d be the same verbal particle as in Russian -ся
посміхатися

in Serbian reflexive se
nasmešiti se

in Bulgarian the reflexive ce
усмихвамсе

in Croatian the reflexive se
smješkati se

in Slovak the reflexive sa
usmievať sa

Please, natives of the above mentioned languages correct me if I’m wrong. These, of course, are not all Slavic languages but I’d dare say that this applies to all Slavic languages (provided that I’m not wrong with the above )



Moreover, _się_ is used in impersonal, non-subjective, constructions, e.g.
_Mówi się… _
I think there’s no English equivalent of it and the closest one would be:
_It is said …_ (though there’s a subject) actually this is the way how the above example is translated into Polish. However, I don't know if this applies to the rest of Slavic languages, if it does any help of natives will be more than welcome 

I hope I didn't pull any boner since it's almost 4 am now in Poland !!! Now, I need to take some sleep 

Thomas


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## Jana337

I confirm all that Thomas said (just a tiny typo: usmívat se, not usmivat se).

About "se" etc. being a part of the verb or not: I don't know. There's perhaps some grammar theory behind. Strictly speaking, some verbs, like to smile, do not have a genuine reflexive meaning. Nevertheless, in the Czech grammar books they are always classified as reflexive. I have never seen anyone making a distinction between a reflexive "se" and "se" as a part of the verb.

Hope this is not too confusing.

Jana


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## xinelo

Hello Thomas,

I think you're right, regarding markedness. Usually the first person of the conjugation paradigm (in English also all persons but the 3rd), the singular number, the masculine gender, and the nominative case tend to be non-marked.

An example I especially like is from Catalan: 

m. _llop _(vlk, male wolf)
f. _lloba _(vlčice, female wolf)

The masculine is non-marked and the feminine takes the -a suffix to mark its gender. But moreover, you see that the last consonant gets unvoiced (as in German) in the masculine because nothing else comes after it, whereas in the feminine it keeps voiced because of the feminine suffix. Check _llobató _(wolf cup, masculine): the diminutive suffix -ató also retains the voiceness of the last consonant. Catalan is characterized by unvoicing all final consonants (whether that's reflected in spelling --as in this case-- or not).

Regarding the _se/się_ pronoun, I really have the intuition that this particle behaves exactly as _se _in Spanish (in some of its uses):

María _se _rió. (Maria laughed)
María _se_ levantó (Maria got up)
_Se_ comenta que no vendrá (It is said that she/he will not come)
_Se _venden pisos (Flats are sold)

For Jana, Roman, Cyanista and Dorsai, Regarding the different conjugation of the Slavic equivalents of "become" in the past, depending on the gender of the subject of the sentence, I have another doubt: Are _staly se / __stały się /__ стали finite_ (conjugated) forms, or are they participles (as I think happens in Serbian)?

For Natasha, I get the intuition that your Serbian participle (postale/postali) in this case doesn't behave too much differently from what happens in French or Italian or some dialects of Catalan when the referent is the direct object and it's a pronoun, isn't it? 

- Buscava les claus.
- *Les* has troba_des_?

- Je cherchais les clés.
- Est-ce que tu *les* as trouvé_es_?

Cheers and many thanks, xinelo


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## natasha2000

xinelo said:
			
		

> For Natasha, I get the intuition that your Serbian participle (postale/postali) in this case doesn't behave too much differently from what happens in French or Italian or some dialects of Catalan when the referent is the direct object and it's a pronoun, isn't it?
> 
> - Buscava les claus.
> - *Les* has troba_des_?
> 
> - Je cherchais les clés.
> - Est-ce que tu *les* as trouvé_es_?
> 
> Cheers and many thanks, xinelo


 
Xinelo, I am not familiar with Catalan, French or Italian grammar, since I don't speak them. The so called "participle" in Serbian is as a matter of fact called "glagolski pridev" - "verbal adjective" (literally translated). I can compare it with Spanish or English, which are the languages I dominate. It acts as participle in English or Spanish, i.e. it is used to make compound tenses, such as perfect, for example. The difference is in auxiliary verb. While English and Spanish use the verb "have/haber" Serbian language uses the the verb "to be". Another things occurs me, that in Serbian, the verb to be has two forms and when you want to nominate it in infinitive, you always say "it is the verb "jesam/biti" where the first is present simple, and the second is the real infinitive. Now, as Serbian "participle" is also adjective (the very same name says it), it has also male, female and neutral form. I would compare it wiht Spanish form:
El asunto, lo tienes arreglado?
La casa, la tienes arreglada?
Obviously, in a Spanish sentence we are not talking about the tense, but about and idiom, or expression (tener + participio), where participle adquires the quality of an adjective, and therefore has sufix for male/female gender.

Therefore, in Serbian would be like this:
1. Petar je plaka-o (Peter has cried) M.
2. Ana je plaka-la. (Ana has cried) - F.
3. Dete je plaka-lo (A child has cried) - N.

Hope this was what you wanted to know... 
Best regards,
Natasha


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## Jana337

> For Jana, Roman, Cyanista and Dorsai, Regarding the different conjugation of the Slavic equivalents of "become" in the past, depending on the gender of the subject of the sentence, I have another doubt: Are _staly se / __stały się /__ стали finite_ (conjugated) forms, or are they participles (as I think happens in Serbian)?


 I am sorry for not pointing it out earlier. It is indeed a participle. The form for masculine in all 3 persons sing. is the same etc.:
 m/f/n
 1. já__________jsem___ se__stal/stala/stalo___jsem
 2. ty__________ses_________stal/stala/stalo___jsi (jsi se )
 3. on/ona/ono__________se__stal/stala/stalo___je
 1. my__________jsme____se__stali/staly/stala__jsme
 2. vy__________jste____se__stali/staly/stala__jste
 3. oni_________________se__stali/staly/stala__jsou

The right column is the conjugated verb "to be". As you can see, the past is formed by the conjugated verb "to be" (missing in the 3. persons and degenerated in the 2. singular) and participles whose endings reflect the gender.

Hope this helps.

Jana


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## xinelo

Jana, thanks again for this wonderful explanation. It's perfectly clear now. 

Then, Slavic languages are not, in this regard, as different as I thought from Romanic languages. Participles can agree, but not finite forms.


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## xinelo

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Hope this was what you wanted to know...
> Best regards,
> Natasha



Yes, Natasha. I understand much better now. Gracias!


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## natasha2000

xinelo said:
			
		

> Jana, thanks again for this wonderful explanation. It's perfectly clear now.
> 
> Then, Slavic languages are not, in this regard, as different as I thought from Romanic languages. Participles can agree, but not finite forms.


 
All Slavic languages belong to a bigger group of languages which are called Indo-European languages, and Romanic languages belong the same group too. Therefore, the basics of a grammar of all languages are pretty same. There are, ofcourse differences, but the essence is the same. 
My brother started to learn German as a kid, and he learnt it in a way very simmilar to one who learns a mother tongue - without learning grammar rules. He spoke it very correctly, but when he got to the University, he had to pass the exams in German, and it supposed for him to know the grammar rules as well. So, I took the German grammar book, revising lesson by lesson, and explaining to my brother the grammar of German language, even though I don't speak German (I have learnt it at school for two years, but it was a long time ago, so I cannot say that I speak German)...
What he needed to know is for example, how do you make tenses, what are compound tenses,what are adjectives, nouns, gerunds, participles etc... Then, exlplaining him this, he connected it with his knowledge of German that he already had, and he passed the exam with the highest note. Besides, when I started to learn Spanish, my knowledge of English grammar helped me a lot, because whenever I could, I made a comaprison between these two grammars, and it resulted much easier to learn and to understand... Since you obviously speak more than one language, even though they are not Slavic ones, I think you won't have too many problems in learning them...
Good luck, and enjoy.


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## natalija

Hi, I am new to this forum and I hope I have posted it alright.
This are the sentences your have asked for in Slovenian.

1a Postale so pomemben dejavnik modernizacije.
1b Postali so pomemben dejavnik modernizacije.

They (women) will become... 
Postale bodo pomemben ...
They (men) 
Postali bodo pomemben ...

I hope this will be useful.
Regards,
Natalija


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## xinelo

Thank you Natalija. Your contribution is, indeed, helpful. May I ask you something else? Just to get a completely clear picture. Could you tell me what kind of word are _postale _and _so_? 

I suppose *postale/*_*postali* _are participles, just as in Serbian, and that you don't use an auxiliary verb with them. I suppose _*so* _is a kind of reflexive pronoun. Am I right? 

Postale/postali__so__________pomemben_____dejavnik__modernizacije.
become(part.)____themselves__significant__factors___modernization(gen.)

 Thank you! xinelo


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## laurika

Hi, here it is in slovak:
stali sa významnými nositeľkami modernizácie - referring to women
stali sa významnými nositeľmi modernizácie - referring to men.
bye


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## xinelo

Thanks a lot, Laurika. 

Jana, one question: are *staly *and *stali *pronounced differently or is it just a graphemic distinction (only in written)?


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## Jana337

xinelo said:
			
		

> Thanks a lot, Laurika.
> 
> Jana, one question: are *staly *and *stali *pronounced differently or is it just a graphemic distinction (only in written)?


They are hard to distinguish in Bohemia, the western part of the Czech Republic, but they are pronounced distinctly - as they should be - in Moravia and Silesia. 
The Bohemian sound is somewhere between "i" and "y". I don't know whether you are familar with how "y" should sound. Do you know the Russian "ы"? The Czech "y" is not nearly so dark, but it might give you an idea. "i" is the usual sound you know from English, more or less.

Jana


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## xinelo

Jana337 said:
			
		

> they are pronounced distinctly - as they should be - in Moravia and Silesia.



ok, that's what I needed to know



			
				Jana337 said:
			
		

> I don't know whether you are familar with how "y" should sound. Do you know the Russian "ы"?



well, i don't really need to know, although I would like to. I do know in theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_central_unrounded_vowel) but I never heard that sound, in practice. but, as I said, knowing i and y represent different sounds is enough

thank you! xinelo
ps: this thread is stretching forever


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## Jana337

xinelo said:
			
		

> ok, that's what I needed to know
> 
> well, i don't really need to know, although I would like to. I do know in theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_central_unrounded_vowel) but I never heard that sound, in practice. but, as I said, knowing i and y represent different sounds is enough


The Czech resources in our sticky thread have a link to the locallingo website where you can listen to the Czech alphabet. I will try to find some audio files where you could hear "i" and "y" sufficiently close to each other.





> thank you! xinelo
> ps: this thread is stretching forever


Time to open a new one.  

Jana


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## Tchesko

xinelo said:
			
		

> For Jana, Roman, Cyanista and Dorsai, Regarding the different conjugation of the Slavic equivalents of "become" in the past, depending on the gender of the subject of the sentence, I have another doubt: Are _staly se / __stały się /__ стали finite_ (conjugated) forms, or are they participles (as I think happens in Serbian)?


 
In Czech, we wouldn't call this a participle.
The past tense is formed using the verb "být" (to be; dropped in the 3rd person - unlike in Polish, I think) + past form of the verb (distinct from the past participle), with a suffix according to the number and gender.
Thus, you have:

1st person sg: stal jsem se (masc.)/stala jsem se (fem.)/stalo jsem se (neut.)
2nd person sg: stal/a/o ses ("ses" = contraction of "jsi" + "se")
3rd person sg: stal/a/o se (without "je")
1st pl: stali jsme se (masc. or masc.+fem. or masc.+neut.)/staly jsme se (fem.)/stala jsme se (neut.)
2nd pl: stali/y/a jste se
3rd pl: stali/y/a se (without "jsou")

By the way, I wonder what form we use for fem.+neut. in plural...

So, yes, I would call this a "conjugated" form, even if it determines the conjugation together with the verb "to be".

Roman


PS - Sorry, I missed a big part of the thread once again... 
(in fact, the entire 2nd page!)

Now, I feel I have to elaborate on why I am saying "stali/staly..." are not participles while Jana says the contrary (no offense meant!).
Like many other languanges, Czech has a present and a past participle. The present participle can only be formed from imperfective verbs; however, "stát se" is perfective, hence it has no present participle.
But it has a past participle, having 3 different forms:

stav se: masc. sg. (having become)
stavši se: fem.+neut. sg.
stavše se: plural (all genders)

Both present and past participles can be used as adjectives (with minor changes in the suffixes). In the case of "stát se", the perfective active participle adjective is "stavší se" for all genders and numbers. This form is very uncommon, and can only be found in archaic or pretentious texts.


Hmmmm... I also happen to disagree as to the pronunciation of stal*i* vs. stal*y*. I claim there is no audible difference between them throughout the entire Czech Republic and not only in Bohemia. OK, maybe there is one in Silesia, under influence of Polish pronunciation (actually, I don't know if there is a difference in Polish). But not in Moravia and not even in the pronunciation of my grandfather.
Let me be clear: in Czech, *i* and *y* are different letters for the same sound.
A few centuries ago, the underlying sounds were different. Thus, Jan Hus could write (15th century):
"Nynie hodni by byli mrskánie Pražané i jiní Čechové, jenž mluvie od poly česky a od poly německy, řiekajíc tobolka za tobołka, liko za lyko[...]".
 
_(O čistotě českého jazyka)_​This is no more true today and even in (most of the) dialects, *i* and *y* are pronounced in the same way.
 
 
Contradiction spirit Roman


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## _sandra_

> Hmmmm... I also happen to disagree as to the pronunciation of stal*i* vs. stal*y*. I claim there is no audible difference between them throughout the entire Czech Republic and not only in Bohemia. OK, maybe there is one in Silesia, under influence of Polish pronunciation (*actually, I don't know if there is a difference in Polish)*.


Oh , definitely there is. 
In this case the pronounciation of these 2 words would be different also because it's stali/ stały, but generally y / i - are pronouced it a different way
*y* -- similar to 'i' from the english* it , live*
*i -- *english *e* from free / or* y* from crazy

Sandra


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## Jana337

Tchesko said:
			
		

> Now, I feel I have to elaborate on why I am saying "stali/staly..." are not participles while Jana says the contrary (no offense meant!).
> Like many other languanges, Czech has a present and a past participle. The present participle can only be formed from imperfective verbs; however, "stát se" is perfective, hence it has no present participle.
> But it has a past participle, having 3 different forms:
> 
> stav se: masc. sg. (having become)
> stavši se: fem.+neut. sg.
> stavše se: plural (all genders)
> 
> Both present and past participles can be used as adjectives (with minor changes in the suffixes). In the case of "stát se", the perfective active participle adjective is "stavší se" for all genders and numbers. This form is very uncommon, and can only be found in archaic or pretentious texts.


OK, I seem to have got it wrong. I am not a grammarian, so I just used the concept of participles from Romance languages. It is basically a word where you only manipulate the endings, which happens to "stát se" as well. So, how do we call the form "stal"? Just past tense? 


> Hmmmm... I also happen to disagree as to the pronunciation of stal*i* vs. stal*y*. I claim there is no audible difference between them throughout the entire Czech Republic and not only in Bohemia. OK, maybe there is one in Silesia, under influence of Polish pronunciation (actually, I don't know if there is a difference in Polish). But not in Moravia and not even in the pronunciation of my grandfather.


 On reflection, I realize that my friends from Moravia pronounce "y" and "i" in the same way. In Silesia, however, the pronunciation definitely is different. But the Silesian "y" does not quite sound like what Sandra described...

Jana


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## Tchesko

Jana337 said:
			
		

> I am not a grammarian, so I just used the concept of participles from Romance languages. It is basically a word where you only manipulate the endings, which happens to "stát se" as well. So, how do we call the form "stal"? Just past tense?
> Jana


 
Neither me... 
I don't call it anything; however, in the Czech grammar by Janda & Townsend (which, I believe, is already on the resource sticky), it is called simply the past form, or the _-l_ form.

Roman


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