# All Slavic languages: Supine



## Diaspora

Does your language retain the supine?

I read that Czech has a supine but it ends in -t like the infinitive, so what is the real difference? I think my native language does not have a supine but I'm not sure.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Slovenian has a supine/infinitive disctinction.

The supine is used primarily with verbs of motion:

*Infinitive:*

Ne morem *spati.* = I can't sleep.
Znam *voziti* avto. = I know how to drive a car.

*Supine:*

Grem *spat*. = I'm going to sleep.
Šel sem *vozit* avto. - I went to drive the car.

As you can see, the supine is almost the same as the infinitive, except for the missing *-i* at the end. In many forms of colloquial Slovenian, however, the *-i* at the end of infinitives isn't pronounced anyway. In those cases, the distinction between the infinitive and the supine only exists when people consciously use more formal speech.

As for Czech, here is a quote from David Short in Comrie and Corbett's _The Slavonic Languages_ (Routledge):

"Well into the twentieth century grammars held a competing *supine* to be alive and well [in Czech], though the only example widely quoted was *spat* from *spát* 'sleep', used after verbs of motion (jít spat 'go to bed')."

I believe that the full grammatical supine only survives in Slovenian and both forms of Lusatian Sorbian.* It doesn't exist in BCS.

* By the way, the grammatical dual also survives in Slovenian and Sorbian.


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## Azori

According to Slovak and Czech Wiki, the supine nowadays exists only in Slovene, Upper and Lower Sorbian, Swedish and Latin. In Czech it has been replaced with the infinitive.


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## phosphore

In Serbian it does not exist as a verbal form, but regarding "to go to sleep" you would never hear "ići spavati" (where spavati is the infinitive form) but "ići na spavanje" (where spavanje is the accusative case of the verbal noun).


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## sokol

I still remember vividly that my Slovenian teacher told me only Slovene, of all Slavic langauges, had supine. So obviously he didn't know about Sorbian. 

But as Triglav already explained, that distinction is somewhat weak even in Slovenian. It is something though which still _will _be taught to learners of Slovenian (not that I ever managed to get a real feeling for when to use supine and when not).


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## texpert

I have a notion of the difference between _spát_ and _spat_. This notion is very vague indeed (I'm 37 and so far had spot it only in literature written decades ago) butI do have it! Isn't that a proof it does exist? Well it's up to you pundits, I'll cope with your refusal


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## TriglavNationalPark

I need to correct something I wrote in post #2: Lower Sorbian has the supine, but Upper Sorbian does not.


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## Diaspora

I think it depends. The supine might not exist formally in many languages but it exists in practice. The Croatian wikipedia, say the supine does not exist but at the same time it says that it is found in Shtokavian/Chakavian areas.

I would say

_Otiš(a)o sam vozit auto._

but I would say

_Znam voziti auto_ or _Znam da vozim auto._

On a side note, isn't _znam_ is Slovenian _vem (Vedeti)_?


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## TriglavNationalPark

Diaspora said:


> On a side note, isn't _znam_ is Slovenian _vem (Vedeti)_?


 
Good question. Slovenian, like several other Slavic languages, uses both. Please see THIS post.


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## werrr

lior neith said:


> In Czech it has been replaced with the infinitive.


To be precise, in Czech the supine and infinitive merged into one form. We use the infinitive in place of the supine, but the modern infinitive form ending in “-t” is based on the ancient supine form.


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## TriglavNationalPark

werrr said:


> To be precise, in Czech the supine and infinitive merged into one form. We use the infinitive in place of the supine, but the modern infinitive form ending in “-t” is based on the ancient supine form.


 
By the way, this is also true for most forms of colloquial Slovenian (as opposed to standard Slovenian).


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