In Slovene grammar, verbs are a part of speech.
Grammatical categories
Persons and numbers Slovene has three grammatical numbers: singular, dual, plural.
It also has three grammatical persons:
First person (), used to refer to the speaker or a group the speaker is a part of. Second person (), used to refer to the listener or for a general subject. Third person (), used to refer to a person who participates in a conversation, when there is no subject (with impersonal verbs) and when the subject is not in the nominative case.
The first and third person are used when talking to children. The second person can be used instead of the first when one is talking to themself and wants to sound detached.
Tenses In Slovene, there are four grammatical tenses:
The present tense (). The past or preterite tense (). The pluperfect tense (). The future tense ().
Moods There are four grammatical moods:
Indicative mood (), which is used to state a fact or opinion in any tense. Imperative mood (), which is used to give commands in the present tense. Conditional mood (), which is used to state possibilities or wishes in the present or preterite tenses. Optative or hortative mood ( or ), which is used to give commands, for assumptions, and for encouragement in all tenses. In Slovene literature, it is considered an extension of the indicative and conditional mood.
Non-finite forms There are several non-finite verbs:
Long infinitive in / () and short infinitive in / (). The latter is only used in informal situations. Supine in / (). Two present active participles, in and in , indicating ongoing action. Two past active participles, in and in , indicating a past or completed action. A past passive participle in or , indicating an action having been performed on something. Gerund (), indicating an act or a thing being acted upon.
Aspect As in all Slavic languages, Slovene verbs are classified based on their grammatical aspect:
Perfective () verbs represent a completed action. Imperfective () which represent an ongoing action.
Most verbs occur in pairs to express the same meaning with different aspects. For example, the concept of jumping is expressed in the 2 different aspects is , which has an imperfective aspect and can roughly be translated as to be jumping (continuously), and , which has a perfective aspect and can roughly be translated as to jump (once). While each aspect is represented by a full verb with its own distinct conjugation, certain combinations are not or rarely used in one aspect or the other. For example, imperfective verbs generally lack a past passive participle, while perfective verbs usually have no present participles. Additionally, the present tense has 2 different meanings depending on the aspect of a verb. For imperfective verbs, it has present meaning, while for perfective verbs, it has a future meaning expressing a desire to carry out the action. For example, . "I want to sell the cow" (compare this with the future tense . "I will sell the cow").
Transitivity As well, verbs can be classified based on their transitivity (). Many verbs in Slovene can be both transitive and intransitive depending on their use in a sentence. However, all reflexive verbs, which are marked by the pronoun (one self), are intransitive.
Impersonal verbs There are also impersonal verbs; these can only have forms for third person and participles in neuter gender. These are mostly verbs to describe weather, such as 'to rain' and 'to thunder'.
Voices There are three voices: active (), passive (), and reflexive (). Active and reflexive voice can be in all tenses, while passive voice cannot be in pluperfect or past (and future) conditional.
Verb classes Verbs are often classified into six classes, depending on their verbal suffix in infinitive:
Class I has no verbal suffix, e. g. 'carry' and 'drink'. Class II has suffix , e. g. 'sink, sag'. Class III has suffix or and in present stem, e. g. 'sit' and 'scream'. Class IV has suffix , e. g. 'aim'. Class V has suffixes , , , , , , or (but never changes into ), e. g. 'weave' and 'write'. Class VI has suffixes (hard) or (soft), e. g. 'buy'
Accentual types
There are several different accentual types, that can be divided differently. It is rarely divided the same way as in Proto-Slavic because all the accent shifts have made such division impractical. It is usually divided where the accent is situated and thus the verbs are divided into seven groups.
Accent is not directly before the endings (marked as I) Accent is directly before infinitive ending and not directly before present indicative endings (marked as II A) Accent can be on two different vowels in infinitive (marked as II B) Accent is on other vowel in infinitive and present indicative (marked as II C) Accent is on the last vowel (marked as II D); currently, only verb and its derivatives follows this pattern. In the past, verbs and also followed this pattern. Accent is directly before the endings (marked as III) Accent is not directly before infinitive ending and directly before present indicative endings (marked as IV)
Polite forms Slovene has T–V distinction and has many different polite forms. See T–V distinction in the world's languages § Slovene for when they are used.
Forms showed here are forms. is formed by replacing second person singular with plural, participles are in masculine forms. is formed by replacing second person singular with plural, but participles stay in singular. is formed by replacing second person and third person singular with third person plural, participles are in masculine forms. is formed by replacing second person with third person, participles are in neuter forms.
Morphological structure Verbs in Slovene have a complex morphological structure as they consist of several phonemes. The core of a verb form prefixes, roots and root suffixes. Root is the only of these three morphemes that is not optional and other morphemes are added to it. In most cases only one is present in a verb, but there are also verbs with more than one root, e. g. 'to urbanize'. Prefixes often indicate a perfective verb. Most verbs have none or one prefix, but some can also have more, such as 'split evenly'. Root suffixes are not so common; an example would be 'cut wood' or 'to urbanize'. These parts together convey the meaning of a verb.
The stem is formed by adding a verbal suffix, which influences the aspect ( vs. 'break'; the first one is perfective, the other one imperfective) and the conjugation. Verbs have two stems. The present stem forms the base for all forms of the present indicative and the imperative, as well as the present participles. The infinitive stem forms the infinitives, supine, gerund, and past participles.
Stem is then followed by the form suffix, e. g. for long infinitive, for past active participle and for imperative. The suffix is then followed by the ending, which is specific for each person/number/case. There are also free morphemes, such as 'pretend', 'make mistakes' or 'love'.
Conjugation Only the present indicative, the imperative and the non-finite forms are usually formed synthetically, by changing the form of the verb directly. All other forms are periphrastic (analytic), and are formed using auxiliary verbs or other additional words.
Verbs are separated based on the ending vowel of their stem.
Present indicative In present indicative, verbs have mostly the same endings across all declensions, but those following accentual type II D, III, IV, and some following II A can also have a special stylistically marked ending in third person plural. Those that have ending have the infix in second person plural and second / third person dual. The extra is added to the endings when the verb stem ends in a consonant. This causes changes to stems ending in or (which have an infinitive in ); these become and before the present tense endings. +Present indicative endingsSingularDualPlural1st2nd3rd1st2nd3rd1st2nd3rdAllII D / III / IV / *Only if the stressed is open-mid The special ending in third person plural are always acute, but otherwise do not change the accent, except for the lengthening of short vowels. Verbs following II B, II C and III can be either acute or allow both accents in infinitive, but that does not affect the further accent changes. Verbs following II D, when accented on the same vowel on the stem as in infinitive also have the same accent. Dialectally, verbs in can also omit the infix, and it is common for speakers of Littoral dialect group to add the infix elsewhere, as well as to use the ending . Ending can also have some verbs in (those from Proto-Slavic accentual type a/c, and accentual type c if they had accent on a long vowel in the stem) e.g. , , , as well as all vowels in , e. g. .
Forms in brackets are not officially recognized to be correct in standard Slovene. All verbs in can archaically have short accent on the last syllable in dual and plural, as well as verb . +Present indicative accentual changesAccentual typeInfinitiveSingularDualPlural1st2nd3rd1st2nd3rd1st2nd3rdIII A / / II B / II CII D / / () / () / () / () / () / () / () / () / / ()III / / IV /
Imperative mood The imperative mood is used to give commands, and only exists in the present tense. There are no forms for the third person plural, and use for first and third person singular and third person dual is stylistically marked.
The following endings are added to the present stem of a verb, to form the present indicative. If the present stem ends in , the initial of the ending changes to a . Present stems ending with other vowels drop their final vowel. If the present stem ends in a vowel followed by , then the initial of the ending is omitted. The endings also cause changes to stems ending in or (which have an infinitive in ); these become and , respectively before the imperative endings, although colloquially they keep the same consonants as in present indicative ( and , respectively). +Imperative endingsSingularDualPluralAny person1st2nd / 3rd1st2nd / / / / / Verbs change accent in imperative based on the accent in infinitive and indicative, as well as where in the word the accent is:
Accentual type II A, circumflex indicative: singular is acute if the accent is not on the last syllable, otherwise it allows both accents, except final open-mid , which is circumflex. In dual and plural, accent is circumflex if the accent is on the penultimate syllable, otherwise it is acute. Accentual type II C and III, circumflex indicative: accent is circumflex if on the last syllable in singular and on the penultimate syllable in dual and plural, otherwise it is acute. Accentual type II and III, cute indicative: singular is acute, but allows both accents on the last syllable. In dual and plural, accent is circumflex if the accent is on the penultimate syllable, otherwise it is acute. Accentual type III, short accent in indicative: accent is acute, except on the penultimate syllable in dual and plural. Accentual type IV: accent is acute except on the last syllable in singular and penultimate syllable in dual and plural, where it is circumflex. Some acute verbs following accentual type I can in imperative follow II B (example , ). The accent therefore changes the same way as with those. Acute verbs following accentual type III that are circumflex in passive participle and the accent is on the same syllable in indicative can be acute or circumflex (example ). Verbs , and change the accent irregularly. All verbs that change the accentuated vowel, except accentual type III, are in many dialects always accentuated on the first vowel throughout.
+Imperative accentual changesAccentual typeInfinitiveIndicativeSingularDualPluralAny person1st2nd / 3rd1st2ndI / / / / / / / / / / / / / /II A / () / () / () / () / () / / () / () / () / () / () / () / () / () / ()II B / / / / /II C / () / () / () /