Polish Grammar - Verbs

Verbs

For details of verb conjugation, see Verbs in the article on Polish morphology.

Polish verbs have the grammatical category of aspect. Each verb is either imperfective, meaning that it denotes continuous or habitual events, or perfective, meaning that it denotes single completed events (in particular, perfective verbs have no present tense). Verbs often occur in imperfective and perfective pairs – for example, jeść and zjeść both mean "to eat", but the first has imperfective aspect, the second perfective.

Imperfective verbs have three tenses: present, past and future, the last being a compound tense (except in the case of być "to be"). Perfective verbs have a past tense and a simple future tense, the latter formed on the same pattern as the present tense of imperfective verbs. Both types also have imperative and conditional forms. The dictionary form of a verb is the infinitive, which usually ends with -ć (occasionally with -c). The present-day past tense derives from the old Slavic "perfect" tense; several other old tenses (the aorist, imperfect, and past perfect) have been dropped.

The present tense of imperfective verbs (and future tense of perfective verbs) has six forms, for the three persons and two numbers. For example, the present tense of jeść is jem, jesz, je; jemy, jecie, jedzą (meaning "(I) eat" etc. – subject pronouns may be dropped), while the future tense of the corresponding perfective verb zjeść is zjem, zjesz etc. (meaning "(I) shall eat" etc.)

The verb być has the irregular present tense jestem, jesteś, jest, jesteśmy, jesteście, są. It also has a simple future tense (see below).

The past tense agrees with the subject in gender as well as person and number. The basic past stem is in -ł; to this are added endings for gender and number, and then personal endings are further added for the first and second person forms. Thus, on the example of być, the past tense forms are byłem/byłam ("I was", masc/fem.), byłeś/byłaś, był/była/było; byliśmy/byłyśmy ("we were" masc. personal/all other), byliście/byłyście, byli/były.

The conditional (also used as a subjunctive) is formed from the past tense plus by, the personal endings (if any) coming after the by. For example: byłbym/byłabym ("I would be", masc/fem.), byłbyś/byłabyś, byłby/byłaby/byłoby; bylibyśmy/byłybyśmy, bylibyście/byłybyście, byliby/byłyby.

The personal past tense suffixes, which are reduced forms of the present tense of być, are clitics and can be detached from the verb to attach to another accented word earlier in the sentence, such as a question word (as in kogoście zobaczyli as an alternative to kogo zobaczyliście "whom did you see"), or (mostly in informal speech) an emphatic particle że (co żeście zrobili? "what did you do"). The same applies to the conditional endings (kiedy byście przyszli as an alternative to kiedy przyszlibyście "when would you come").

A special case of the above is found in subjunctive-like clauses, where the by(-) of the conditional is detached and used to introduce the clause, either alone or attached to the conjunction a or że. For example, "that he (I) sing" might be aby(m) śpiewał, żeby(m) śpiewał or by(m) śpiewał. Such clauses may express "in order that", or be used with verbs meaning "want", "expect", etc.

The future tense of być ("be") follows the pattern of a typical present tense: będę, będziesz, będzie, będziemy, będziecie, będą. The future tense of other imperfective verbs is formed using the future of być together with the infinitive, or the past form (inflected for gender and number, but without any personal suffixes), of the verb in question. For example, the future of robić ("do, make") has such forms as będę robić/robił/robiła, będziecie robić/robili/robiły. The choice between infinitive and past form is usually a free one, but with modals governing another infinitive, the past form is used: będzie musiał odejść (not będzie musieć...) "he will have to leave".

The second personal singular imperative is formed from the present tense by dropping the ending (e.g. brać: 2/3S present bierze(sz), imperative bierz), sometimes adding -ij or -aj. Add -my and -cie for the 1P and 2P forms. To make third-person imperative sentences (including with the polite second-person pronouns pan etc.) the particle niech is used at the start of the sentence (or at least before the verb), with the verb in the future tense (if być or perfective) or present tense (otherwise). There is a tendency to prefer imperfective verbs in imperative sentences for politeness; negative imperatives quite rarely use perfectives.

Other forms of the verb are:

• present adverbial participle (imperfective verbs only), also called gerund, as śpiewając (meaning "(when) singing", "by singing", etc.)
• present adjectival participle (imperfective verbs only), formed from the gerund by adding adjectival endings, as śpiewający etc., meaning "singing" (as an attributive adjective), although such participles can be used to form extended adjectival phrases, which (usually unlike in English) can precede the noun.
• passive participle (all transitive verbs), in -ny or -ty (conjugated as an adjective). This often corresponds to the English past participle, both in fully adjectival use and in passive voice.
• subjectless past tense, formed as the past participle but with the ending -o (e.g. śpiewano "there was sung").
• past active participle (perfective verbs only), like zabiwszy "having killed" (from zabić "kill"); this form is invariant.
• verbal noun, formed from the past participle with the ending -ie, e.g. śpiewanie. This is a neuter noun.