The Accusative, Transitive Verbs, and Negation

Transitive Verbs and the Direct Object

19.A transitive verb expresses an action that passes over from the subject to some other person or thing — one sees a house, reads a book. That other person or thing is the direct object, and in Lithuanian it is put into the accusative case. An intransitive verb, expressing an action confined to the subject, takes no object: Berniukas dirba, the boy works.

Berniukas skaito knygą.

The boy reads a book. — knygą, accusative, the thing read

Berniukas dirba.

The boy works. — intransitive; nothing is worked

The Accusative Singular of Nouns

20.The accusative singular is formed by shortening the ending to its bare vowel and adding the nosinė hook. Each nominative ending has one accusative counterpart, and the correspondence admits no exceptions in the singular. Observe that masculine -is and -ys fall together in -į, so that the accusative alone will not tell you which the noun was.

Aš matau namą.

I see a house.

Ji myli brolį.

She loves her brother.

Mes turime katę.

We have a cat.

The Accusative of Adjectives

21.An adjective modifying a noun in the accusative is itself put into the accusative, agreeing as always in gender (¶17). The class in -us / -i is the only one that needs care: the feminine graži makes gražią, with an -i- that is not present in the masculine gražų.

Aš matau didelį namą.

I see a big house.

Ji skaito naują knygą.

She is reading a new book.

Mes turime gražią katę.

We have a beautiful cat.

The Accusative of the Personal Pronouns

22.The personal pronouns have their own accusative forms, which must be learned as a list. Unlike the nouns, they do not end in a nosinė vowel.

Jis mane mato.

He sees me.

Aš tave myliu.

I love you.

The Three Conjugations

23.Lithuanian verbs fall into three conjugations, distinguished by the ending of the third person present: -a (first), -i (second), -o (third). Since this form cannot be predicted from the infinitive, dictionaries cite every verb by three principal parts — infinitive, third person present, third person past — and this course does likewise. Learn the three parts together; from them every other form can be built.

dirbti, dirba, dirbo

to work — the form in which a verb is memorised

The Present Tense of the First Conjugation

24.The personal endings are added to the present stem, which is got by removing the -a of the third person present. As with būti (¶15), one form serves the whole third person, singular and plural, masculine and feminine alike. Because the ending already names the person, the subject pronoun is usually left out.

Aš dirbu.

I work, I am working. — Lithuanian has one present tense where English has two

Kalbame lietuviškai.

We speak Lithuanian. — pronoun omitted

• [1] The present tense renders both the English simple present and the present progressive. Jis rašo laišką is equally "he writes a letter" and "he is writing a letter".

Negation of the Verb

25.A verb is negated by prefixing ne- and writing it as one word with the verb. The prefix draws the stress to itself in many words, but the spelling never separates it. The same ne standing alone is the word for "no".

Aš nedirbu.

I do not work.

Jis neskaito.

He does not read.

Ne, ačiū.

No, thank you. — ne standing alone

• [1] būti is irregular here: the third person negative is nėra, not *neyra (see ¶15).

The Object of a Negated Verb

26.When a transitive verb is negated, its direct object leaves the accusative and takes the genitive instead. The reason is that a negated verb asserts that no part of the thing was affected, and the genitive is the case of the part rather than the whole. The genitive is treated fully in the next section; for the present, recognise the change and do not be surprised by it.

Aš matau namą.

I see a house. — accusative

Aš nematau namo.

I do not see a house. — genitive

Ji turi knygą. → Ji neturi knygos.

She has a book. → She has no book.

The Conjunction Ir

27.Ir joins words or clauses of like kind, as English and. Joined objects each stand in the accusative, the case being repeated and not merely understood.

Ji valgo obuolį ir geria arbatą.

She eats an apple and drinks tea.

Aš matau namą ir katę.

I see a house and a cat.