Present verbal adverb

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

The present verbal adverb: radeći, čitajući, idući

Slušao je muziku čitajući knjigu. He was listening to music while reading a book.

The word čitajući “reading” hangs one action in the background of another, the way English “-ing” does: “Working late, I missed dinner”, “Not knowing the way, I asked a passer-by.” Serbs call this form glagolski prilog sadašnji, the “present verbal adverb”. You recognise it by its tail, -ći: radeći “working”, čitajući “reading”, idući “going, walking”, ne znajući “not knowing”. And it is the simplest form of the Serbian verb: it never changes, not for gender, number, case or person. Radeći is said of him, of her and of a whole team.

There are three traps. First, it is built not from the infinitive but from the “they” form of the present tense (the third person plural), which is why pisati gives pišući, not “pisajući”. Second, it is made only from imperfective verbs; perfective verbs have a form of their own, in -vši. Third, and sneakiest for an English speaker: the Serbian form is mostly a written one. English “-ing” clauses are everywhere in casual speech; in conversation a Serb more often says the same thing another way, with dok “while” or simply with two verbs joined by i “and”.

How it is formed: “they” plus -ći

There is one rule and it is mechanical: take the “they” form of the present and add -ći. Nothing is dropped and nothing changes. The infinitive plays no part: a verb has two stems (the lesson “Infinitive & stems”), and this form grows out of the present stem.

The table also shows the whole set of tails, and there are only two. If the “they” form ends in -u (the -am and -em classes), you get -ući; if it ends in -e (the -im class), you get -eći. There is no third option and nothing changes at the join: whatever had to change has already changed in the present tense.

Two rows deserve a second look. The present of stajati “to stand” is stojim, stoje, hence stojeći and never “stajajući”. And pisati from the first table softens its stem in the present (pišem, pišu), so the verbal adverb takes the softened stem: pišući. The infinitive would lead you astray; the “they” form never does: jesti “to eat” gives jedu → jedući, piti “to drink” gives piju → pijući.

Imperfective verbs only

The present verbal adverb expresses simultaneity: while the main action is going on, this one is going on too. So it needs a verb whose action stretches over time, that is, an imperfective verb (one that presents the action as ongoing, not as a completed whole). Perfective verbs have no -ći form at all: this is not a matter of style but a rule of grammar.

English draws a similar line with its own tools: “reading the letter, she smiled” (at the same time) against “having read the letter, she smiled” (first one, then the other). Serbian makes the same split, but it builds it into the verb pair itself, and each side has its own suffix.

One verb is a special case, biti “to be”. Its verbal adverb budući is built not from jesu but from the form budu you met in the lesson “Future II (exact future)”. On its own it is hardly used today, but it has frozen into a very common conjunction, budući da “since, as” (more on it below). So English “being” cannot be copied with it. “Being a student” is kao student “as a student” or dok sam bio student “when I was a student”, and “Being ill, he stayed at home” is Budući da je bio bolestan, ostao je kod kuće. A lone budući before a noun means “future”: budući student is “a future student”.

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

The present verbal adverb: radeći, čitajući, idući

Glagolski prilog sadašnji: invariable: no gender, number, case or person. Imperfective verbs only. Meaning: at the same time as the main verb, same subject: Slušao je muziku čitajući knjigu. Never the main verb.

Formation: “they” + -ći

Two tails: -u → -ući, -e → -eći. Nothing changes at the join. Never from the infinitive: stajati → stoje → stojeći, smejati se → smeju se → smejući se, putovati → putujući, jesti → jedu → jedući, piti → piju → pijući. Special case: biti → budu → budući.

Aspect

Meanings and syntax

• Time: Doručkujući, slušam vesti. = Dok doručkujem…
• Manner: Ušao je ćuteći. = Ušao je bez reči.
• Cause: Ne znajući put, pitao sam prolaznika. = Pošto nisam znao…
• Condition: Radeći ovako, nećeš stići. = Ako budeš ovako radio…
• Shared subject (no dangling participles): Ulazeći u sobu, video sam Marka.
• ne separate: ne znajući; se right after the form: vraćajući se.
• Main-clause clitics: after the first word past the comma: Vraćajući se kući, sreo sam Marka.
• Comma: a phrase with other words is set off (Ne znajući šta da kaže, ćutao je.); a single “how?” form after the verb is not (Odgovorio je smešeći se.).

Register

Mostly written. In conversation, a clause: dok + the same tense (Čekajući autobus, čitao sam novine. → Dok sam čekao autobus, čitao sam novine.), kad, pošto / jer, or two verbs with i. In speech: short phrases after the verb, and adverbs: trčeći at a run, ćuteći in silence, stojeći standing, ležeći lying, sedeći sitting, žureći in a hurry, plačući in tears, smejući se laughing.

Fossils

budući, sledeći, mogući, vodeći with endings are adjectives (“future, next, possible, leading”); idući put “next time”, but idući kući “going home”.