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The Latvian language is a moderately inflected language, with complex nominal and verbal morphology. Word order is relatively free, but the unmarked order is SVO. Latvian has pre-nominal adjectives and both prepositions and postpositions. There is no definite or indefinite article, but definiteness can be indicated by the endings of adjectives.
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Nouns and adjectives
Latvian has two grammatical genders (masculine and feminine) and seven cases. Adjectives generally precede the nouns they modify, and agree in case, number, and gender. In addition, adjectives take distinct endings to indicate definite and indefinite interpretation:
- Viņa nopirka vecu māju]. "She bought an old house]."
- Viņa nopirka veco māju]. "She bought the old house]."
For details about the nominal morphology of Latvian (inflection of nouns, pronouns, numerals, and adjectives), see Latvian declension.
Verbs
Latvian has three simple tenses (present, imperfect (or preterite) and future), and three compound perfect tenses: present perfect, past perfect, future perfect. Latvian verbs are used in five moods: indicative, imperative, conditional, conjunctive (or "relative", used for reported speech) and "debitive" (for expressing obligation). The relations between tenses and moods are shown in the following table.
| Indicative | Imperative | Conditional | Conjunctive | Debitive | |
| Simple present | + | - | + | + | + |
| Simple imperfect | + | - | - | - | + |
| Simple future | + | - | - | + | + |
| Present perfect | + | - | + | + | + |
| Past perfect | + | - | - | - | + |
| Future perfect | + | - | - | + | + |
Latvian verbs have two voices, active and passive. The passive voice is analytic, combining an auxiliary verb (tikt "become", būt "be", or more rarely, tapt "become") and the past passive participle form of the verb. Reflexive verbs are marked morphologically by the suffix -s.
Participles
- Past active
- Past passive
- Present active in -dams
- Present active in -ošs
- Present active in -ot
- Present passive
Conjugation classes
Regular verbs in Latvian are divided into three conjugation classes. The first conjugation includes all verbs with a monosyllabic infinitive and their compounds. The second conjugation includes verbs that are derived with suffixes -ā, -ē, -o, -ī, -alē, -aļā, -elē, -uļo and that exhibit syllable lengthening in the imperfect and present tenses. The third conjugation includes verbs that are derived with suffixes -ā, -ē, -ī, -inā and display syllable lengthening in the imperfect. The following verbs are irregular: būt "be", iet "go", dot "give".
A verb's conjugation pattern can be specified by giving three base forms: the infinitive form, the present stem and the past stem. The following table shows the correspondence between the base stem and the tense/mood.
| stem | moods and tenses derived from this stem |
|---|---|
| present stem | present indicative, present conjunctive, imperative mood, debitive mood, present participles |
| past stem | imperfect tense, past active participle |
| infinitive stem | infinitive, future indicative, conditional mood, future conjunctive, past passive participle |
Prepositions
Latvian has prepositions, and a small number of postpositions. Although each preposition requires a particular case (genitive, accusative, or dative) if the following noun phrase is singular, all plural noun phrases appear in the dative case after a preposition.
References
- Ceplīte, B.; L. Ceplītis (1991). Latviešu valodas praktiskā gramatika. Zvaigzne.
- (Italian) Dini, Pietro U. (1997). Le Lingue Baltiche. Scandicci (Florence): La Nuova Italia Editrice.
- Endzelīns, J. (1951). Latviešu valodas gramatika.
- (1959) Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas gramatika. LPSR ZA izdevniecība.
- Fennell, T. G.; H. Gelsen (1980). A Grammar of Modern Latvian (Vols. 1–3). Mouton.
- Karulis, K. (2001). Latviešu etimoloģijas vārdnīca. Avots.
- Mathiassen, Terje (1996). A Short Grammar of Latvian. Columbus, OH: Slavica. ISBN 0-89357-270-5.
- (French) Petit, Justyna and Daniel (2004). Parlons letton. Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 2-7475-5910-6.
External links
- Latvian language materials (en/lv)
- J. Lelis - Basic Latvian - Grammar: Introduction (en)
- Overview of the Latvian Language (en)
- V. Plūdons. Practical Latvian Grammar (Cēsis, 1922) (lv)
- Introduction in History of Latvian Language (lv)
- Andronov A.V. Materials for Latvian-Russian dictionary (rus)
- Ineta Polanska. Zum Einfluss des Lettischen auf das Deutsche im Baltikum (Inaugural-Dissertation, Bamberg, 2002) (de)
- TITUS Texts: Old-Latvian Corpus (en/de/lv)
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 12 May 2008, at 16:19.
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