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230 CHAPTER 14 138 Verbal adverbs, continued A verbal adverb is made by adding a suffix to the appropriate verbal stem (review [129]). The subject of the verbal adverb is necessarily the same as the subject of the sentence. The main sentence verb is conjugated, but the verbal adverb is not. The function of the verbal adverb is similar to English gerunds: review the English examples from [129]: (1) “Walking down the street, he considered his options.” (2) “Having considered his options, he decided to act.” These sentences are formed according to the English grammar rule that both the main verb and the gerundial or participial form modifying it (the form italicized in each sentence) must have the same subject. Many English speakers no longer follow this rule, but rather add such forms to any sentence, regardless of the subject of the verb. In BCS, however, the corresponding rule must be followed without exception. A more useful parallel with English lies in the fact that the terms present and past in the name of the BCS verbal adverbs do NOT refer to tense but rather to simultaneity . That is, present verbal adverbs describe an action which is (or was, or will be) in progress at the same time as that of the main verb, while past verbal adverbs describe an action that was (or will be) completed prior to that of the main verb. In the two English examples above, for instance , all four actions take place in the past. The difference between the two sentences is that the two actions in sentence (1) occur simultaneously, whereas in sentence (2) the first named action was completed before the second named action took place. Since present verbal adverbs refer to actions in progress and past verbal adverbs refer to completed actions, it should be no surprise that the first are formed only from verbs of the imperfective aspect, while the second are formed from only verbs of the perfective aspect. Verbal adverbs are encountered frequently in written language, but are quite rare in speech. A few have given rise to adjectival forms, however, and these are quite common in everyday speech. 138a. Present verbal adverb The present verbal adverb is formed by adding -ći to the 3pl. present of an imperfective verb. The accent is that of the present tense, except for verbs with long rising in the infinitive which has shifted to long falling in the present tense. These forms usually take the infinitive accent . The verbal adverb of biti takes the 3pl. form budu as its base. The verbal adverb of hteti / htjeti is either hoteći or htejući / htijući. infinitive znati hòdati vòziti dr̀žati pìsati ìći optužìvati biti 3pl. present znaju hòdaju voze dr̀že pišu idu optùžuju budu pres.vbl. adv. znajući hòdajući vòzeći dr̀žeći pìšući idući optùžujući budući CHAPTER 14 231 present verbal Hoda ulicom nè gledajući ni u kòga. S/he walks down the street without adverb [ = not] looking at anyone. Vozeći se sporednim ulicama, nàišao I came across some very unusual house sam na veòma neobične fasàde. fronts as I drove down side streets. Pòbegao je tr̀čeći preko mosta. He escaped [by] running across the bridge. Prìhvatili su to kao Božju volju, ne They took it as God’s will, finding fault optùžujući ni nebo ni sebe. neither in heaven nor in themselves. Pòzvali su ga da dođe, znajući dobro They invited him to come, knowing well da nè može prìhvatiti pòziv. that he would be unable to accept the invitation. S,C u koga / B ù koga; E pobegao / J pobjegao; C,B može prihvatiti / S,B može da prihvati Present verbal adverbs also occur in several semi-fixed adverbial phrases. Many of these are better rendered in English by adverbial phrases that do not contain a gerundial form. literal translation [one] English equivalent iskreno gòvoreći sincerely speaking to tell the truth sùdeći po tome judging by that if we go by that ćùteći / šùteći not speaking in silence ne tražeći krivca not seeking to blame anyone as given znajući ili ne knowing or not unwittingly S,C po tome / B pò tome; E...

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