Transgressive (linguistics)

Transgressive is a term of linguistic morphology denoting a special form of verb. It expresses a coincidently proceeding or following action. It is considered to be a kind of infinitive, or participle.

Czech language

Transgressive ("přechodník") is an archaic form of the verb in the Czech, Polish and Slovak language. Nowadays, it is used only occasionally for artistic purposes or in steady expressions. Transgressives were used quite widely in the literal language yet in the beginning of 20th century. For example, Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk contains a lot of them.

Czech language recognizes present and past transgressives. Present transgressive can express present or future action according to an aspect of the verb, which is derived from.

Examples:
* "Usednuvši u okna, začala plakat." (Having sat down at a window, she begun to cry.) — past transgressive
* "Usiadłszy przy oknie, zaczęła płakać." - Polish equivalent
* "Děti, vidouce babičku, vyběhly ven." (Children, seeing grandma, ran out.) — present transgressive
* "Dzieci, widząc babcię, wybiegły na zewnątrz" (old Polish: "wen"). - Polish equivalent

Polish language

However, in Polish these are usually called "adverbial participles" ("imiesłowy przysłówkowe") and inflect neither for gender nor for number. There are two kinds of the participles: anterior (only from perfective verbs) and contemporary (only from imperfective verbs). The anterior participle (related to the Czech past transgressive) expresses an event earlier than the event described by the main clause, while the contemporary adverbial participle expresses an event simultaneous with the event described by the main clause. Nowadays, especially the anterior participle is unused in the spoken language and rare in the written language.

The contemporary adverbial participle can be derived by adding the ending "-c" to the 3rd person plural present form of an imperfective verb (or by adding the ending "-ąc" to the present stem of an imperfective verb):

"jeść" "to eat (imperf.)" > 3pl "jedzą" " [they] are eating" > "jedząc" "(while) eating"
"nieść" "to carry (imperf.)" > 3pl "niosą" " [they] are carrying" > "niosąc" "(while) carrying"
"czytać" "to read (imperf.)" > 3pl "czytają" " [they] are reading" > "czytając" "(while) reading"
"kupować" "to buy (imperf.)" > 3pl "kupują" " [they] are buying" > "kupując" "(while) buying"

The verb "być" "to be" is the only exception - its contemporary adverbial participle is "będąc" and corresponds to its future form "będą" " [they] will be" rather than to its present form "są" " [they] are".

The anterior adverbial participle can be derived by replacing of the ending "-ł" in the 3rd person singular masculine past form of a perfective verb with the suffix "-wszy" (after a vowel) or "-łszy" (after a consonant):

"zjeść" "to eat (perf.)" > "zjadł" " [he] ate" > "zjadłszy" "having eaten"
"przynieść" "to bring (perf.)" > "przyniósł" " [he] brought" > "przyniósłszy" "having carried"
"przeczytać" "to read (perf.)" > "przeczytał" " [he] read" > "przeczytawszy" "having read"
"kupić" "to buy (perf.)" > "kupił" " [he] bought" > "kupiwszy" "having bought"
"pchnąć" "to push (perf.)" > "pchnął" " [he] pushed" > "pchnąwszy" "having pushed"