-vat

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kloie
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-vat

Postby kloie » 2021-03-31, 15:58

What does the verb ending -vat mean?

Linguaphile
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Re: -vat

Postby Linguaphile » 2021-03-31, 17:27

kloie wrote:What does the verb ending -vat mean?


This form is called many things: reported speech, indirect discourse, oblique mode, quotative mood. (In Estonian: kaudne kõneviis)
Basically it means you are reporting something you've heard from somewhere. You aren't saying that it's true, you're just saying that it's what you have heard. So, it can indicate that there is some doubt about the truth of what you are saying, or just that you aren't stating it from personal experience.

Ta pidavat kõne. = He is supposedly making a speech.
Kõne algavat poole tunni pärast. = The speech is said to begin in half an hour.
Räägitakse, et ta olevat inspireeriv kõneleja. = They say that he is an inspiring speaker.

In all of the sentences above, the -vat ending means that I've heard about these indirectly. I've heard that he is giving the speech and that it's in half an hour, but maybe the people I heard it from were wrong. I have no direct knowledge of it to say whether it is or isn't true. I have also not heard him speak so I don't know from personal experience that he is an inspiring speaker; I've just heard people say that about him. You might disagree and find him boring; after I've heard him speak, I might disagree myself too! Using the -vat form conveys these types of doubts or lack of personal knowledge.



Not to confuse things but there is also a different -vat form, which is the partitive singular of certain adjectives derived from verbs (present participles). I don't think this is what you are asking about, since it is an adjective form and not a verb form. But just in case, here's that other form too:

kolm inspireerivat kõnelejat = three inspiring speakers

Here this is just the partitive singular of the present participle inspireeriv, so it does not indicate the same sort of doubt or lack of personal experience that the verb form above does.

I don't mean to complicate things by mentioning this other usage but sometimes it's useful to know that the same word form has different functions, so that when you encounter it in a random context you know that it can have either of these functions. Otherwise it complicates your learning, since if you only know of one use for it then you'd encounter it in weird places where it didn't seem to fit with what you'd learned.


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