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Grammar Notes

Grammatical concepts we covered in this unit

  • affirmative and negative present subjunctive conjugations
  • some dative personal pronouns
  • dative with proper nouns
  • prepositions (առանց)

Affirmative and negative present subjunctive conjugations

The subjunctive mood is used to talk about not current realities (which, as we saw, are marked by the present tense conjugations we have learned so far). So, the subjunctive mood can be used to express wishes, desires, hopes, conjectures, needs, obligations, possibilities, or even indirect commands.

To form the affirmative subjunctive for all regular verbs in the present tense (all verbs EXCEPT for the verbs that have two present tense conjugations: ըլլալ, ունենալ, գիտնալ, կարենալ, and the one defective verb you don't know yet), you drop the կը/կ՚/կու from the present tense conjugation of the appropriate person. So, for "let's ___," we use the first-person plural affirmative conjugation (for մենք) and drop the կը/կ՚/կու.

Review the following examples:

  • Երթա՛նք ("Let's go!")
  • Ուտե՛նք ("Let's eat!")
  • Հանդիպի՞նք ("Should we meet?")

For ըլլալ, ունենալ, գիտնալ, and կարենալ, you just conjugate them as regular verbs using the infinitives, like so:

  • Ուրախ ըլլա՛նք ("Let's be happy!")
  • Լաւ գիտնա՛նք ("Let's know [it] well!")

To form the negative subjunctive for all regular verbs in the present tense (all verbs EXCEPT for the verbs that have two present tense conjugations: ըլլալ, ունենալ, գիտնալ, կարենալ, and the one defective verb you don't know yet), you drop the կը/կ՚/կու from the present tense conjugation of the appropriate person. So, for "let's ___," we use the first-person plural affirmative conjugation (for մենք), drop the կը/կ՚/կու, then add the չ- prefix.

Review the following examples:

  • Չերթա՛նք ("Let's not go!")
  • Չուտե՛նք ("Let's not eat!")
  • Չհանդիպի՞նք ("We shouldn't meet?")

For ըլլալ, ունենալ, գիտնալ, and կարենալ, you just conjugate them as regular verbs using the infinitives with the չ- prefix, like so:

  • Ուրախ չըլլա՛նք ("Let's not be happy!")
  • Շատ չգիտնա՛նք ("Let's not know a lot!")

Some dative personal pronouns

To mark that someone is the indirect object of an action (they are being given something—they are not the thing being given), we use the dative form of the personal pronouns. In English, we do the same: We do not say "Can you give I the salt?"—we say "Can you give me the salt?" The same rule holds for Western Armenian! The following chart provides the dative forms of the personal pronouns:
1st ինծի մեզի
2nd քեզի ձեզի
3rd
1st ինծի մեզի
2nd քեզի ձեզի
3rd անոր / իրեն անոնց / իրենց

Dative with proper nouns

To mark that someone is the indirect object of an action (they are being given something—they are not the thing being given), we use the dative form of a person's name.

To form the dative with a proper names, we follow the following rules:

  1. For names ending in a consonant or the vowels ի and է, add -ի[ն] (like Արմէնին and Անիին and Նափոլէոնի)
  2. For names ending in the vowels ա and օ/ո, add -յի[ն] (like Մարոյին and Արայի)

Note the following examples:

  • Մարալին կու տամ
  • Արմէնին կը հրամցնե՞ս
  • Լալային անցնե՞նք

Prepositions (առանց)

Western Armenian uses many more postpositions (that come AFTER the word they modify) than prepositions (that come BEFORE the word they modify). One notable and common preposition is առանց, which means "without." To use this preposition, you must modify the word that follows it by using the dative form of the word. In most cases with the food or ingredient words that we learned in this unit, we just add the dative -ի suffix to the word. Note the following examples:

  • Սուրճ կը խմեմ առանց շաքարի
  • Առանց կաթի թէյ կը սիրեմ խմել
  • Առանց միսի քէօֆթէ կա՞յ

For more information about the rules of using the preposition առանց, find an Armenian speaker and refer to pages 428 and 714–715 of Armenag Yeghiayan's «Արեւմտահայերէնի Ուղղագրական, Ուղղախօսական, Ոճաբանական Ուղեցոյց».