bivati

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *byvati, imperfective aspect of the verb bȉti (“to be”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bǐːʋati/
• Hyphenation: bi‧va‧ti

Verb

bívati impf (Cyrillic spelling би́вати)

1. (intransitive) to be occasionally, happen, occur sometimes

   Tako je to bivalo, biva i bivat će. ― So it has been, is, and will be.

2. (intransitive, literary) to become, grow
3. (by extension, auxiliary, Croatia) Used instead of biti to form the continuous passive voice together with the passive past participle of the main verb.

   Ubijali su druge dok je kralj bivao bičevan. ― They were killing the others while the king was being flogged.

Conjugation

Conjugation of bivati

infinitive		bivati
present verbal adverb		bívajūći
past verbal adverb		—
verbal noun		bívānje
		singular			plural
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
present		bivam	bivaš	biva	bivamo	bivate	bivaju
future	future I	bivat ću1 bivaću	bivat ćeš1 bivaćeš	bivat će1 bivaće	bivat ćemo1 bivaćemo	bivat ćete1 bivaćete	bivat ćē1 bivaće
	future II	bȕdēm bivao2	bȕdēš bivao2	bȕdē bivao2	bȕdēmo bivali2	bȕdēte bivali2	bȕdū bivali2
past	perfect	bivao sam2	bivao si2	bivao je2	bivali smo2	bivali ste2	bivali su2
	pluperfect3	bȉo sam bivao2	bȉo si bivao2	bȉo je bivao2	bíli smo bivali2	bíli ste bivali2	bíli su bivali2
	imperfect	bivah	bivaše	bivaše	bivasmo	bivaste	bivahu
conditional	conditional I	bivao bih2	bivao bi2	bivao bi2	bivali bismo2	bivali biste2	bivali bi2
	conditional II4	bȉo bih bivao2	bȉo bi bivao2	bȉo bi bivao2	bíli bismo bivali2	bíli biste bivali2	bíli bi bivali2
imperative		—	bivaj	—	bivajmo	bivajte	—
active past participle		bivao m / bivala f / bivalo n			bivali m / bivale f / bivala n

¹   Croatian spelling: others omit the infinitive suffix completely and bind the clitic.
²   For masculine nouns; a feminine or neuter agent would use the feminine and neuter gender forms of the active past participle and auxiliary verb, respectively.
³   Often replaced by the past perfect in colloquial speech, i.e. the auxiliary verb biti (“to be”) is routinely dropped.
⁴   Often replaced by the conditional I in colloquial speech, i.e. the auxiliary verb biti (“to be”) is routinely dropped.
  *Note: The aorist and imperfect were not present in, or have nowadays fallen into disuse in, many dialects and therefore they are routinely replaced by the past perfect in both formal and colloquial speech.

References

• “bivati”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025