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# 21. Clause structure

**On this page**

1. [1. The predicate types](#1-the-predicate-types)
2. [2. The subject and its agreement](#2-the-subject-and-its-agreement)
3. [3. Dropped subjects](#3-dropped-subjects)
4. [4. Indefinite and generalised subjects](#4-indefinite-and-generalised-subjects)
5. [5. Subjectless sentences](#5-subjectless-sentences)
6. [6. The impersonal *-но/-то* form](#6-the-impersonal--но-то-form)
7. [7. Predicative words](#7-predicative-words)
8. [8. Existence, absence and possession](#8-existence-absence-and-possession)
9. [9. Nominal predicates: zero copula, the dash, nominative and instrumental](#9-nominal-predicates-zero-copula-the-dash-nominative-and-instrumental)
10. [10. Varieties and styles as deltas](#10-varieties-and-styles-as-deltas)
11. [11. Quick reference: clause structure in UD](#11-quick-reference-clause-structure-in-ud)
12. [12. How Mova handles it](#12-how-mova-handles-it)
13. [13. Sources](#13-sources)

A Ukrainian clause has a predicate and, usually but far from always, a subject. The predicate may be a finite verb (*Брат читає* (*Brat chytaie*) 'The brother is reading'), a modal or phasal verb with an infinitive (*Брат хоче читати* 'The brother wants to read'), a noun or adjective with or without a copula (*Брат — учитель* 'The brother is a teacher', *Брат був учителем* 'The brother was a teacher'), a predicative word (*Треба читати* 'One must read'), or an impersonal form in *-но/-то* (*Книжку прочитано* 'The book has been read'). The subject is a nominative noun or pronoun that agrees with the verb; it may be left out when the verb's ending or the context names it (*Читаю* 'I am reading'), and it is absent by nature in a whole family of **subjectless** sentences: natural processes (*Світає* 'Day is breaking'), states of an experiencer in the dative (*Мені холодно* 'I am cold'), modal predicatives (*Мені треба йти* 'I have to go'), existence and its negation (*Немає часу* 'There is no time'), the impersonal *-но/-то* (*Рішення прийнято* 'The decision has been adopted') and the "unknown force" construction (*Громом убило дерево* 'The tree was killed by lightning'). This chapter describes these types, their agreement, their tense, the variation between norm and usage, and what the treebanks show.

Contents

1. [The predicate types](#1-the-predicate-types)
2. [The subject and its agreement](#2-the-subject-and-its-agreement)
3. [Dropped subjects](#3-dropped-subjects)
4. [Indefinite and generalised subjects](#4-indefinite-and-generalised-subjects)
5. [Subjectless sentences](#5-subjectless-sentences)
6. [The impersonal *-но/-то* form](#6-the-impersonal--%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D1%82%D0%BE-form)
7. [Predicative words](#7-predicative-words)
8. [Existence, absence and possession](#8-existence-absence-and-possession)
9. [Nominal predicates: zero copula, the dash, nominative and instrumental](#9-nominal-predicates-zero-copula-the-dash-nominative-and-instrumental)
10. [Varieties and styles as deltas](#10-varieties-and-styles-as-deltas)
11. [Quick reference: clause structure in UD](#11-quick-reference-clause-structure-in-ud)
12. [How Mova handles it](#12-how-mova-handles-it)
13. [Sources](#13-sources)

Related chapters: the overall picture in [20. Syntax overview](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/20-syntax-overview/); verb forms (tenses, the *-но/-то* form, the conditional) in [13. Verbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/13-verbs/); the passive and *-ся* in [28. Voice and the passive](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/28-voice-and-passive/); negation and the genitive of negation in [27. Negation](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/27-negation/); the reference of dropped subjects in [35. Reference and coreference](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/35-reference-and-coreference/); numeral subjects in [22. Phrases](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/22-phrases/).

Conventions as in chapter 20: examples in Cyrillic italics, romanized (national system, 2010) on first use and glossed; counts from UD 2.18 (UD_Ukrainian-IU, counts only; UD_Ukrainian-ParlaMint, quoted with `sent_id`), all splits, made with `awk` on 2026-11-06; news counts from the Leipzig Ukrainian news corpus 2024 (1 M sentences, about 14.2 M words; CC BY), counted with `grep` on 2026-11-06.

---

## 1. The predicate types

| type | Ukrainian term | structure | example |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| simple verbal | простий дієслівний | finite verb (any tense, mood) | *Діти співають.* 'The children are singing.' *Він би прийшов.* 'He would come.' |
| compound verbal | складений дієслівний | modal or phasal verb + infinitive | *Я хочу спати.* 'I want to sleep.' *Він почав писати.* 'He began to write.' *Ми мусимо йти.* 'We must go.' |
| modal adjective + infinitive | складений дієслівний | *повинен*, *мусить*, *готовий*, *здатний*, *радий* + infinitive | *Він повинен прийти.* 'He must come.' *Я радий допомогти.* 'I'm glad to help.' |
| compound nominal | складений іменний | copula (zero, *бути*, *стати*, *здаватися*, *вважатися*…) + noun or adjective | *Він учитель.* *Він був учителем.* *Вона стала лікаркою.* 'She became a doctor.' |
| impersonal verb or form | — | impersonal verb or *-но/-то* form, no subject | *Світає.* *Хату збудовано.* |
| predicative word | — | *треба*, *можна*, *шкода*, *холодно*… (± copula) ± infinitive | *Треба йти.* *Мені холодно.* *Було видно гори.* 'The mountains could be seen.' |

The future of the imperfective has two forms, analytic *буду читати* and synthetic *читатиму* 'I will be reading'; both are a simple verbal predicate (chapter 13). The conditional is the past form + *би/б* (*читав би*), the imperative may be analytic with *давай(те)* or *хай/нехай* (*Давайте почнемо* 'Let's start', *Хай він прийде* 'Let him come').

The modal and phasal verbs in the compound verbal predicate are those whose infinitive complement shares their subject (chapter 23 § 5): *могти*, *хотіти*, *мусити*, *мати* 'to have to', *вміти*, *бажати*, *любити*, *почати/починати*, *стати* 'to begin', *перестати*, *продовжувати*, *намагатися*, *збиратися*. The most frequent heads of `xcomp` in the treebanks are *могти* (231 in IU, 209 in ParlaMint), *хотіти* (59 / 237), *мати* (66 / 143), *повинен* (33 / 164), *почати* (59 / 14) and *мусити* (37 in IU); in parliamentary speech *просити* (309) heads the list because of the formula *Прошу голосувати* 'I ask you to vote' (counts 2026-11-06).

## 2. The subject and its agreement

### 2.1 What can be the subject

| subject | example |
| --- | --- |
| noun or pronoun in the nominative | *Мати прийшла.* *Ми прийшли.* |
| numeral phrase or quantifier phrase | *Прийшло п'ять студентів.* *Багато людей прийшло.* (§ 2.4; chapter 22) |
| infinitive | *Курити — здоров'ю шкодити.* 'Smoking harms health.' *Жити — Батьківщині служити.* 'To live is to serve the homeland.' |
| clause | *Хто рано встає, тому Бог дає.* 'God gives to him who rises early.' *Відомо, що він прийде.* 'It is known that he will come.' (`csubj`) |
| substantivised word | *Старе відійшло.* 'The old has gone.' *Чергові прийшли.* 'The people on duty came.' |
| *прийменникова група* in approximations | *До сотні людей прийшло.* 'Up to a hundred people came.' |

### 2.2 Agreement of the verb

Present and future verbs agree in **person and number**; past verbs (the old *-л-* participle) in **gender and number**, with no person (chapter 13):

| tense | singular | plural |
| --- | --- | --- |
| present | *я читаю, ти читаєш, він/вона/воно читає* | *ми читаємо, ви читаєте, вони читають* |
| past | *він читав, вона читала, воно читало* | *вони читали* (all genders) |
| conditional | *читав би, читала б, читало б* | *читали б* |

A woman says *я читала*, a man *я читав*; the past form tells the speaker's or addressee's gender (*ти прийшла?* 'have you (fem.) come?'). The polite *Ви* to one person takes plural verb forms in all tenses: *Ви прийшли*, *Ви читаєте*.

### 2.3 Coordinated subjects and the comitative

Two singular subjects joined by *і/та* take a plural verb when the verb follows them, and often a singular verb when it precedes them, agreeing with the nearest (Smerechynskyi 1932, ch. IV.1): *Батько й мати прийшли* 'Father and mother came'; *Прийшов батько й мати* is possible in narrative with the stress on the event. The **comitative** (a singular subject with *з* + instrumental) varies in the same way: *Брат із сестрою прийшли* 'Brother and sister came' (both are the subject, plural verb), against *Брат прийшов із сестрою* 'The brother came with his sister' (the brother alone is the subject). Smerechynskyi (ch. IV.2) treats the plural with the comitative as the vernacular norm when the two are equal partners, the singular when the first is the main actor.

### 2.4 Numeral and quantifier subjects

A subject with a numeral or quantifier allows two agreements: a **plural** verb, which presents the members as individuals, or the **neuter singular** (the default, non-agreeing form), which presents them as a mass or puts the event in focus (Smerechynskyi 1932, ch. IV.3): *Прийшли п'ять дівчат* and *Прийшло п'ять дівчат* 'Five girls came'; *Там стояло два дубочки* (folk song) 'Two little oaks stood there'. Smerechynskyi records that the grammarians of his time disagreed sharply — Tymchenko admitted only the singular, Sulyma only the plural, Syniavskyi the singular with the plural allowed after *два, три, чотири* — and himself explains the choice by what the speaker wants to stress: the subject (plural) or the predicate (singular).

The treebanks (UD 2.18, 2026-11-06; nouns with a `nummod:gov` or `det:numgov` dependent that are `nsubj` of a verb or copula):

| verb form | IU, numeral | IU, quantifier (*багато*, *кілька*…) | ParlaMint, numeral | ParlaMint, quantifier |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| plural | 39 | 12 | 14 | 9 |
| singular (neuter past / 3rd sg present) | 28 | 9 | 26 | 5 |

Both options are alive in writing and in speech. ParlaMint: *В залі зареєструвалося 288 народних депутатів* (ParlaMint-UA_2014-03-04-m0.u1.p2.lang1.s1) 'In the hall 288 people's deputies have registered' — singular, verb first, the number is the news — against *Ще 19 людей не виступили* (ParlaMint-UA_2003-10-14-m0.u158.p4.lang1.s1) '19 more people have not spoken' — plural, subject first, the people are individuals. Janda and Palii (2024, `janda-2024-bahato-many`) measured the same variation for *багато* + genitive plural in the GRAC corpus: the singular is the majority overall (69.1% of their attestations), but the plural has grown since about the 1950s and has overtaken the singular in the current decade; subject-before-verb order and animate nouns favour the plural, verb-before-subject and inanimate nouns the singular (chapter 22 § 4.4). Here usage is ahead of the older grammars: the plural, once disputed, is now the more frequent choice with *багато* in current texts.

## 3. Dropped subjects

### 3.1 How often

The subject pronoun can be omitted whenever the verb form and the context identify it. The treebanks show how often a finite indicative verb has no `nsubj` or `csubj` (verbs in `conj` excluded, because they share the subject of the first conjunct; impersonal `Person=0` forms excluded; UD 2.18, 2026-11-06):

| verb form | IU: finite / without subject | % | ParlaMint: finite / without subject | % |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| present, 1st person | 352 / 222 | 63 | 1 984 / 887 | 45 |
| present, 2nd person | 127 / 48 | 38 | 175 / 39 | 22 |
| present, 3rd person | 2 629 / 696 | 26 | 2 102 / 274 | 13 |
| future, 1st person | 136 / 84 | 62 | 281 / 122 | 43 |
| future, 3rd person | 364 / 82 | 23 | 240 / 40 | 17 |
| past (no person) | 4 222 / 1 037 | 25 | 1 640 / 237 | 14 |
| all | 7 901 / 2 215 | 28.0 | 6 443 / 1 605 | 24.9 |

The first person, whose ending is unambiguous, drops its pronoun most (about three in five in written texts, nearly half in parliamentary speech, where the *я* of the speaker is often expressed for emphasis and politeness: *Я прошу…*, *Я хочу сказати…*). The past, which shows no person, keeps its subject far more often: 25% without a subject in IU against 63% for the first-person present. Fellerer (2022, `fellerer-2022-pro-drop-sw`) found the same contrast in a sample of standard Ukrainian memoir prose — subject pro-drop in 60% of the relevant present-tense clauses but 20% of the past-tense clauses — and contrasted it with the south-western Dnister dialect, where pro-drop is about as frequent in the past (50%) as in the present (51%) and reaches 94% with the past forms that carry a person clitic (*спав-єм*, *ходила-сь* 'I slept, you went'). The standard thus behaves as a **partial** pro-drop language: drop is free where the ending gives the person, and limited where it does not.

The third person without a subject in the table includes impersonal verbs (*йдеться* 'it is a matter of', *вдалося* 'one managed', *здається* 'it seems') and verbs whose subject is a clause or is in the previous sentence.

### 3.2 When the pronoun is kept

The pronoun is kept — even with the first-person present — when it is:

- **contrastive or focused**: *Я піду, а ти лишайся* 'I'll go, and you stay';
- **the topic of a new stretch** of text, especially with the past tense: *Він прийшов пізно* opens; *Прийшов пізно* continues;
- needed to show **gender or person** in the past: *Я прийшла* (otherwise *Прийшла* could be 'she came');
- part of **formulas of politeness and public speech**: *Я дякую*, *Я прошу*, *Я вважаю*.

The written style of fiction drops more than official prose; the colloquial standard drops most, and the south-western dialects more still (§ 10). Chapter 35 treats how the reader finds the referent of a dropped subject.

## 4. Indefinite and generalised subjects

Ukrainian has no pronoun like English *one* or French *on*; it uses verb forms without a subject:

| type | Ukrainian term | form | example |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| indefinite-personal | неозначено-особове | 3rd person plural, no subject | *Кажуть, що буде дощ.* 'They say it will rain.' *У двері постукали.* 'Someone knocked at the door.' |
| generalised-personal | узагальнено-особове | 2nd person singular (also 1st pl., 3rd pl.), no subject; proverbs | *Тихіше їдеш — далі будеш.* 'The slower you go, the further you get.' *Що посієш, те й пожнеш.* 'As you sow, so you reap.' |
| impersonal *-но/-то* | безособове | § 6 | *Хату збудовано.* |
| reflexive impersonal | безособове | *-ся* verb in the 3rd sg / neuter past | *Тут добре живеться.* 'One lives well here.' *Мені не спиться.* 'I can't sleep.' |

The indefinite-personal 3rd plural can refer to a single unknown person (*постукали*) and excludes the speaker and hearer. *Мене звати Іван* (*Mene zvaty Ivan*) 'My name is Ivan', literally 'one calls me Ivan' with the impersonal infinitive *звати*, and *Мене звуть Іваном* (3rd plural) are the two standard ways to give a name.

## 5. Subjectless sentences

Simovych (1919, § 340) observes that subjectless sentences are "used often in Ukrainian" and that their predicate is "for the most part in the neuter gender", best seen in the past (*замело*, *блискало*, *полегчало*). He classifies them; his classes, extended with the modern predicatives, give the following map:

| class | example | gloss |
| --- | --- | --- |
| natural phenomena | *Світає.* *Смеркало.* *Вечоріє.* *Морозить.* *Задощило.* | 'Day is breaking.' 'Dusk fell.' 'Evening is coming.' 'It's freezing.' 'It began to rain.' |
| the "unknown force" with an instrumental | *Громом убило дерево.* *Хату засипало снігом.* *Човна перекинуло хвилею.* | 'The tree was killed by lightning.' 'The house was buried in snow.' 'The boat was overturned by a wave.' |
| physical and mental states with a dative or accusative experiencer | *Мені холодно.* *Йому сумно.* *Мене нудить.* *Мені не спиться.* *Їй полегшало.* | 'I'm cold.' 'He feels sad.' 'I feel sick.' 'I can't sleep.' 'She felt better.' |
| predicative words of necessity, possibility, perception | *Треба йти.* *Можна зайти?* *Шкода часу.* *Було видно гори.* *Чути спів.* | 'One must go.' 'May I come in?' 'It's a pity about the time.' 'The mountains were visible.' 'Singing can be heard.' |
| existence and its absence | *Є хліб.* *Немає хліба.* *Не було часу.* | 'There is bread.' 'There is no bread.' 'There was no time.' |
| impersonal *-но/-то* | *Хату збудовано.* *Про це сказано в законі.* | 'The house has been built.' 'This is stated in the law.' |
| impersonal verbs of happening and succeeding | *Йдеться про…* *Вдалося…* *Довелося…* *Пощастило…* | 'It is about…' 'One managed…' 'One had to…' 'One was lucky…' |
| quantity (partitive genitive) | *Людей наїхало!* *Людей росте, а землі ні* (Lepkyi, cited by Simovych) | 'So many people came!' 'People grow, land does not.' |
| a dative + infinitive of obligation or fate | *Тобі йти першим.* *Не бачити вам цього.* | 'It's your turn to go first.' 'You shall not see this.' |

### 5.1 The "unknown force" construction

The construction *Громом убило дерево* has a transitive verb in the neuter singular (in the past) or 3rd singular (present, future), a direct object in the accusative and an optional instrumental of the means. The actor is not named and cannot be: the sentence presents the event as caused by "an unknown, mysterious force" (Smerechynskyi 1932, ch. II, following Potebnia). Smerechynskyi calls it "very widespread in the Ukrainian folk language" and cites the folk tales and dumas: *Об камінь лодку як ударило, так усі шість матросів потопило* 'When the boat was struck against a rock, all six sailors drowned'; *Чайки їх вітром ламало да по воді розкидало* 'Their boats were broken by the wind and scattered over the water'. The instrumental here is the instrument of the force, not an agent; the accusative stays: *дерево* is the object (in the sentence *Дерево вбило громом* the order is OVS, not SVO, § 12.2).

In the treebanks the subjectless neuter past is dominated by verbs of happening and modality (IU: *бути* 46, *виявитися* 12, *вдатися* 9, *довестися* 7, *хотітися* 7, *здаватися* 6; counts 2026-11-06); the transitive "force" type is rare in modern written prose and lives on in narration and speech.

### 5.2 States: the dative experiencer

Physical and emotional states are predicated of a dative experiencer by a predicative adverb in *-о* (*холодно, тепло, сумно, весело, страшно, соромно, легко, важко, добре, погано*), by an impersonal verb (*хочеться*, *спиться*, *здається*, *щастить*), or by a noun of state (*шкода*, *жаль*, *сором*): *Мені холодно* 'I'm cold', *Нам весело* 'We are having fun', *Мені хочеться пити* 'I feel like drinking', *Мені шкода тебе* 'I feel sorry for you'. Age is given the same way: *Мені тридцять років* 'I am thirty'. The tense is carried by the neuter copula: *Мені було холодно*, *Мені буде холодно*. English and French make the experiencer a subject (*I am cold*, *J'ai froid*); a translator from Ukrainian must create one.

The personal counterparts exist and differ in meaning: *Я холодний* 'I am a cold person' (property), *Мені холодно* 'I feel cold' (state). *Я сумний* describes a state too, but as a characteristic, *Мені сумно* as an experience.

## 6. The impersonal *-но/-то* form

### 6.1 The form

The *-но/-то* form is made from the stem of the passive participle (*прочитаний* → *прочитано*, *збудований* → *збудовано*, *вбитий* → *вбито*, *закритий* → *закрито*) and is used only as the predicate of a subjectless clause (chapter 13). It is not inflected; it expresses a completed action in the past whose actor is unnamed and its result: *Хату збудовано* 'The house has been built (someone built it, and it stands)'. The object stays in the **accusative**: *Хату збудовано*, not **Хата збудовано*; *Листа вкрадено* 'The letter has been stolen' (Smerechynskyi 1932, ch. I).

| sentence | structure | gloss |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *Рішення прийнято.* | Acc (= Nom in neuter) + *-но* | 'The decision has been adopted.' |
| *Хату збудовано.* | Acc *-у* + *-но* | 'The house has been built.' |
| *Злочинця затримано.* | Acc animate (= Gen) + *-но* | 'The offender has been detained.' |
| *Про це сказано в статті 5.* | PP + *-но* | 'This is stated in article 5.' |
| *Зроблено багато.* | quantifier + *-но* | 'Much has been done.' |
| *Тут заборонено курити.* | infinitive + *-но* | 'Smoking is forbidden here.' |

Smerechynskyi stresses three points. The form must not be confused with the neuter participle in *-не/-те*: *розбите вікно* 'a broken window', *вікно розбите* 'the window is broken', but *вікно розбито* 'the window has been broken (by someone)'; *це розбито вікно* as an attribute is wrong. It is not made from *-ся* verbs (no **звернулось*). And it is old: he cites the Lithuanian Statute and sixteenth-century acts (*ихъ обмовлено*, 1534) and the folk song *Під білою березою козаченька вбито* 'Under the white birch the Cossack was killed'.

### 6.2 Personal passive and impersonal: what each stresses

The language has both *Байду замучено* (impersonal) and *Байда замучений*, *Байда був замучений* (personal passive with a participle). Smerechynskyi (ch. I.2) puts the difference as one of what the sentence raises: the impersonal raises the action, the personal passive the subject. In the impersonal "there is not even a place for a subject"; the meaning is 'someone did it'. Hence *Бібліотеку відкрито щодня* means 'someone opens the library every day' and is odd for 'the library is open daily', which is *Бібліотека відкрита щодня*. Chapter 28 compares the impersonal, the personal passive and the *-ся* passive.

### 6.3 Tense: *було* and *буде* with *-но/-то*

The form itself is past. Smerechynskyi (ch. I.1) holds that the folk language does not add *було* or *буде* to it (*постанову було видрукувано*, *буде видрукувано*), sees these as transfers of the Russian pattern *было/будет* + short participle, and recommends the personal passive or the active for other tenses (*Постанову видрукували*, *Постанову видрукують*, *Постанова буде видрукувана*). Usage has gone the other way. In the treebanks, 57 of the 197 *-но/-то* forms in IU (29%) and 73 of 302 in ParlaMint (24%) have a dependent *було* or *буде* (`aux` or `cop`; UD 2.18, 2026-11-06). In the Leipzig news corpus 2024, 138 of 432 occurrences of *прийнято* follow *було* (32%), and 92 of 439 of *затримано* (21%); *буде створено* occurs 32 times beside 351 *створено* (`grep`, 2026-11-06). The construction with *було* is now a normal way to mark a past-before-past or simply the past of a resultative, and *буде* + *-но/-то* an established future in official and news style. The 2019 orthography, which does not legislate syntax, says nothing against it. A description of the current standard must list both: the bare form as the core, *було/буде* + *-но/-то* as frequent in official and journalistic prose, criticised in the purist tradition.

### 6.4 The agent

With the *-но/-то* form the actor is normally unexpressed. An instrumental of the **means** is native (*Чим тебе порубано?* 'What were you cut with?'); an instrumental of the **agent** (*Постанову ухвалено з'їздом* 'The resolution was adopted by the congress') is, for Smerechynskyi (ch. I.3–4), "not proper to the Ukrainian folk language", a mark of the bureaucratic style he associates with Russian *мною было усмотрено*; he cites Simovych calling it "a quite superfluous barbarism". The alternatives he recommends are the active (*Постанову ухвалив з'їзд*), the locative of place (*ухвалена на з'їзді*) and, with participles, *від* + genitive (*призначений від Раднаркому*). Usage again is mixed. ParlaMint annotates 154 instrumental agents (`obl:agent`), mostly with participles: *Комітетом вона відхилена* (ParlaMint-UA_2022-01-25-m0.u124.p3.lang1.s2) 'It has been rejected by the committee'; *Правка була відхилена комітетом* (ParlaMint-UA_2022-01-25-m0.u184.p1.lang1.s2) 'The amendment was rejected by the committee'. With the *-но/-то* form itself, an instrumental noun without a preposition depends on 29 of 197 forms in IU and on 48 of 302 in ParlaMint (agents and instruments together). In news, the active is still preferred where an agent is named: *ухвалила Верховна Рада* occurs 7 times in the Leipzig sample against 1 for *ухвалено Верховною Радою* (`grep`, 2026-11-06). The agentive instrumental is codified in official style and avoided in careful literary style.

### 6.5 Aspect and frequency

The form is almost exclusively perfective: 195 of 197 in IU and 302 of 302 in ParlaMint are `Aspect=Perf`. Its object is in the accusative in 144 of the 165 cases in IU and 221 of 251 in ParlaMint that have an `obj` (the remainder are genitives under negation or of quantity: *не знайдено доказів* 'no evidence has been found'). Its home is official and journalistic prose: ParlaMint's top lemma is *прийняти* (88 occurrences, mostly *Рішення прийнято* 'The decision is adopted', the chairman's formula after a vote), followed by *визначити* (11) and *зареєструвати* (10); IU's are verbs of recording and finding (*заборонити* 6, *знайти*, *написати*, *сказати* 5 each).

## 7. Predicative words

A closed class of uninflected words — *треба*, *потрібно*, *необхідно*, *можна*, *не можна*, *слід*, *варто*, *годі*, *пора*, *час*, *шкода*, *жаль*, *видно*, *чути*, *відомо*, *зрозуміло* and the adverbs of state in *-о* — serve as the predicate of a subjectless clause. They take a dative of the person concerned, an infinitive or a clause, and express tense with the neuter copula:

| pattern | example | gloss |
| --- | --- | --- |
| predicative + infinitive | *Треба йти.* | 'One must go.' |
| dative + predicative + infinitive | *Мені треба йти.* | 'I have to go.' |
| with tense | *Треба було йти.* *Треба буде йти.* | 'One had to / will have to go.' |
| with a genitive or accusative of the thing | *Мені треба хліба.* *Мені потрібна допомога.* (agreeing adjective) | 'I need bread.' 'I need help.' |
| with a clause | *Відомо, що він прийде.* *Треба, щоб ти прийшов.* | 'It is known that he will come.' 'You need to come.' |
| perception | *Було видно гори.* *Чути спів.* | 'The mountains could be seen.' 'Singing is heard.' |
| permission | *Можна зайти?* *Тут не можна курити.* | 'May I come in?' 'No smoking here.' |

*Потрібно* has a personal counterpart that agrees: *Мені потрібна книжка* 'I need a book' (adjective *потрібна* agreeing with *книжка*), against *Мені потрібно книжку* (colloquial, impersonal with the accusative) — the first is the codified form. *Слід* is a predicative of recommendation ('one should'), characteristic of official style: *Слід зазначити, що…* 'It should be noted that…'.

In UD Ukrainian the predicative is an `ADV` that heads its clause, with the infinitive as `csubj` and the dative as `iobj` or `obl`. The frequencies as roots (UD 2.18, 2026-11-06):

| word | IU (root) | ParlaMint (root) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *можна* | 92 | 40 |
| *треба* | 44 | 89 |
| *слід* | 19 | 12 |
| *потрібно* | 12 | 50 |
| *видно* | 11 | — |
| *необхідно* | 3 | 29 |
| *немає* (ADV analysis) | — | 20 |

Speech prefers *треба* and *потрібно*, writing *можна* and *слід*; *необхідно* belongs to the official register (it is ten times rarer than *треба* in IU, and a third as frequent in ParlaMint). In the Leipzig news sample the four words of necessity occur in the order *потрібно* 8 745, *треба* 5 846, *слід* 2 418, *необхідно* 1 928, and *можна* 17 976 (`grep`, 2026-11-06): news writes *потрібно* more than *треба*. ParlaMint: *Треба заспокоїти людей, дати їм віру як мінімум* (ParlaMint-UA_2014-03-04-m0.u20.p3.lang1.s2) 'People must be calmed, given faith at least'; *Його треба ухвалювати* (ParlaMint-UA_2022-01-25-m0.u125.p2.lang1.s4) 'It must be adopted' (accusative object *його* of the infinitive, placed before the predicative).

## 8. Existence, absence and possession

### 8.1 *Є* and *немає*

Existence is stated with *є* (the old 3rd person of *бути*, now used for all persons) in the present and with *бути* in the other tenses; absence with *немає* (also *нема*, colloquial and poetic) and *не було*, *не буде*, and the absent thing goes into the **genitive**:

|  | present | past | future |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| existence | *Є хліб.* 'There is bread.' | *Був хліб.* | *Буде хліб.* |
| absence | *Немає хліба.* 'There is no bread.' | *Не було хліба.* | *Не буде хліба.* |
| absence of a person | *Батька немає вдома.* 'Father isn't at home.' | *Батька не було вдома.* | *Батька не буде вдома.* |

The genitive of absence is obligatory in the standard (*Немає часу*, not **Немає час*); with *не було* the verb is neuter singular whatever the gender and number of the absent thing (*Не було грошей*, *Не було сестри*). ParlaMint: *Інакшого шляху немає* (ParlaMint-UA_2022-01-25-m0.u234.p4.lang1.s2) 'There is no other way'; *Михайла Віталійовича немає, да?* (ParlaMint-UA_2022-01-25-m0.u116.p2.lang1.s1) 'Mykhailo Vitaliiovych isn't here, right?' — the latter with the colloquial tag *да*, which spoken Ukrainian uses beside *так* (chapter 38).

The treebanks annotate *немає* differently: IU as the verb *немати* (78 occurrences: *немає* 47, *нема* 31), ParlaMint as `ADV` (*немає* 66, *нема* 21) or as `VERB` (*немає* 40, *нема* 3); counts of both capitalisations. The genitive of the absent thing is `obj` in IU (39 genitive `obj` of *немати*), `nsubj` or `obj` in ParlaMint. Chapter 27 treats the genitive of negation in general.

### 8.2 *У мене є* and *я маю*

Possession has two standard constructions:

- *У мене є брат* 'I have a brother': the possessor in *у* + genitive, the possessed as the nominative subject of *є*; negated *У мене немає брата* (genitive);
- *Я маю брата* 'I have a brother': the possessor as subject of *мати*, the possessed in the accusative; negated *Я не маю брата* (genitive of negation).

Both are native and standard. *У мене є* is the commoner for concrete possession, kinship and the body (*У неї сині очі* 'She has blue eyes', usually without *є*), and the obligatory one for illnesses and temporary states (*У мене болить голова* 'I have a headache', *У нас гості* 'We have guests'); *мати* is preferred with abstract objects and in official style (*мати право* 'to have the right', *мати значення* 'to matter', *мати можливість*). Normative advice since the 1920s has often recommended *мати* as the more "Ukrainian" choice; the folk texts the old grammarians cite have both (Smerechynskyi 1932 quotes a folk tale with *що в мене єсть дерево на хату* "that I have timber for a house"), and so do current texts. In the treebanks an *у/в* + genitive oblique of *бути* occurs 24 times in IU and 49 times in ParlaMint; in the Leipzig news sample *у мене є* and *в мене є* together occur 140 times, *я маю* 147 times — but *я маю* there includes the modal *я маю сказати* 'I must say' (`grep`, 2026-11-06), so possessive *мати* in the first person is less frequent than *у мене є*. ParlaMint: *Є багато проблем у комунальній сфері* (ParlaMint-UA_2003-10-14-m0.u151.p2.lang1.s2) 'There are many problems in the municipal sphere'.

*Мати* + infinitive is a modal of obligation or plan (*Я маю йти* 'I have to go', *Ми маємо їх послухати*, NSDC_UA_28_Feb2014-413, 'We must listen to them') and, in the future, of supposition (*Він має прийти* 'He is supposed to come').

## 9. Nominal predicates: zero copula, the dash, nominative and instrumental

### 9.1 The present: no copula

In the present the copula is usually absent: *Він учитель* 'He [is] a teacher', *Хата нова* 'The house [is] new'. The form *є* is used in definitions and in formal or emphatic statements (*Мова є найважливішим засобом спілкування* 'Language is the most important means of communication'), often with the instrumental, and in the plural *суть* is archaic. The counts of nominal predicates with a subject (an ADJ or NOUN head with an `nsubj` dependent; UD 2.18, 2026-11-06):

| predicate | IU: total / with `cop` / with dash / bare | ParlaMint: total / with `cop` / with dash / bare |
| --- | --- | --- |
| adjective, nominative | 551 / 144 / 26 / 381 | 696 / 149 / 7 / 540 |
| adjective, instrumental | 78 / 78 / 0 / 0 | 45 / 45 / 0 / 0 |
| noun, nominative | 326 / 54 / 125 / 147 | 317 / 34 / 81 / 202 |
| noun, instrumental | 147 / 138 / 2 / 7 | 67 / 65 / 0 / 2 |

The nominative predicate is the predicate of the copula-less present (only one in five has a `cop`), and the noun predicate often has a dash. The **instrumental** predicate needs a copula: 216 of 225 instrumentals in IU and 110 of 112 in ParlaMint have one (*був*, *буде*, *бути*, *є*). The present *є* as copula occurs 135 times in IU and 153 in ParlaMint, against *був/була/було/були* 512 and 164.

### 9.2 The dash

The 2019 orthography (§ 161.1) prescribes a dash between the subject and a noun (or numeral) predicate in the nominative when the copula is zero: *Кит — ссавець* 'The whale is a mammal', *Київ — столиця України* 'Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine', *П'ять і п'ять — десять*. It allows omitting it when the predicate is not specially stressed (*Мій батько інженер*, *Його ім'я Іван*); it is usually omitted when the subject is *це* (*Це наша хата*), when another member precedes the predicate, when the predicate precedes the subject, when the predicate is negated with *не* (*Серце не камінь*), when it is a comparison with *як, мов, наче* (*Життя як казка*), and when the subject is a personal pronoun (*Я син простого лісоруба*, Pavlychko) unless the predicate is stressed (*Вона для мене — все!*). The treebank counts (125 dashes with 326 nominative noun predicates in IU, 81 of 317 in ParlaMint, where the dash is the transcriber's) show that the dash is the minority even with nouns; with personal-pronoun subjects it is rare, as the rule says.

### 9.3 Nominative or instrumental after *бути*

In the past and future, and after the infinitive *бути*, the predicate noun or adjective may be nominative or instrumental: *Він був учитель* / *Він був учителем* 'He was a teacher'; *Вона була щаслива* / *Вона була щасливою* 'She was happy'. The difference, as the grammars describe it:

- **nominative**: a permanent property or identity, the predicate presented as a characteristic; vernacular and folk style: *Був собі дід та баба* 'There was once an old man and an old woman'; *Він був добрий чоловік* 'He was a good man';
- **instrumental**: a temporary state, role or status, or a property presented as attained: *Він був тоді студентом* 'He was a student then'; *Вона буде лікаркою* 'She will be a doctor'.

Smerechynskyi (1932, ch. IX) went further and declared the predicative instrumental "not proper to the Ukrainian folk language", calling the predicative nominative "perhaps the greatest feature of the Ukrainian language" and attributing the spread of the instrumental to Polish and Russian. His view did not prevail: the modern standard admits both, and in writing the instrumental dominates after an overt copula — in IU, 216 instrumental against 198 nominative predicates have a `cop`, in ParlaMint 110 against 183. The nominative remains standard and is the stylistic choice of folk narrative, poetry and speech.

With the **semi-copulas** — *стати*, *ставати*, *бувати*, *здаватися*, *виявитися*, *вважатися*, *залишатися*, *називатися*, *зватися* — the instrumental is the norm (*Він став учителем*, *Це виявилося помилкою* 'This turned out to be a mistake'); in IU these are `xcomp:pred` (heads: *стати* 73, *називати* 27, *вважати* 21, *ставати* 19, *виявитися* 14), the predicate is a noun in the instrumental in 154 cases, an adjective in the instrumental in 98, and a nominative in 42. The nominative after them is folk or colloquial (*Став він великий* 'He grew big').

### 9.4 Other predicate forms

| form | example | gloss |
| --- | --- | --- |
| genitive of quality | *Він високого зросту.* *Вона доброї вдачі.* | 'He is tall.' 'She has a kind nature.' |
| prepositional phrase | *Він у гарному настрої.* *Хліб із житнього борошна.* | 'He is in a good mood.' 'The bread is of rye flour.' |
| short adjective (poetic, a few in prose) | *Будь здоров!* *Він винен.* *Я повинен.* *Вона рада.* | 'Be healthy!' 'He is guilty.' 'I must.' 'She is glad.' |
| infinitive | *Наше завдання — вчитися.* | 'Our task is to learn.' |
| comparison | *Життя як казка.* | 'Life is like a fairy tale.' |

The short adjectives *винен*, *повинен*, *рад*, *ладен*, *згоден*, *здоров*, *певен*, *жив* survive as predicates in the standard; the others are poetic (*зелен гай*, *повен місяць*).

## 10. Varieties and styles as deltas

Each variety or style is listed by what it changes in the clause structure of the literary standard.

| variety or style | grammar delta | lexicon delta | orthography / pronunciation delta |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| colloquial standard | more subject drop; *нема* for *немає*; the nominative predicate after *був*; *Мені потрібно книжку* (accusative with impersonal *потрібно*) next to codified *потрібна книжка*; *давай* + future as hortative | *да* beside *так* | — |
| official and journalistic | *-но/-то* frequent, with *було/буде*; instrumental agents (*ухвалено Радою*); *є* + instrumental in definitions; *слід*, *необхідно*; *мати* + abstract noun (*мати місце*, *мати значення*) | verbal nouns, compound prepositions | — |
| folk narrative and song | nominative predicates (*Був собі дід*); the "unknown force" construction; *-но/-то* in songs (*козаченька вбито*); numeral subjects with the singular (*Там стояло два дубочки*); short adjectives | fixed epithets, diminutives | — |
| south-western dialects | the past with person clitics (*я спав-єм*, *ти ходила-сь*, *ми були-сме*); more pro-drop in the past; mobile *ся* | regional | regional |
| surzhyk | Ukrainian clause structure; impersonal predicatives often Russian (*нада* for *треба*, *можна* is shared); *у мене є* (shared); Russian copula patterns rare | Russian predicatives and particles | Russian unstressed vowels; infinitive *-ть* |

## 11. Quick reference: clause structure in UD

| construction | example | UD analysis (UD_Ukrainian guidelines as applied in IU and ParlaMint) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| dropped subject | *Пишу листа.* | no `nsubj`; *Пишу* `Person=1` |
| impersonal verb | *Світає.* | root VERB, no `nsubj` |
| dative experiencer | *Мені холодно.* | root *холодно* ADV; `iobj` or `obl`(*холодно*, *Мені*) |
| predicative + infinitive | *Треба йти.* | root *Треба* ADV; `csubj`(*Треба*, *йти*) |
| tense on a predicative | *Треба було йти.* | `cop`(*Треба*, *було*) |
| *-но/-то* | *Хату збудовано.* | root *збудовано* VERB `Person=0`; `obj`(*збудовано*, *Хату*) |
| *-но/-то* with *було* | *Хату було збудовано.* | `aux` or `cop`(*збудовано*, *було*) |
| unknown force | *Громом убило дерево.* | root *убило* `Gender=Neut`; `obj` *дерево*; `obl` *Громом* (Ins) |
| existential | *Є хліб.* | root *Є* VERB *бути*; `nsubj`(*Є*, *хліб*) |
| absence | *Немає хліба.* | root *Немає* (VERB *немати* in IU, ADV or VERB in ParlaMint); *хліба* Gen |
| possession | *У мене є брат.* | `obl`(*є*, *мене*) with `case` *У*; `nsubj`(*є*, *брат*) |
| zero copula | *Він учитель.* | root *учитель*; `nsubj`(*учитель*, *Він*) |
| copula + Ins | *Він був учителем.* | root *учителем* `Case=Ins`; `cop` *був* |
| semi-copula | *Він став учителем.* | root *став*; `xcomp:pred` (IU) or `xcomp` (ParlaMint) *учителем* |
| name | *Мене звати Іван.* | root *звати* (Inf); `obj` *Мене*; *Іван* `xcomp` |

## 12. How Mova handles it

Mova's Ukrainian is the simple-sentence fact extractor `kg/src/uk.rs` (chapter 20 § 12), with VESUM morphology in `kg/src/morph.rs` and the 4-byte grammar of `kg/src/gram.rs`. For clause structure it has:

- **Implicit subjects.** When no nominative agrees with the predicate, the fact gets a `subject` member with no word, lemma `ø|noun` and `Gram::implicit_subject(pred)` — the person, number and gender read off the verb — and the `IMPLICIT` flag (`kg/src/gram.rs`). Imperatives get no subject.
- **Agreement** (`fn agrees`): present and future by person and number (a noun counts as 3rd person), past by gender and number.
- **Copula** (`COPULA` list: *бути, стати, ставати, здаватися, залишатися, лишатися, виявитися, виявлятися, вважатися, бувати*): a free nominative or instrumental noun or adjective becomes `predicate:nominal`.
- **Verbless sentences** (`fn nominal_sentence`): *X — Y*, *Це Y*, two-word *X Y*, and *subject + attribute + noun*; the predicate is the nominative noun or adjective.
- **Modal and phasal verbs** (`MODAL` list) take an infinitive as `predicate:infinitive`.
- **Predicative words** (*треба, потрібно, можна, слід, варто, необхідно, неможливо*) are on the conjunction list `CONJ` and **reject** the sentence, because "with an infinitive" they were judged not simple.
- **The *-но/-то* form** is tagged `impers` by VESUM (tense value 6 in `TENSE_NAMES`), but `fn finite` accepts only present, future, past and imperative, so a sentence whose only predicate is a *-но/-то* form has no predicate and is rejected.

### 12.1 Measured (kg at the worktree's commit, CPU, 2026-11-06)

| sentence | kg output | right? |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *Прийшла.* | predicate *прийти* (past fem.), implicit subject feminine singular | yes |
| *Пишу листа.* | predicate *писати* 1sg, implicit 1st-person subject, object *лист* (Acc) | yes |
| *Світає.* | predicate *світати*, implicit 3rd-person subject | the predicate is right; the implicit subject is not: the sentence has no subject |
| *Смеркало.* | predicate *смеркати* (past neut.), implicit neuter subject | same |
| *Він учитель.* | predicate *учитель* (Nom), subject *він* | yes |
| *Він був учителем.* | predicate *бути*, subject *він*, `predicate:nominal` *учитель* (Ins) | yes |
| *Київ — столиця України.* | rejected: not covered by rules | no (the dash pattern exists in `nominal_sentence`, but this sentence did not pass) |
| *Мені холодно.* | rejected: not covered by rules | no |
| *Мені шкода.* | rejected: not covered | no |
| *Треба йти.* | rejected: conjunction (*треба* is on `CONJ`) | no, by design |
| *Вікно розбито.* | rejected: not covered (no finite predicate) | no |
| *Хату збудовано.* | rejected: not covered | no |
| *У мене є брат.* | rejected: ambiguous | no |
| *У мене немає часу.* | rejected: not covered | no |
| *Мене звати Іван.* | rejected: not covered | no |
| *Дерево вбило громом.* | subject *дерево*, object *грім* (Ins) | **no**: *дерево* is the accusative object of the subjectless "unknown force" verb and *громом* its instrumental means; the extractor treats every agreeing nominative-shaped noun as a subject |

### 12.2 Not yet

- No subjectless clause types: dative-experiencer states, predicatives, *-но/-то*, existentials with *є/немає* and the "unknown force" construction are rejected or misread. An implicit subject is posited for impersonal verbs that have none.
- No difference between a dropped subject (recoverable) and an absent one (impersonal); both would need a flag beside `IMPLICIT`.
- No conditional mood in the grammar: *би* is a `particle` member and the predicate keeps its past tense (*Я прийшов би* → predicate *прийти* past + particle *би*, measured 2026-11-06).
- No numeral subjects (chapter 22) and no choice between singular and plural agreement with quantifiers: *Багато людей прийшло/прийшли* both parse, with *людей* as `quantity:багато` and an implicit subject instead of the quantifier phrase as subject.
- No Ukrainian UD parser, no `tools/mova-parse` model, no Ukrainian pragmatic labels (`prag/` reads English).

## 13. Sources

- Smerechynskyi, Serhii. 1932. *Нариси з української синтакси*. Kharkiv. Ch. I (subjectless sentences with *-но/-то*; *було/буде*; the agentive instrumental; *від* + genitive), ch. II (the "unknown force"), ch. IV (agreement with coordinated, comitative and numeral subjects), ch. IX (the predicative nominative and instrumental). `smerechynskyi-1932-narysy-z-ukrainskoi-syntaksy` (public domain in UA/EU)
- Simovych, Vasyl. 1919. *Граматика української мови для самонавчання та в допомогу шкільній науці*. § 340 (subjectless sentences). `simovych-1919-hramatyka-ukrainskoi-movy-dlia` (public domain)
- *Український правопис*. 2019. § 117 (*би/б*), § 118 (infinitive), § 161 (the dash between subject and predicate). `ukrainskyi-pravopys-2019` (official text)
- Janda, Laura A. and Yuliia Palii. 2024. Understanding 'many' through the lens of Ukrainian багато. *Russian Linguistics* 48. `janda-2024-bahato-many` (CC BY 4.0)
- Fellerer, Jan. 2022. Subject pro-drop and past-tense auxiliary clitics in South-Western Ukrainian. *Russian Linguistics* 46(3). `fellerer-2022-pro-drop-sw` (CC BY 4.0)
- Shvedova, M., A. Lukashevskyi, A. Rysin. 2025. Developing a Universal Dependencies Treebank for Ukrainian Parliamentary Speech. UNLP 2025. `shvedova-2025-developing-universal-dependencies-treebank-ukrainian` (CC BY 4.0)
- Universal Dependencies 2.18: UD_Ukrainian-IU (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; counts only), UD_Ukrainian-ParlaMint (CC BY-SA 4.0; quoted by `sent_id`); counted 2026-11-06, all splits.
- Leipzig Corpora Collection, *ukr_news_2024* (1 M sentences; Goldhahn, Eckart & Quasthoff 2012; CC BY); leipzig-news-2024, counted with `grep` 2026-11-06.
- Mova: `kg/src/uk.rs` (`fn parse`, `fn verbal`, `fn nominal_sentence`, `fn agrees`, `COPULA`, `MODAL`, `CONJ`), `kg/src/gram.rs` (`TENSE_NAMES`, `IMPLICIT`), `kg/src/morph.rs`, [kg — the Mova knowledge graph](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/kg/).
- [← previous 20. Syntax overview](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/20-syntax-overview/)
- [next → 22. Phrases](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/22-phrases/)
- [↑ back to Ukrainian: a reference manual for Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/)