hingatakse

Hingatakse is the present passive form of hingata, the Estonian verb meaning to breathe. It expresses that the action of breathing is performed, with the actor not specified. This form is common in technical and descriptive texts, such as discussions of respiration, ventilation, or gas exchange, where the doer is either unknown or irrelevant.

Morphology: In Estonian, passive forms are built by adding a suffix to the verb stem; hingata yields hingatakse in the present tense. The form does not encode number; number is inferred from the subject in the surrounding sentence.

Related forms: Hingamine (breathing, the noun for the action), hingatud (past passive participle), hingab (active present 3rd person singular).

Usage notes: Because the actor is omitted, hingatakse can sometimes produce ambiguity about agency; use a clear subject when needed to avoid confusion.

See also: Hingamine, Hingata, Estonian grammar: passive voice.