Breakdown of Chciałem, żebyś spalił te dokumenty.
ten
this (m)
chcieć
to want
dokument
document
żeby
so that, in order to
spalić
to burn
Questions & Answers about Chciałem, żebyś spalił te dokumenty.
Why is it spalił and not spalił się here?
The verb spalić without się is transitive, meaning to burn an object. Because the subject is actively destroying the object (te dokumenty), we do not use się. If you used the middle voice and said te dokumenty spaliły się, it would mean the documents burned down by themselves or caught fire spontaneously.
Why use the past tense spalił after żebyś instead of an infinitive like spalić?
When you want someone else to do something, Polish requires żeby followed by the past tense form of the verb, even if the action is in the future. You only use the infinitive (like chciałem to spalić) when the person wanting is also the one doing the action.
Why does spalił look like it is in the third-person past tense (he burned)?
It actually is a third-person form on its own! In Polish, past tense personal endings can detach from the verb. Here, the second-person ending -ś has moved onto the conjunction to make żebyś. Together, żebyś spalił means that you (masculine) burned.
Can I move the -ś ending back to the verb and say żeby spaliłeś?
No, that is incorrect in standard Polish. Conjunctions like żeby act as mandatory magnets for personal endings like -m and -ś. You must attach the ending to the conjunction, which is why it is always żebyś spalił.
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