Serbo-Croatian grammar
is a South Slavic language that has, like most other Slavic languages, an extensive system of inflection. This article describes exclusively the grammar of the Shtokavian dialect, which is a part of the South Slavic dialect continuum and the basis for the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard variants of Serbo-Croatian. "An examination of all the major 'levels' of language shows that BCS is clearly a single language with a single grammatical system."
A taxonomic qualification is required to understand why this language remains referred to in its dialect form of Slavic as "Shtokavian." The grammar emerges from morphological changes from its parent language. The host of ethnonims applied such as "Bosnian" and "Montenegrin" rises from socio-civic political constructs from very recent periods, while the dialect develops prior to the existing ethnic and national identities. While normally the dialect would assume the name of the civic or state entity in which it happens, Shtokavian develops cross-tribally, predicating its use as the preferred choice for linguistic discussion.
Pronouns, nouns, adjectives and some numerals decline whereas verbs conjugate for person and tense. As in other Slavic languages, the basic word order is subject–verb–object, but the declensions show sentence structure and so word order is not as important as in more analytic languages, such as English or Chinese. Deviations from the standard SVO order are stylistically marked and may be employed to convey a particular emphasis, mood or overall tone, according to the intentions of the speaker or writer. Often, such deviations will sound literary, poetical or archaic.
Nouns have three grammatical genders that correspond, to a certain extent, with the word ending so most nouns with -a are feminine, -o and -e neuter, and the rest mostly masculine but with some feminine. The grammatical gender of a noun affects the morphology of other parts of speech attached to it. Nouns are declined into seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative, and instrumental.
Verbs are divided into two broad classes according to their aspect, which can be either perfective or imperfective. There are seven tenses, four of which are used in contemporary Serbo-Croatian, and the other three used much less frequently. The pluperfect is generally limited to written language and some more educated speakers, and the aorist and imperfect are considered stylistically marked and rather archaic. However, some nonstandard dialects make considerable use of those tenses. Aorist and pluperfect are typically more used in villages and small towns of Serbia than in standard language, even in villages close to Serbian capital Belgrade. In some parts of Serbia, the aorist can even be the most common past tense.
All Serbo-Croatian lexemes in this article are spelled in accented form in the Latin alphabet as well as in Ijekavian and Ekavian when these differ. See Serbo-Croatian phonology.
Morphology
Serbo-Croatian makes a distinction between three genders seven cases and two numbers.Nouns
Serbo-Croatian has three main declensional types, traditionally called a-type, e-type and i-type respectively, according to their genitive singular ending.a-type nouns
This type reflects Proto-Slavic o-stems, and is characterized by the endings,, or zero in the nominative singular, and in genitive singular. It includes most of the masculine and all of the neuter nouns.The category of animacy is important for choosing of accusative singular of o-stems, and of personal pronouns. Animate nouns have the accusative case like the genitive, and inanimate nouns have the accusative case like the nominative. This is also important for adjectives and numerals that agree with masculine nouns in case.
This type has two sets of case endings: one for masculine, and the other for neuter gender:
The zero ending -Ø is for masculine nouns that end in consonant in nominative singular. Most masculine monosyllabic and some bisyllabic words receive an additional suffix -ov- or -ev- throughout the plural.
The choice of -o- and -e- endings in the nominative, vocative and instrumental singular, as well as the plural suffix -ov-/-ev-, is governed by the stem-final consonant: if it is a "soft", -e- endings are used, and -o endings otherwise; however, there are exceptions.
Some loanwords, chiefly of French origin, preserve the ending vowel as part of the stem; those ending in -i receive an additional epenthetic -j- suffix in oblique cases: kàfē – kafèi 'café', pànō – panòi 'billboard', kànū – kanùi 'canoe', tàksi – taksiji 'taxi'. They are always of masculine gender; loanwords ending in -a are typically of the [|e-declension class] ; neuter nouns are basically a closed class.
Masculine nouns
Masculine nouns belonging to this declension class are those that are not hypocorisms, and do not end in -a, which undergo e-type declension.According to the nominative singular forms they are divided in two classes:
- nouns having the zero ending -Ø in nominative singular
- nouns having the ending -o or -e in nominative singular
Neuter nouns
Neuter nouns end in -o, -e and -∅.Neuter nouns ending in -''o''
The final o is always a suffix. Nouns which have at least two consonants before the final o have disappearing a in genitive plural.The noun dȑvo can mean material "wood", in which case it is declined as above ; and a living "tree", where it can be declined either as above or as an form below:
When the nouns ȍko and ȕho mean "eye" and "ear", except after a number ending with two-to-four, their plurals are feminine; their plurals are neuter otherwise.
Nouns čȕdo "miracle", kȍlo "wheel", nȅbo "sky", tijêlo "body" and ȕho "ear", in addition to form plurals without disappearing a, have imparisyllabic plurals formed by appending -es- to the base. These plurals are used differently. The nominative plural of ȕho is ušèsa, and the nominative plural of tijêlo is tjelèsa.
Neuter nouns ending in -''e''
The final e can be a suffix, so the noun is parisyllabic, and it can belong to the noun base, in which case the noun is not parisyllabic. The noun is parisyllabic if it ends with -je, -lje, -nje, -će, -đe, -ce, -šte, -šće or -žđe. The nouns môre and tlȅ are also parisyllabic. If a noun has at least two consonants before the final e, it has a disappearing a in genitive plural. This is not the case if the noun ends with -šte, -šće, -žđe or -je. Nouns representing living things do not have plural forms, but their plurality is marked with a collective noun formed with -ād or by using a noun formed with -ići. The noun dijéte "child" is a singulare tantum and uses the collective noun djèca, f. sg. singulare tantum, but plural with verbs, instead of a plural form.Other neuter nouns
The pluralia tantum nouns vráta, ústa and plúća can have the suffix -ijū in genitive plural: vrátijū, ústijū, plúćijū. The only neuter noun ending in -a is dȍba/dôba:| Case | Singular | Plural |
| N | dȍba | dȍba |
| G | dȍba | dôbā |
| D | dȍbu | dȍbima |
| A | dȍba | dȍba |
| V | dȍba | dȍba |
| L | dȍbu | dȍbima |
| I | dȍbom | dȍbima |
e-type nouns
This type reflects Proto-Slavic a-stems, and is characterized by the ending -a in nominative singular and -ē in genitive singular. It contains most of the feminine nouns, and a small number of masculines.i-type nouns
This type reflects Proto-Slavic i-stems, and is characterized by the zero ending in nominative singular and -i in genitive singular. It contains the rest of feminine nouns, i.e., those that are not contained in the e-type nouns.| singular | plural | |
| Nominative | - | -i |
| Genitive | -i | -i |
| Dative/Locative | -i | -ima |
| Accusative | - | -i |
| Vocative | -i | -i |
| Instrumental | -i/ju | -ima |
Some nouns appear only in the plural form and do not have a singular variant. The gender of these nouns is either feminine or neuter.
Pronouns
Serbo-Croatian allows deletion of the subject pronoun. Example:Personal pronouns
| Case | 1st sg. | 2nd sg. | 3rd sg. | 1st pl. | 2nd pl. | 3rd pl. |
| Nominative | ja | ti | on / ona / ono | mi | vi | oni / one / ona |
| Genitive | mene | tebe | njega / nje / njega | nas | vas | njih |
| Dative | meni | tebi | njemu / njoj / njemu | nama | vama | njima |
| Accusative | mene | tebe | njega / nju / njega | nas | vas | njih |
| Vocative | -- | ti | -- | -- | vi | -- |
| Locative | meni | tebi | njemu / njoj / njemu | nama | vama | njima |
| Instrumental | mnom | tobom | njim / njom / njim | nama | vama | njima |
Adjectives
Some of the declensions for adjectives are the same as for nouns: velika kuća, veliku kuću. Others differ: jednim klikom.Singular
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
| Nominative | velik | velika | veliko |
| Genitive | velikog | velike | velikog |
| Dative | velikom | velikoj | velikom |
| Accusative | velik | veliku | veliko |
| Vocative | veliki | velika | veliko |
| Locative | velikom | velikoj | velikom |
| Instrumental | velikim | velikom | velikim |
Plural
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
| Nominative | veliki | velike | velika |
| Genitive | velikih | velikih | velikih |
| Dative | velikim | velikim | velikim |
| Accusative | velike | velike | velika |
| Vocative | veliki | velike | velika |
| Locative | velikim | velikim | velikim |
| Instrumental | velikim | velikim | velikim |
- Note: animate objects are treated differently in the singular masculine accusative. In this case, it is the same as singular masculine genitive. It is considered accusative even though it looks like the genitive. Example: Vidim velikog psa.
- Note: most adjectives ending in consonant-'a'-consonant, the 'a' disappears when any letter is added. Dobar becomes, for example, dobri, dobra, dobrog, dobru, dobrim, dobrom, dobre, and dobrih, according to case and number.
Numerals
jedan pas
tri psa
pet pasa
| Digit | Serbo-Croatian | English | Digits | Serbo-Croatian | English | Digits | Serbo-Croatian | English | Digits | Serbo-Croatian | Serbo-Croatian | English | |||
| 0 | nula | zero | 10 | dȅset | ten | 20 | dvadeset | twenty | 200 | dvjesta | dvije stotine | two hundred | |||
| 1 | jèdan | one | 11 | jedanaest < jedanaest < jedan+na+deset | eleven | 30 | trideset | thirty | 300 | trista | tri stotine | three hundred | |||
| 2 | dvȃ | two | 12 | dvanaest < dvanaest < dva+na+deset | twelve | 40 | četrdeset | forty | 400 | četiristo | četiri stotine | four hundred | |||
| 3 | trȋ | three | 13 | trinaest | thirteen | 50 | pedeset | fifty | 500 | petsto | pet stotina | five hundred | |||
| 4 | čètiri | four | 14 | četrnaest | fourteen | 60 | šezdeset | sixty | 600 | šeststo | šest stotina | six hundred | |||
| 5 | pȇt | five | 15 | petnaest | fifteen | 70 | sedamdeset | seventy | 700 | sedamsto | sedam stotina | seven hundred | |||
| 6 | šȇst | six | 16 | šesnaest | sixteen | 80 | osamdeset | eighty | 800 | osamsto | osam stotina | eight hundred | |||
| 7 | sȅdam | seven | 17 | sedamnaest | seventeen | 90 | devedeset | ninety | 900 | devetsto | devet stotina | nine hundred | |||
| 8 | ȍsam | eight | 18 | osamnaest | eighteen | 100 | sto | hundred | 1000 | tisuća | thousand | ||||
| 9 | dȅvet | nine | 19 | devetnaest | nineteen |
Verbs
Like those of other Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian verbs have a property of aspect: the perfective and the imperfective. Perfective indicates an action that is completed or sudden, while the imperfective denotes continuous, repeated, or habitual action. Aspect compensates for a relative lack of tenses compared with e.g. Germanic or Romance languages: the verb already contains the information whether the action is completed or lasting, so there is no general distinction between continuous and perfect tenses.Slavic verbs in general are characterized by a relatively low number of stems, from which a wide variety of meanings is achieved by prefixation.
Tense
The indicative has seven tenses: present, past, futures I and II, pluperfect, aorist and imperfect. The latter two are not used often in daily speech, especially the imperfect. The present, aorist, and imperfect are formed through inflection, and the other tenses are periphrastic:- Past uses the present of biti plus the perfect participle, e.g. radio sam.
- Future I uses the present of htjeti plus the infinitive, e.g. ćemo kuhati.
- Future II uses the perfective future of biti plus the perfect participle, e.g. budu išli.
- Pluperfect, which is not often used, uses the composite past tense of biti plus the perfect participle, e.g. bio sam došao, or imperfect of biti plus the participle, e.g. bijah došao
Mood
Besides the indicative, Serbo-Croatian uses the imperative, conditional, and the optative. Imperative forms vary according to the type of the verb, and is formed by adding the appropriate morpheme to a verbal stem. The conditional I uses the aorist of biti plus perfect participle, while conditional II consists of the perfect participle of biti, the aorist of the same verb, and the perfect participle of the main verb. Some grammars classify future II as a conditional tense, or even a mood of its own.Optative is in its form identical to the perfect participle. It is used by speakers to express a strong wish, e.g. Živio predsjednik! 'Long live the president!', Dabogda ti se sjeme zatrlo!, etc. The optative may be translated into English by an imperative construction, with set phrases, or by use of the modal verb may.
Some authors suggest existence of subjunctive mood, realized as da plus the present of indicative, but most grammars treat it as present indicative.
Aspect
Verbal aspect is distinguished in English by using the simple or progressive forms. 'He washed the dishes' indicates that the action was finished; 'He was washing the dishes' indicates that the action was ongoing. Serbo-Croatian, like all Slavic languages, has the aspect built into the verbs, rather than expressing it with different tenses.To compare the meanings of the different aspects with verbal aspect in English, one should know three basic aspects: completed, progressive, and iterative. English uses one aspect for completed and iterative and another for progressive. Serbo-Croatian uses one for completed and another for iterative and progressive.
Aspect is the most challenging part of Serbo-Croatian grammar. Although aspect exists in all other Slavic languages, learners of Serbo-Croatian who already know even one of several other Slavic languages may never learn to use aspect correctly, though they will be understood with only rare problems. While there are bi-aspectual verbs as well, primarily those derived by adding the suffix -irati or -ovati, the majority of verbs not derived in such a manner are either perfective or imperfective. Almost all of the single aspectual verbs are part of a perfective–imperfective pair of verbs. When learning a verb, one must learn its verbal aspect, and the other verb for the opposite verbal aspect, e.g. prati goes with oprati. The pairing, however, is not always one to one: some verbs simply don't have a counterpart on a semantic level, such as izgledati or sadržati. In others, there are several perfective alternatives with slightly different meanings.
There are two paradigms concerning formation of verb pairs. In one paradigm, the base verb is imperfective, such as prati. In this case the perfective is formed by adding a prefix, in this case o, as in oprati. In the other paradigm, the root verb is perfective, and the imperfective is formed either by modifying the root: dignuti→dizati or adding an interfix stati→stajati.
A pattern which often arises can be illustrated with pisati, "to write". Pisati is imperfective, so a prefix is needed to make it perfective, in this case na-: napisati. But if other prefixes are added, modifying the meaning, the verb becomes perfective: zapisati or prepisati. Since these basic verbs are perfective, an interfix is needed to make them imperfective: zapisivati and prepisivati. In some cases, this could be continued by adding a prefix: pozapisivati and isprepisivati which are again perfective.
Conjugation of verbs
There are three conjugations of verbs:- 'a': almost all verbs that have this conjugation end in '-ati'.
- 'e': verbs ending in '-nuti' and all irregular verbs. Verbs ending in '-ovati', '-ivati' become 'uje' when conjugated
- 'i': almost all verbs ending in '-jeti' or '-iti' use this conjugation.
Auxiliary verbs
Jesam has the following declension in the present tense. It has long and clitic forms, while its negative form is written as one word, unlike other verbs. The short and the negative forms are used as auxiliary, while the long form is marked.
The copulative use of the verb јеsam matches that of the verb "to be" in English, of course, in the present tense only. The 'true' forms present of the verb biti, have a limited use.
Verb biti is conjugated as follows:
Regular verbs
The conjugation system of regular verbs is rather complex. There are several classes of verbs distinguished according to certain features verbs within a class share.The verb is raditi
This paradigm applies to verbs such as:
vidjeti
hodati
pričati
morati
Irregular verbs
are more complex to conjugate than regular verbs, for example the verb moćiAdverbs
Adverbs in Serbo-Croatian are, unlike nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns and numbers, and like prepositions, conjunctions, exclamations and particles, immutable words. Adverbs are, thus, immutable words given to verbs to determine the time, place, manner, cause, point and the amount of the action of the verb. There are seven types of adverbs in Serbo-Croatian:Place adverbs
Place adverbs answer the questions where?, to where?, which way?, from where? and to where?. Examples for each type are:Temporal adverbs
Temporal adverbs, or "vremenski prilozi", answer the questions when?, from when?, until when?. Examples are: kada - sada, tada, nikada, ponekad,uvijek, jučer, danas, sutra, prekosutra, lani, večeras, odmah/smjesta, zatim, uskoro, napokon ; otkad - odsad, oduvijek ; dokad - dosad, dogodine.Prepositions
Each preposition has an assigned case. If an inflectable word follows a preposition, the word is declined in the same case as the preposition's assigned case.Genitive prepositions:
Dative prepositions:
Accusative prepositions:
Locative prepositions:
Instrumental prepositions:
Dynamic v. Static
Some prepositions fall in two or more cases. The ones that fall in both the accusative and locative cases, the preposition is accusative if it is dynamic and is locative if it is static. Dynamic means that the preposition shows motion while static does not.
Examples:
Conjunctions and particles
Syntax
Word order
Serbo-Croatian has a rich case structure that is reflected in the declension of nouns and adjectives. That allows for a great deal of freedom in word order. In English, for example, the word order shows a difference in meaning between "Man bites dog" and "Dog bites man". In Serbo-Croatian, Čovjek grize psa and Čovjeka grize pas have the same word order, but the meanings are shown by the noun endings. Any order of the three constituents is grammatically correct, and the meaning is clear because of the declensions. However, the usual order is subject–verb–object, as in English.Serbo-Croatian closely observes Wackernagel's Law that clitics are placed in the second position in all clauses. The first element may be a single word or a noun phrase: Taj je čovjek rekao, "That man said", or Taj čovjek je rekao'. Multiple clitics are grouped in the following fixed order:
- question word,
- verbs: clitic forms of "to be" except
Relative clauses
s
The most frequent relativizer is the relative pronoun koji. It has the greatest range of antecedents, which, however, are mostly nouns or personal pronouns. Nouns are the word class with attributes, and the relative clause is most frequently an attributive clause. The frequency of the adjectival pronoun koji is greater than those relative pronouns that cannot have an antecedent noun. Also, it occurs much more frequently than other adjectival relative pronouns: in comparison with their specialized semantic functions such as possessiveness, quality or quantity, the pronoun koji has the broadest scope of reference and identification with the referent.