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Learn Croatian without problems Author: Grgo Petrov E-mail: grgo.petrov@gmail.

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ABOUT GRAMMATICAL CASES | NOMINATIV


Nominativ (lat. nominare = to name) is a case which in many languages, including Croatian, signies performer of some action, bearer of doing, condition or characteristics, in contrary to other cases.padeima. Nominativ is called as well as rst case. Terms in dictionaries are written in nominativ. In Croatian nominativ answers question Who? or What? (Tko? ili to?). Nominativ is along with vokativ (vocative) independent case. Its mostly subject of a sentence or part of predicate. To understand following example you need to know what is subject of a sentence, what is predicate, adverbial and other parts of sentence structure (syntax). Problem with English language is that practically all nouns/adjectives/numbers are in nominative - always. In the following examples you will see many categories where nominative is. Note that only nouns/adjective/numbers in nominative that t the category will be bold, although there could be more of them. PLACE IN SENTENCES mostly as subject Marko je doao. Ti pije vodu. Marko arrived. You drink water. Who arrived? Who drinks? Marko You

as part of nominal predicate On je mudar. To nije moj konj. Vrata su otvorena. He is wise. Who is wise? That is not my horse. It is not what? Doors are opened. What is opened? wise my horse doors

with some verbs (postati, zvati se, ostati, initi se, biti i dr. / to become, to be called, to remain/stay, to do, to be etc) Postao je lijenik. He became a doctor. Zovem se Bond.James Bond. I call myself Bond. James Bond. (lit. translation) Bio je uitelj. He was a teacher. with conjuctions kao and nego nominative can be adverbial Tri kao pas. To nije Marko, nego Ana! Izgleda kao vila. You run like a dog. Its not Marko, but Ana! She looks like a fairy. How do you run? Who is it? She looks like what? like a dog not Marko,but Ana like a fairy What did he become? How do you call yourself? What was he? a doctor Bond... a teacher

as attribute and apposition referring to noun in nominative Tu je Marija, Ivanova ena, vrlo ozbiljna osoba. Heres Marija, Ivans wife, very serious person. Both Ivans wife and serious person reer to Marija. And the question would be Who is here?. Marija. Outside sentences nominatives is used for naming beings, things and phenomena Hrvatska, mlijena okolada, Hrvoje Horvat, Jadransko more... Croatia, milk/dairy chocolate, Hrvoje Horvat, Adriatic sea... If your native language doesnt need to distungish direct object, predicate, subject, etc from each other, just remember that subject of sentence (who or what is doing something or being something) is always in nominative and in nominative can be nouns/adjectives/numbers as part of predicate (He is wise - he + is wise-he=subject, Is wise = predicate)

SOUND CHANGES IN NOMINATIVE Sound changes are main reason (along with few other things, but this is most important) why I will write you three forms of noun,adjective or number when learning vocabulary! As you would have problems to get the rules. Once you develop feeling for it, you wont need to look for the rules every time. So, nominative plural of some nouns of masculine gender can change. To get idea of what this should look like, try to imagine in some examples in English (carry-carries, Dutch (stenen - steen), German (Haus - Huser..), Italian (la mucca - le mucche) and other languages. Generally, the plural sux for masculine is -i. Sibilarizacija is sound change where consonants k,g,h are changed to c,z,s. kc gz hs junak - junaci prilog - prilozi kruh - krusi

Some nouns in nominative plural of masculine gender have dierent plural (just two letters more). These endings are -ovi, -evi. vuk-vukovi duh-duhovi and some have short duh-dusi vuk-vuci and some have both short and long which means they can be both duhovi and dusi, vukovi and vuci. By insertion of -ov we extend the basis of plural of one-syllable nouns, and by insertion of -ev nouns that end with sounds , , , d, , j, lj or nj (shortly, unusual letters). This is general rule though of course there are words from both groups that dont follow the rule. Following rules -ov Following rules for -ev However, these examples dont follow the rules. brod - brodovi grob - grobovi stol - stolovi hram - hramovi slon - slonovi most - mostovi mi - mievi no - noevi pu - puevi aj - ajevi noj - nojevi mu - muevi konj - konji zub - zubi

Vowel-zero alternation or Invisible a as I named it as it sometimes disappears. It exists in some forms/cases of some masculine nouns,adjectives and numbers. In my opinion, all cases of use of invisible a are to avoid the same singular and plural form and ambiguity in declension. More of it when we get to declension of masculine gender words as you will see template how to use it. Until then, here are some examples that have it. pas - psi konac - konci kukac - kukci stolac - stolci borac - borci momak - momci dobar - dobri sitan - sitni This change doesnt apply to loanwords/words imported from foreign languages. manijak - manijaci

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