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'''Croatian grammar''' is very similar to other languages of the South Central Slavic ] and descends from ] which was used until the 16th century It differs little from the languages used in ], ], and ]. There are also substantial differences with the ] and ] dialects spoken in Croatia.

Croatian has three ]s (masculine, feminine, and neuter), a relatively large number of ]s (7) but few verb tenses.

This page outlines the ] of Croatian.

==Nouns==
The two most important things regarding nouns in Croatian are the seven cases and the so-called "fleeting 'a'".

'''Noun endings in singular'''
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Case
! Masculine
! Feminine 1 (ending in 'a') / 2 (ending in consonant)
! Neuter 1 (ending in 'o') / 2 (ending in 'e')
|-
| ]
| -
| -a / -
| -o / -e
|-
| ]
| -a
| -e / -i
| -a / -na or -ta
|-
| ]
| -u
| -i -/ -i
| -u / -nu or -tu
|-
| ]
| -
| -u / -
| -o / -e
|-
| ]
| -e (-u after ])
| -o
| -o / -e
|-
| ]
| -u
| -i
| -u / -nu or -tu
|-
| ]
| -om
| -om / -i or -u*
| -om / -nom or -tom
|}

NOTE: Masculine singular animate accusative is treated specially and gets an -a ending.

===Examples of declensions===

'''Singular''' (The feminine and neuter have two forms, feminine ending in 'a' or in a consonant and neuter ending in 'o' or 'e'.)

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Case
! Masculine
! Feminine 1/2
! Neuter 1/2
|-
| Nominative
| stol (''table'')
| žena (''woman'') / ljubav (''love'')
| selo (''village'') / rame (''shoulder'')
|-
| Genitive
| stola
| žene / ljubavi
| sela / ramena
|-
| Dative
| stolu
| ženi / ljubavi
| selu / ramenu
|-
| Accusative
| stol
| ženu / ljubav
| selo / rame
|-
| Vocative
| stole
| ženo / ljubavi
| selo / rame
|-
| Locative
| stolu
| ženi / ljubavi
| selu / ramenu
|-
| Instrumental
| stolom
| ženom / ljubavi ''or'' ljubavlju
| selom / ramenom
|}

'''Plural'''

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Case
! Masculine
! Feminine 1/2
! Neuter 1/2
|-
| Nominative
| stolovi (''tables'')
| žene (''women'') / ljubavi (''loves'')
| sela (''villages'') / ramena (''shoulders'')
|-
| Genitive
| stolova
| žena / ljubavi
| sela / ramena
|-
| Dative
| stolovima
| ženama / ljubavima
| selima / ramenima
|-
| Accusative
| stolove
| žene / ljubavi
| sela / ramena
|-
| Vocative
| stolovi
| žene / ljubavi
| sela / ramena
|-
| Locative
| stolovima
| ženama / ljubavima
| selima / ramenima
|-
| Instrumental
| stolovima
| ženama / ljubavima
| selima / ramenima
|}

Dative, locative, and instrumental in plural are same for all nouns. This holds for adjectives as well.

==Adjectives==
Some of the declensions for adjectives are the same as for nouns, and so they might rhyme: ''velik'''a''''' ''kuć'''a''''' (sing. nom.), ''velik'''u''''' ''kuć'''u''''' (sing. acc.). Others might be confusing: ''jedn'''im''''' ''klik'''om''''' ("with one click", sing. masc. instrum.).

'''Singular'''

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Case
! Masculine
! Feminine
! Neuter
|-
| ]
| velik ("big")
| velika
| veliko
|-
| ]
| velikog
| velike
| velik
|-
| ]
| velikom
| velikoj
| velikom
|-
| ]
| velik
| veliku
| veliko
|-
| ]
| veliki
| velika
| veliko
|-
| ]
| velikom
| velikoj
| velikom
|-
| ]
| velikim
| velikom
| velikim
|}

'''Plural'''

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Case
! Masculine
! Feminine
! Neuter
|-
| ]
| veliki ("big")
| velike
| velika
|-
| ]
| velikih
| velikih
| velikih
|-
| ]
| velikim
| velikim
| velikim
|-
| ]
| velike
| velike
| velika
|-
| ]
| veliki
| velike
| velika
|-
| ]
| velikim
| velikim
| velikim
|-
| ]
| velikim
| velikim
| velikim
|}

* Note: animate objects (people and animals) 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'' ("I see a big dog").

* Note: most adjectives ending in consonant-'a'-consonant (for example: ''dobar'', "good"), 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.

==Verbs==
Croatian verbs are normally only conjugated in the present indicative. Other tenses and moods require auxiliaries. Much more complicated is ]: the ''perfective'' and the ''imperfective''.

===Tense===
Verbs tenses can be ], ], ] I and II, ], aorist and imperfect, the latter two are not used often in daily speech, especially the imperfect.

* Past uses the present of ''biti'' ("to be") plus the perfect participle, e.g. ''radio sam'' (or ''sam radio'', order depending on the sentence).
* Present uses the indicative forms with their conjugational suffixes, without any auxiliaries, e.g. ''putuješ''.
* Future I uses the (reduced) present of ''htjeti'' ("will" or "to want") plus the infinitive, e.g. ''ćemo kuhati'' (or ''kuhat ćemo'', in which case the ''-i'' of the infinitive marker ''-ti'' is elided).
* Future II uses the perfective future of ''biti'' (the only verb with a simple future) plus the perfect participle, e.g. ''budu išli''.
* Pluperfect, which is not often used, uses the composite past plus the perfect participle, e.g. ''bio sam došao''.

===Mood===
Besides the ], Croatian uses the ], ], ] I and II, and the ]. Imperative forms vary according to the type of the verb, and is formed by adding the appropriate morpheme to a verbal stem. The subjunctive uses ''da'' plus the indicative. The conditional I uses the ] 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. 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!'' (an archaic and dialectal curse), etc. The optative may be translated into English by an imperative construction, with set phrases (such as the already exemplified 'long live'), or by use of the modal verb ''may''.

===Verbal aspect===
{{Main|Grammatical aspect}}
Verbal aspect is distinguished in English by using the simple or ] (continuous) forms. 'He washed the dishes' indicates that the action was finished; 'He was washing the dishes' indicates that the action was ongoing (progressive). Croatian, like all Slavic languages, has something similar.

To compare the meanings of the different aspects with verbal aspect in English, one should know three basic aspects: completed (may be called preterit, aorist, or perfect according to the language in question), progressive (on-going but not completed yet, durative), and iterative (habitual or repeated). English uses one aspect for completed and iterative and another for progressive. Croatian uses one for completed and another for iterative and progressive.

Verbal aspect is the most challenging part of Croatian grammar. It exists in all other Slavic languages, but learners of Croatian who do know any 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', majority of verbs not derived in such a manner are either imperfective (''svršeni'') or perfective (''nesvršeni''). Almost all of 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'' ("to wash", imperfective) goes with ''oprati'' ("to wash", perfective).

Regarding aspect, verbs come in two types. In one type, the root verb is imperfective, such as ''prati'' ("to wash"). In this case the perfective is formed by adding the ''prefix'' 'o', as in ''oprati''. In the other type, the root verb is perfective, such as ''dignuti'' ("to lift"). In this case the imperfective is formed by adding a suffix or modifying the root and adding a suffix: ''dizati''.

A pattern which often arises can be illustrated with ''pisati'', "to write". ''Pisati'' is imperfective, so we need to add a prefix, in this case 'na-', to make it perfective: ''napisati''. But if we add other prefixes to modify the meaning, the basic verb becomes perfective: ''zapisati'' ("to write down") or ''prepisati'' ("to copy by hand"). Since these basic verbs are perfective, we need to add a suffix to make them imperfective: ''zapisivati'' and ''prepisivati''.

Many perfective verbs change their vowels instead of adding a suffix to become imperfective: ''roditi'' - ''rađati''. Typically, the '-iti' ending becomes '-jati', where 'j' merges with the preceding consonant palatalizing it.

===Conjugation of verbs===
{{Main|Grammatical conjugation}}
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 (as in the example below). Verbs ending in '-ovati', '-ivati' become 'uje' when conjugated (''trovati'', "to poison", is ''trujem'', ''truje'' etc.)
*# 'i': almost all verbs ending in '-jeti' or '-iti' use this conjugation.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! rowspan="2" | Person
! colspan="2" | čitati
! colspan="2" | prati (irregular)
! colspan="2" | vidjeti (-jeti or -iti)
|-
! singluar
! plural
! singluar
! plural
! singluar
! plural
|-
| First person
| čitam
| čitamo
| perem
| peremo
| vidim
| vidimo
|-
| Second person
| čitaš
| čitate
| pereš
| perete
| vidiš
| vidite
|-
| Third person
| čita
| čitaju
| pere
| peru
| vidi
| vide
|}

==Syntax==
Croatian has a rich case structure that is reflected in the declension of nouns and adjectives. This makes syntax of little use and allows for a great deal of freedom in word order. In English, for example, the difference between "]" and "Dog bites man" is shown by syntax. In 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 words is grammatically correct, and the meaning is clear because of the declensions. However, the default order is subject-verb-object.

There are certain words that have no accent (]) that must come in a fixed order. They are, in order,
# question words (only ''li''),
# verbs: clitic forms of "to be" except ''je'' (''sam'', ''si'', ''smo'', ''ste'', ''su'', ''bih'', ''bi'', ''bismo'', ''biste''), and of "will" (''ću, ćeš, će, ćemo'', and ''će'')
# dative pronouns (''mi, ti, mu, joj, nam, vam, im''),
# the reflexive accusative pronoun (only ''se''), and the reflexive dative pronoun (only ''si'')
# accusative pronoun (''me, te, ga, je, ju, nas, vas'', and ''ih''),
# clitic form of the third person singular present of "to be" (''je'').

The enclitics must be at the second position of the sentence. The first element may be a single word or a premodifier-noun combination, e.g. ''Taj '''se''' čovjek vara'', "That person deceives himself", or ''Taj čovjek '''se''' vara''.

==See also==
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

==External links==
{{InterWiki|code=hr}}
{{wikibooks|Croatian}}<!--
{{wikibookslang|code=hr}}
{{wikisourcelang|hr}}
{{wikiquotelang|code=hr}}-->
{{Wiktionarylang|code=hr}}
* — phrases and grammar
*
* , with audio files

{{Slavic grammars}}

]
]

]

Revision as of 11:07, 8 July 2010

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