| N |
| A |
| DL |
There’s another use of the dative/locative case (DL), but without any prepositions: you can state recipient of some action, for instance if you write a letter to someone, you must express someone in DL in Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian:
A·na pišepisati pismo Ivanu. Ana is writing a letter to Ivan.
A·na pišepisati pismo Ivani. Ana is writing a letter to Ivana.
When you rearrange words in English, you don’t need to use to anymore, but case forms in Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian don’t change at all:
A·na pišepisati pismo Ivanu. Ana is writing a letter to Ivan.
A·na pišepisati Ivanu pismo. Ana is writing Ivan a letter. (a bit less common order)
To help you decipher cases while you’re learning them, they will be highlighted with different colors: blue for N, red for A, green for DL, if you place your mouse over an example sentence – or touch it, if you use a touchscreen. Moving your mouse (or touching somewhere else) will remove the highlight. Try it on the examples above!
Furthermore, there will be a small legend with case colors in the top right corner of each chapter that uses case highlighting.
Such use of DL is quite common with the following verbs, where something is given (or shown, or offered) to someone:
|
davati (daje) give nuditi offer pokazivati (pokazuje) show |
prodavati (prodaje) sell vraćati return slati (šalje) send |
The following nouns are also useful:
|
čestitka (DL -ci) greeting card dar gift poklon gift |
poruka (DL -ci) message razglednica (picture) postcard |
The verbs are used simply: what goes/is offered/shown to another person (gift, postcard, whatever) is put in the accusative case, and the recipient in DL:
A·na šaljeslati čestitku Ivanu. Ana is sending a greeting card to Ivan.
A·na dajedavati poklon Goranu. Ana is giving a gift to Goran.
Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian have two more verbs that have a very similar meaning to davati (daje), but with them what’s given is a gift, possibly for a special occasion:
|
darivati (daruje) po·kla·njati | make a gift, donate |
The verb poklanjati is a bit more common in speech, and the other verb in formal writing and newspapers. For example:
A·na po·kla·nja knjigu Goranu. Ana is giving a book to Goran (as a gift).
There’s a very rough but often effective rule: when an English verb takes two objects – and you order them without the word to – the first object corresponds to the Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian DL case, and the second one to the A case:
| I’m writing | Ana | a letter. |
| He told | Ivan | the truth. |
| She will buy | Goran | a new bike. |
| I wish | you | a nice day. |
| In S/B/M: | DL | A |
Of course, I haven’t explained past and future tenses yet, and I haven’t shown forms of pronouns in various cases – but it doesn’t matter, case use doesn’t depend on the tense, and whether you use nouns or pronouns. It’s always the same scheme.
There are two more useful verbs that use DL, but it does not have anything to do with receiving something – it’s just the way the verbs are. They are:
|
poma·ga·ti (po·ma·že) help pri·pa·dati belong |
For example:
A·na po·ma·žepomagati Goranu. Ana is helping Goran.
Auto pri·pa·da A·ni. The car belongs to Ana.
(German uses here the same grammar as Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian: German verbs gehören and helfen use the German Dative case. However, keep in mind that German cases are really not identical to Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian cases!)
The DL case is used in thanking, which is useful when you get something. The phrase is:
hva·la· na + DL thanks for
Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian za¨ usually corresponds to English for, but not in this phrase. For example, you could say:
Hvala na... Thanks for the...
... čestitci. ...greeting card.
... poruci. ...message.
... poklonu. ...gift.
... pomoćifem.. ...help.
Here we’ve used another feminine noun that doesn’t end in -a: pomoć f help, assistance.
The DL case is also involved with possession, especially with body parts and related people (e.g. family or friends). I already explained how in Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian, words like my are less often used and possession is implied:
A·na pe·re·prati kosu. ‘Ana is washing hair.’ (= her hair)
However, if she’s washing someone else’s hair, a common way – very common in speech – to express it, is to add the person in the DL case:
A·na pereprati Goranu kosu. Ana is washing hair ‘to Goran’. (= Goran’s hair)
This is the preferred word order in such sentences – it’s, of course, possible to rearrange words if you want to stress something. This is the same structure as with the verb send or write – Goran will ‘get’ his hair washed, in the same way as he will get a message, letter or gift.
Pay attention that in the sentence above, kosu is in A – it is the object, after all – while Goranu is in DL. These two words are not attached to each other, don’t depend on each other: this is just the most common word order in such sentences.
Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian have possessive adjectives – I’ve already shown moj my, others will be shown a bit later – but with body parts, this is the preferred way. If you are familiar with German, you’ll notice it uses the same system: the sentence above would translate exactly as Ana wäscht Goran die Haare. Dutch and Romance languages do it in the same way.
In fact, English is famous for using a lot of possessive adjectives, while a great majority of European languages use them much less often. In most languages, possession of body parts and many other things is simply implied – it’s expressed only if something belongs to someone else, often by dative or something equivalent.
If your brain is spinning now failing to comprehend how DL can mean possession of a body part, here’s another way to look at the sentence above: Ana is washing the hair, and doing it to Goran.
The accusative case of neuter nouns is equal to their default, nominative form. It’s not so for the DL case, and it becomes important that some neuter nouns have specific case-base as well, not shortened (like masculine ones) but lengthened:
|
d | pile (pilet-) chicken |
Pay attention how ije in dijete changes to je in its case-base (such alternations are a cause of misspellings for many native speakers).
The next two verbs have a obligatory se² always with them (as explained already, it must be the second word, if possible):
diviti se² marvel, admire
smijati (smije) se² laugh
For example:
Goran se divi Ivanu. Goran marvels at Ivan.
Ana se smijesmijati se Goranu. Ana is laughing at Goran.
So in Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian – if the DL case kind of corresponds to English to — you ‘marvel to someone’ and ‘laugh to someone’...
There’s another, completely different use of the DL case. It is possible with verbs of motion:
| ići (ide) go | trčati (trči) run |
If you are going or running to someone, it’s expressed in Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian ®
with DL:
Ana ideići Ivanu. Ana is going to Ivan. (where he is)
Trčimtrčati mami. I’m running to my Mum.
(You see again that it’s implied whose Mum it is.)
It’s often used when you go to some shop or office held by someone, e.g.:
| frizer hairdresser | zubar dentist |
For example:
Ivan sutra ideići zubaru. Ivan is going to the dentist tomorrow.
As with other masculine nouns that have two last vowels underlined (in my notation), the stress moves – you can see it in the example (zubar → zubaru).
As a very special use, the DL of the noun kuća house can be used as destination: it means home, even if you live in an apartment:
Ana danas ideići kući. Ana is going home today.
*****
The same meaning, especially in western and northern regions of Croatia, can be expressed with the following adverb:
doma home (as destination)
There’s yet another use of the DL case, with certain nouns and adjectives. For example, this adjective is often accompanied by a noun in DL (this again corresponds to English to):
sličan (sličn-) similar
For example:
Višnja je slična trešnji. Sour cherry is similar to cherry.
In the previous sentence, trešnja cherry was put in DL.
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