EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 37 Complete Reading: Perfecve Verbs 218 / 600
tense:
Vidio sam te A . I saw you.
2
Vidim te A . I (can) see you.
2
I’ll explain various tips when to use perfective, and when to use imperfective verbs
as I introduce verbs and various constructions. We start immediately, in the
following chapter.
________
® In Serbia, the impf. verb prihvaćati is used in a slightly different form: prihvatati;
there’s no difference for the perf. verb.
• Something Possibly Interesting
If you were reading very carefully, and thinking about stress shifts, you maybe
noticed that the present tense form uči is weird: when you put ne¨ before it, the
standard stress stays put, but when you add prefix na-, the stress does move to the
prefix. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to all verbs with an ‘underline’: the verb
čitati moves stress neither to ne¨ nor to a prefix.
Did I say the standard stress is quite complicated, even in my watered-down form?
• Examples
This pop song from the 1990’s, S dlana Boga pala si, performed by En face – a
Croatian band from Rijeka, despite its name – featuring Damir Urban, was a major
hit.
In the following verses, there are both perfective verbs (highlighted) and
imperfective verbs:
S dlana G Boga G pala si
From the palm of God you fell pasti past-f
I anđelu DL si krala mir A
And were stealing peace from an angel
krasti past-f
Kao kiša N rasula kapi sve A
U pehar A skupljam tvoje riječi A
Like rain, you scattered all the drops
Into a chalice I’m collecting your words
f
f
i pogled A i tvoj prah A and look and your dust
(Vlado Simcich Vava)
The two perf. verbs are:
pasti (padne, pao) perf. fall
rasuti (raspe) perf. scatter, spill around
The second verb has a quite unexpected present tense form. They represent events
in the past which are done, completed, no need to go into details. But there’s also
an impf. verb in the past tense in the verses: