EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 45 Quanes and Existence 267 / 600
It seems that expressions like ima jedan prijatelj and like are much more common
in Bosnia and Serbia.
• Examples
This pop hit – Plešem sama I dance alone by Detour, a Croatian laid-back pop group,
contains two existential constructions:
A bit će teških dana G
I jutra G koja me A ne vole
I ne znaš gdje im DL je kraj N
And there will be hard days
And mornings that don’t like me
And you don’t know where they end
1
3pl
Nema te G
You’re not here
2
I sad plešem sama N And now I dance alone
plesati
Zatvorim oči A i sanjam I close my eyes and dream
f
(N. Borgudan)
You can listen to it on YouTube.
The first existential construction expresses that there will be some amount of težak
dan i jutro; all this is put into G-pl.
The phrase koja me ne vole is a relative clause; the expression kraj je² + DL means
that something (expressed in the DL case) ends, ‘it’s the end to it’.
The second existential construction, nema te is a negative existential, introduced
long ago.
Using secondary predicates such as sam alone was introduced back in 35 Tools and
Means, With and Without. Here it reveals that the subject is female.
The verb zatvoriti («) close is from the pair:
zatvarati («) ~ zatvoriti («) close
Why is a perfective verb used in the present tense? Likely, the sentence doesn’t refer
to the present moment, as if onda then or ponekad then are somehow implied.
Observe that its object is just oči f pl. eyes: the possession of body parts is, as usual,
implied.