EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 54 When, While, Unl, Before, Aer 317 / 600
Čim padne noć N , idemo spavati. As soon the night falls, we are going ići f pasti
to sleep.
Sometimes, you’ll encounter two weird things involving dok. First, in some regions,
colloquially, it’s used also in the meaning when, that is, instead of kad(a).® This is
from the Internet:
Dok dođe vrijeme N ručka G baš i nisam gladna N . (colloq., sometimes) When doći
the lunch time comes, I’m not really hungry.
(The baš i is here a way to say really. There’s no comma: in colloquial writing,
commas are often left out.)
Second, the mandatory negation after dok + perf. verb to express until is... not
100% mandatory. It can be (rarely) left out. It’s not really clear if there’s a small
difference in meaning or not; I don’t think there is.
These two weird things collide. Due to the first thing, dok + perf. verb cound mean
when; due to the second thing, until. You’ll have to apply your common sense if you
hear or read a weird sentence with dok.®
________
® Instead of kuhati, the form kuvati is used in Serbia, and in parts of Bosnia and
Croatia (however, it’s not standard in Croatia).
Leaving the ‘empty’ negation out after dok seems to be more common in Serbia;
however, using dok in meaning when is known only in Croatia, and likely mostly in
the northern regions. It seems that people who use dok as when never leave the
‘empty’ negation out when expressing until, which could explain why leaving the
‘empty’ negation out is less common in Croatia.
• Something Possibly Interesting
The ‘empty’ negation of perfective verbs after dok is also called ‘pleonastic’,
‘expletive’, ‘paratactic’, and maybe there are more weird names. (In this case,
‘expletive’ doesn’t mean vulgar!) You’ll see in the following chapters there’s a
number of constructions where such negation is used, mostly with perfective verbs
in various clauses.
Various ‘empty’ negations – often in expressions which translate to English until –
are a feature of many languages, including French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Hebrew,
Arabic, and of course, languages closely related to Croatian, such as Russian.
It’s interesting that Russian has future tense only for impf. verbs. When you want to
express future for perf. verbs, you simply use their present tense forms. Confusingly,
present tense forms of perf. verbs are often listed in Russian grammars as ‘future
tense’. This is an oversimplification: of course, they can express everyday events and
similar things.