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Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 59 Knowing and Telling: Content and Noun Clauses 342 / 600
59 Knowing and Telling: Content and Noun Clauses
Let’s learn how to talk about anything else in Croatian. For instance, something has
happened, for instance Ana has bought a car. Now, you know it, and you want to tell
that fact. In English, you would say:
I know (that) Ana has bought a car.
In English, you simply add that + what you know, and the word that is usually left
out. In Croatian, you must use the word da:
Znam da je Ana N kupila auto A .
m
The word da holds the first position in the clause, as usual, so all second-position
words (here just je²) come right after it:
Znam [da je² Ana N kupila auto A ].
m
Such clauses that can hold any information, but follow the same rules as normal
sentences, are called content clauses. The most common verbs used with such
clauses are (by descending order of certainty):
znati know
vjerovati (vjeruje) believe
misliti think
pretpostavljati suppose
Out of these verbs, znati and misliti are most used in spoken language. The verb
misliti normally means think, but with content clauses it maybe better translates as
English guess, suppose, because it’s very uncommon to use it negated. Where you
would say this in English:
I don’t think [they have fish].
In Croatian, the sentence would be phrased as:
Mislim [da nemaju ribu A ]. lit. ‘I think [they don’t have fish].’
Interestingly, the verb vjerovati (vjeruje) believe is mostly used in negative with
content clauses:
Ne vjerujem [da imaju ribu A ]. I don’t believe [they have fish].
Note. The main verb is here negated, but the verb in the content clause isn’t: the
all-negative-or-nothing principle works for each clause separately. Each clause –
the main one and the inserted one – has its own word counting, and its own verb,
which can be negative (which causes certain pronouns and adverbs to be
negative) or not!
Such clauses can be used by verbs of information transfer (really, verb pairs). All of
them allow for an optional recipient of information expressed in DL and a content
clause (or an object in A):