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Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 62 The Friend I Saw: Relave Clauses 361 / 600
62 The Friend I Saw: Relative Clauses
It’s nice to be able to say the red apple or my friend, but it’s much more powerful to
be also able to say the apple you bought or the friend who called me.
In English, such sentences have basically two forms:
(1) the friend who called me
(2) the apple (that) you bought
In the sentence #1, you are describing the friend by what he did: he’s the subject of
called me. In the sentence #2, you are describing the apple by what happened to it:
somebody bought it.
In the first sentence, English must use the ‘linking’ word who; in the second one, the
word that is optional and is mostly dropped out.
In Croatian, there always must be a ‘linking’ word. It’s the same word – koji – in both
sentences, but in different cases (and gender).
Simply said, the word koji stands in for the noun you describe, and adapts to its
gender and number but also to its role in the description.
In the sentence #1, prijatelj friend is the subject, therefore we use koji in the
masculine singular, nominative case:
(1) prijatelj koji N me A je zvao
In the sentence #2, jabuka apple is the object of the verb kupiti perf. buy – it’s
bought – therefore we must use accusative, but also the feminine form, since
jabuka is of course feminine in Croatian:
(2) jabuka koju A si kupio
Take a note that jabuka is here in N – and free to change, as we’ll see – while the
word after it is in A, describing the role of jabuka in relation to the verb that
follows.
The section koji me je zvao or koju si kupio is another type of clause – the relative
clause. As in all other clauses, word-counting restarts in them, and the first position
is filled by the first word (a form of adjective/pronoun koji):
Pojeo sam jabuku A [koju A ¹ si² kupio]. I have eaten the apple [you bought].
The forms of koji were explained in 57 Whose, What Thing and What Like.
When you describe a noun like that, you can use it in any sentence, but the
description must come right after it. For example, that friend who called you could
also come to beach, so you would say:
Prijatelj N koji N me A je zvao je došao na plažu A . The friend who
called me came to the beach.
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1 | doći past-m