EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 69 Memories, Expectaons and Fear 403 / 600
(French)
Je crains qu’il ne se perde.
Bojim se da se ne izgubi.
I’m afraid he might get lost.
bojati se
As you can see, there are more similarities – French here uses the se, like Croatian,
since the verb izgubiti («) perf. lose means lose something – but when you add se², it
means get, become lost – and the same applies to French perdre. However, there is
a major difference: the ‘empty’ negation in Croatian fear clauses is used only with
perfective verbs in the present tense.
What about fear clauses and perf-like verbs, i.e. čuti (čuje) hear, razumjeti
(razumije,...) understand and vidjeti (vidi,...) see? First, they are not frequently used
in fear clauses. When they are used, and the present tense is used to refer to the
future, there’s usually an ‘empty’ negation:
Bojim se da ne vidim nešto strašno A . I’m afraid I might see something bojati se
terrible.
However, when they refer to the present, the negation is not ‘empty’; here, the
speaker is afraid that there’s a problem with his or her eyes, or something similar:
bojati se
Bojim se da ne vidim dobro. I’m afraid I don’t see well.
You will have to use your common sense to understand such (rare) sentences. It’s
best to use the future tense to refer to the future if you have to use such verbs in
fear clauses.
• Something Possibly Interesting
The ‘empty’ negation with verbs of fear is very common; it appears in Japanese,
Korean, Greek, Hindi, etc.
• Examples
This pop/rock song – Tremolo by Vatra – featuring Damir Urban as a guest vocal –
contains several time, content and fear clauses:
Kad rasplače
gudalo N žice A ,
When a bow
makes strings cry,
rasplakati
Tremolo N u meni DL Tremolo in me
sve ono najbolje A polomi shatters all what’s best
These two verses contain a time clause; they have two perfective verbs: polomiti («)
shatter as the main verb, and rasplakati (rasplače) make cry in the time clause.
Verbs like rasplakati (rasplače) will be covered in 81 Sneeze Once and Start
Blooming.
Dokazat ću ti DL [da I’ll prove to you
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