EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 71 Suggesons, Permissions and More Verbs 410 / 600
while the conjunction has a short vowel, the verbal form is occasionally
distinguished by writing a circumflex sign over the vowel: dâ (or, even rarer, a
macron: dā).
It’s also quite common to use this construction in imperative:
Ne daj mu DL da jede sladoled A . Don’t let him eat ice-cream. (lit. ‘Don’t 3m/n | jesti
give him to eat...’)
If you aren’t preventing somebody doing something, but you want to prevent
something to happen (where someone can be the subject, but not in control of the
action, e.g. falling), you use it without the DL:
Ne daj da čaša padne. Don’t let the glass fall.
pasti
Then, the verb dati used in some mediopassive constructions. I’ve already explained
the most common uses of mediopassive (in 64 The Door Opens: Fun with se²). It’s
also common to use more complex sentences in mediopassive. For example, a door
or window can (or cannot) be opened (you see, it’s also passive in English). In
Croatian it’s quite simple:
Vrata N se ne mogu otvoriti. The door cannot be opened.
moći pres-3pl
Prozor N se može otvoriti. The window can be opened.
moći pres-3
As you can see, and I hope expect, nouns vrata n pl. door and prozor window are
subjects here. The particle se² makes the while sentence passive, i.e. it’s about what
can be done to the door or window.
These sentences have something in common with the permissions above. If
something cannot be done, colloquially, the verb dati perf. give can be used instead
of moći (...) can:
Vrata N se ne daju otvoriti. (colloq.) The door cannot be opened.
Prozor N se ne da otvoriti. (colloq.) The window cannot be opened.
The last sentence literally says ‘the door isn’t being given to open’, but the real
meaning is cannot + passive. Again you see that vrata and prozor are subjects: the
verb dati is in pres-3pl in the first sentence, and in singular pres-3 in the second one.
You will sometimes hear such sentences without negation, i.e. with meaning can,
that’ even more colloquial (any maybe restricted to some areas?):
Vrata N se daju otvoriti. (colloq.) The door can be opened.
There’s yet another unexpected phrase using the verb dati perf. give, and it’s
superficially similar to ne da... da:
negation + dati° se² + DL + inf = DL can’t be bothered to inf ®
The meaning of this construction – we could call it ‘the lazy construction’ – is very
similar to mediopassive + DL, i.e. ne jede mi se pizza I don’t feel like eating pizza,
but the phrase with dati is normally used when someone avoids duties, chores, any