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Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 83 Depth and Distance: Abstract Nouns 465 / 600

Some nouns changed meaning over time, or the adjectives they were created from

fell out of use:

prednost f priority, advantage

radost f joy

znanost f science ®

žalost f sadness

Abstract nouns that don’t end in -ina usually don’t have relational adjectives – the

adjectives they are derived from are used in relational meaning too – or form

relational adjectives irregularly:

starost f old age → starački

umjetnost f art → umjetnički

znanost f science → znanstven scientific ®

The relational adjectives starački and umjetnički are actually derived from nouns

starac (starc-) old man and umjetnik artist.

Finally, it’s interesting that there are more abstract feminine nouns that don’t end in

-a, which seem to be (at least historically) derived with -t. Common ones are:

bit f essence, gist

čast f honor

moć f might, power

pomoć f help

povijest f history ®

propast f downfall

smrt f death

strast f passion

vijest f news

vlast f authority, government

________

® The word znanost f science is specific to Croatia. In Bosnia and Serbia, the word

nauka is more common; instead of toplina heat, toplota is used in Bosnia and

Serbia. For nauka, the relational adjective is simply naučni.

Instead of povijest, the word for history is historija in parts of Bosnia, and istorija in

Serbia and parts of Bosnia with Serbian majority.

• Something Possibly Interesting

Present irregularities can be a key to history. Nouns like moć might, power end in -ć,

while other similar nouns end in -t. Likewise, inf of the verb can is moći, while most

verbs have infinitives in -ti. Besides, the verb is highly irregular.

The most likely explanation is this: some time ago – likely more than 1200 years,

maybe much more – the verb can had inf something like mogtī, and the abstract

noun was mogti (the difference was length of the last vowel). Therefore, the past

forms and pres-1 were and still are fully regular (mog-la, mog-u). (I’m here

simplifying things a bit: in the distant past, the past and present endings were a bit

different; also, the o in mog- wasn’t really an o.)

But then, for unknown reasons, sequences kti and gti changed their pronunciations

into ći (the sound wasn’t of today ć, but an early version of it, a kind of softened t).

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