EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 14 My and Adjecves in Accusave 87 / 600
pron. adjectives nouns noun endings
ona
N -a, A -u
noć night
pattern α
(‘i-nouns’)
‘feminine’
voda water pattern β
N (-i), A -og tata dad (‘a-nouns’)
‘masc. animate’ konj horse pattern γ
on
N = A (-i)
zid wall pattern δ
‘“masc.” inanimate’
N = A -o, -e
ono, to
‘neuter’
jezero lake pattern ε
Forms of adjectives are called ‘genders’ by tradition (the problem is, many people
usually consider only forms in N, so they see only 3 genders), and patterns of noun
endings are called ‘declension classes’. While everyone heard about gender, very
few people are aware of declension classes. They are much less clear-cut than
genders: for instance, nouns like konj horse and sin son seem to belong to the same
class, but we’ll see they form plural a bit differently. Should we split them to two
classes? It depends on your viewpoint.
(I’ve invented the names of patterns in the table above, I’m quite sure nobody ever
used Greek letters for these patterns. You’ll find various names in various books:
they are ultimately unimportant. However, i-nouns and a-nouns are worth
remembering.)
• Examples
Crno-bijeli svijet Black-and-White World is one of the most popular songs by Prljavo
kazalište Dirty Theater, a rock band from Zagreb. The song opens with the famous
line:
Moje ime je Davorin Bogović My name is Davorin Bogović
a ovo sve oko mene
and all this around me
to je crno-bijeli svijet... it’s a black-and-white world...
Crno-bijeli televizori
Black-and-white TV’s
rijetki noćni tramvaji rare night trams
moja bijela djevojka
my white girlfriend
uvozni ekskluzivni program imported exclusive shows
mama, tata, pas i kravata... Mom, Dad, a dog and a tie...
(Jasenko Houra)
See how moj N my and other adjectives adapt to the gender of nouns after them. All
the forms are in N, just different genders.
The second line has ovo sve, lit. these all; such forms will be explained later. It also