Croatian Grammar [2 ed.] 9789531691482

Citation preview

Vinko Grubišić

CROATIAN GRAMMAR

VINKO GRUBISić l CROATIAN GRAMMAR

Copyright© 2007 Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada

Reviewers prof dr. sc. Josip Silić prof dr. sc. Sibe/an Fon-ester prof dr. sc. Marko Samardžija

Editor·in·Chief Anita Šikić

Cover design Dubravka Zg/avnik Horvat

Layout Stjepan Ocvirk

CIP zapis dostupan u računalnom katalogu Nacionalne i sveučilišne knjižnice u Zagrebu pod brojem 63294 1 . ISBN 978-95 3 - 1 69- 1 48-2

Vinko Grubišić

CROATIAN GRAMMAR

,.

HRVATSKA SVEUČILIŠNA NAKLADA HRVATSKE ISELJENIČKE ŠKOLE AMERIKE l KANADE Zagreb, 2007.

Contents

Foreword . PHONETICS .

ll

Phonemes and Graphemes .

ll

Phonetic Changes

22

JJ

Accents .

41

MORPHOLOGY

43

Nouns Gender .

44

Cases

47

Masculine Nouns

49

Neuter Nouns

61

Feminine Nouns .

65 73

Pronouns Adjectives

89

Numerals

98 . .. . .. . .. .. 108

Verbs Tenses and Moods

.

.

Verbal Adverbs Past Verbal Adverbs

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

115

. . . . . . . 124 . . . ..126

Past Tense .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 . . 127 Compound Tenses and Moods Verbal Aspect

.

143

. 157

Prepositions

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Adverbs

. 169

Particles

. . . . . . . . 170

Exclamations .

. 17 1

Conjunctions

173

WORD FORMATION

. . . . . . . 175

Nouns

183

Adjectives

186

Fonnation ofAdverbs

. . .. . . . 188

Verb Fonnation SYNTAX

. 193

Function of Cases

. 193 . .. . . ... . 198

Usage ofTenses Statements, Phrases & Clauses

. . . .. .. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 l

Dependent Clauses .

207

Adverbial Detennination Clauses . Direct and Indirect Speech .

.. . . . . . 208

. . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 14 2 16

Word Order . Agreement

. . . 2 17

APPENDICES

. . . . . 223

Punctuation .

. 223 . . . .. . . . .228

Foreign Names . Verbs with Varying Degrees of Difficulties Bibliography Index

. . . .. . . . . 233

. . . . . .. . .. . . ... . . .. . . . . 245 247

Foreword Croats are a Mediterranean, Central-European, Slavic people whose language and culture reflect the geopolitical position of Croatia. The first Croatian ecclesiastical and secular documents were written mainly in Glagolitic and Cyrillic letters from the tenth centui)' onwards. The Tablet of Baška, engraved in Glagolitic characters around l 100 AD, reveals an already well-devel­ oped language while The Tablet of Humac, chiseled in Croatian Cyrillic letters dur­ ing the same period or even earlier, shares many traits with the Glagolitic script. During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the Roman script gained ground and became the predominant Croatian alphabet throughout all of Croatia. There are three Croatian dialects, čakavian, kajkavian and štokavian, the names of which are derived from the interrogative pronoun what in each: ča, kaj and što re­ spectively. Although valuable literary works were written in all three dialects, the štokavian dialect of the great Dubrovnik Renaissance literature, spoken by most of the Croatian population, has been the basis for the Croatian standard language since the eighteenth century. In Croatian literary works (in the Glagolitic, Cyrillic or Roman script) since the eleventh century, the Croatian language has been referred to by its Croatian national name, but also occasionally by various regional denotations: Dalmatian, Slavonian, Slavic, Bosnian, etc. ln works written in Latin or in Italian by Croatian and non­ Croatian scholars, that same language was often called Illyrian, Dalmatian or Slavic, no surprise since the tenns Illyrian and Dalmatian predate the arrival ofCroats to the shares of the Adriatic Sea and thus came to be synonyms for Croatian. Confusion between the Croatian and Serbian languages began in the nineteenth cen­ tury and went into high gear late in the last century, when unitaristic forces within the Yugoslav government attempted to create a lingua communis for all of Yugoslavia. The first such attempt in Royal Yugoslavia involved an amalgamation of Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian ("Serbocroatoslovene"), while later attempts focused on the merging of only Croatian and Serbian. Despite pressure from the central ist Yugoslav government, Croats continued to cultivate, and indeed still do, their language in ac­ cordance with its natural development. While conscious of the need for the continued nurturing of the Croatian language, the present Croatian Constitution nevertheless grants protection for the use of other languages in Croatia: "The Croatian language and the Latin script shall be in official use in the Republic of Croatia. In individual local units, another language and the Cyrillic or other script may, along with the Croatian language and Latin script, be introduced into official use under conditions specified by law." (The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, Zagreb, 199 1. Paragraph 12, p. 14. )

From the time of the publication of Bartol Kašić's lnstitutionum linguae lllyricae libri duo in 1604 to the present day, many Croatian grammar have been used in schools, some written in Latin, Italian and German, and the majority written in Croatian. This grammar is geared to English-speaking students studying Croatian. The author has devoted particular attention to areas presenting special difficulty for English speakers. This is the first Croatian grammar containing verbs of varying degrees of difficulty. The most important comment on the mechanics of writing can be found in the appendices. The author is very grateful to Slavko Granić, Judith Psenak, Dr. Sibelan Forrester, Prof. Anto Knežević and Prof. Josip Silić for their corrections and revisions. The first edition of Croatian Grammar having been out of print for some time, this second edition responds to the increasing demand for a new edition of a contempo­ rary Croatian grammar. This revised edition includes relevant changes and a few additional details. The author would like to extend his thanks to Kathy Schmidt for her valuable sugges­ tions and her computer work, and to Katia Grubišić, who patiently read and re-read the manuscript and made numerous corrections. Last but not least, appreciation goes once again to Dr. Josip Silić, whose corrections and suggestions have been invalu­ able. Naturally, any remaining mistakes or oversight are those of the author alone. This book will hopefully help students of all ages and backgrounds improve their knowledge of the Croatian language. Vinko Grubišić Waterloo, Ontario, Canada December 2006

Abbreviations A. D. Fem. G. /.

inf inter. L. mase. N.

neut. p. pl. sing. V

= aorist = accusative = dati ve = feminine = genitive = instrumental = infinitive = interrogative = locative = masculine = nominative = neuter = person "" plural = singular == vocative

The numbers in brackets are related to the numbered parts of this grammar.

PHONETICS

PHONEMES AND GRAPHEMES l.

The Croatian language, like other Slavic languages, is composed ofdiscourse. discursive statements, and statements of words. The basic building blocks of a language are words. Understanding the fonnation and composition of these words is essential when learning a language. Studenti razgovaraju. (The students are talking.) Daleko smo od grada. (We are far from the city.) Ž ivimo u kući. (We live in a house.)

2.

Words are composed of syllables. Stu-den-ti raz-go-va-ra-ju. Da-le-ko smo od gra-da. Ž i-vi-mo u ku-ći.

3.

A syllable can consist of one, two, three or more than three phonemes, but can contain only one vowel.

ti- (t+l) Stu- (S+t+u) prst (p+r+s+t)

4.

When represented in written form, a phoneme is called a grapheme. All the graphemes together are called the alphabet.

5.

The Croatian alphabet bas thirty grapbemes. The order of the letters is similar to the order of the English alphabet, except that Croatian bas some extra letters and eliminares a few letten< found in the English alphabet. However, the graphemes q, x, w andy are written in some foreign words lilre Quebec, Xeoes, New York, and Washington, even though these letters are not part of the Croatian alphabet.

ll

Vinko Grubišić, CROATIAN GRAMMAR

There are S vowels and 25 consonants in the Croatian alphabet. The phoneme ''r.. can be considered a vowel or a consonant

6.

a) The vowels are:

a, e, i, o, u + r b) The consonants are: b, e, l, ć, d, dž. đ,f, g, h, j, k, l, lj, m, n, nj, p, r, s, š, t, v, z, ž 7.

Consonants cannot form syllables on their own, but only when they are fol­ lowed or pim

-im

-im

-m

=N

(-)

=N

=N

... ::��J-� ..

-ima

-ima

(-)

-im(a)

-im(a)

(-)

-im(a)

-im(a) -im(a)

(-) -ima

im(a)

(-) (-)

"' The morphemes marked with an asterisk are the endings for the definite aspect of the adjeclives, and contain the facultative vowels a, e or u. 107

Vinko Grubišić, CROATIAN GRAMMAR

VERB S

1 76. Verbs have several specific features which cannot be found in any other class of words. When speaking about verbs we have to take into account:

-

Conjugation (different fonns for three persons singular and three plural.) Tenses (present, past and future) Moods (infinitives, conditionals, participles, verbal adverbs) Personal and impersona/ use ofverbs (čitam /1 read/ : sviđa mi se /1 like/) Two aspects: imperfective and perfective (piti - popiti : to drink - to finish

drinking) - Two voices (active and passive) - Verbs can be transitive (with a direct object), intransitive (with an indirect object or adverbial determination) or rejlexive (with the reflexive pronoun "se/sebe").

There are regular and irregular verbs. As is typical for verbs used often in many languages, two major auxililll)' verbs "biti" (to be) and "htjeli' (will) are bo1h irregular. 177. The infinitive is the first element examined in verb classification. One must know the first person singular and the third person plural of the present tense in order to see the structure of a verb. For example: čit-a-ti : čitam : čitaju; govor-i-ti : govor-i-m : govor-O-e; bos-O-ti (*bod-O-ti) : bod-e-m: bod-O-u; dig-nu-ti : dig-n-e-m : dig-n-u. There are verbs in which the infinitive stem and present stem are the same. like in "čit-a-ti" and verbs in which they are dif­ ferent. as in ''bos-ti: bod-u," or "dig-nu-ti : dign-u." Infinitive čit·a·ti (to read) voz-i-ti (to drive) vid-je-ti (to see) tres-O-ti (to shake) mo-ći /*mog-O-ti/ (to be able to) pe-ći /*pek-O-ti/ (to bake) don-ije-ti /donesti (to bring) 1 08

/-'1 person sing. 3r

-eva-ti noćevati (spend the night) -iva-ti kazivati (to report, to narrate) -ova-ti darovati (to donate)

: noćujem : kazujem : darujem

Here are some exceptions: bivati (to occur several times) lijevati (to pour) okivati (to shack le, to chain) plivati (to swim) počivati (to rest) snivati/snijevati (to dream) skrivati (to hide) šivati (to sew) umivati (to wash) uživati (to enjoy)

: bivam : lijevam : okivam : plivam : počivam : snivarnlsnijevam : skrivam : šivam : umivam : uživam

: bivaju : lijevaju : okivaju : plivaju : počivaju : snivaju l snijevaju : skrivaju : šivaju : umivaju : uživaju

b) Verbs in which an infinitive ending -ati* is preceded by various conso­ nants:

-b-ati

� �

-bam (trebati l to need) -bern (grebati l to scratch) -bijem (zobati l to peck)

: trebam : grebem : zobljem* (zob-jem)

• There are many verbs ending in -irati and -zirati. Pres. -iraml-ziram ... -irajul-ziraju: telefonirati (to telephone) : telefoniram • . • telefoniraju, analizirati (to analyze): analiziram . . . analiziraju. (See

# 265).

1 09

Vinko Grubišić, CROATIAN GRAMMAR

-c-ati

-čati

-ćati

-d-ati

-dati

--< --< ----

-< ----

-cam (kucati /to knock)

: kucam

-čem (klicati /to cheer)

: kličem (*klic-jem, *klik-)

-ča m (pričati /to narrate)

: pričam

-čim (trčati /to run)

: trčim ( * trk-)

-ćam (obećati Ito promise)

: obećam

-dam (hodati /to walk)

: hodam

-đem (glodati /to nibble)

: glođem (*glod-jem)

-dam (predviđati /to preview) : predviđam

-f-ati ---- -fam (ufati se/to hope)

-g-ati

-h-ati

-j-ati

-k-ati

-gam (trgati /to tear up)

: trgam

-