3 | 1 | Lekcija 3: Braća i sestre

| More About the Accusative Case – Animacy

In Unit 2 when you first met the Accusative case in its use with direct objects, you saw contexts where the direct objects were primarily things, i.e., inanimate objects.

Mi gledamo film. / Ja čitam zanimljivi roman.

Now we will expand the use of the Accusative case to include other types of singular masculine nouns that refer to people and living beings. In some circumstances Croatian will treat nouns differently, depending on whether the noun is animate (including a wide range of words that refer to people and animals) or inanimate (non-living objects, abstract concepts, and plants, etc.). In this Module you saw sentences like:

Ja imam brata. / Ja imam bratića.

Based on these examples, it is possible to conclude that masculine nouns in the Accusative can have two different types of endings:

Here is the full list of endings for the Accusative case, both singular and plural forms. Most of these endings you already learned in the previous unit. What’s new are the endings for masculine, singular, animate nouns.

Ending chart – singular

Ending chart – plural

Be careful – the nouns tata and braća refer to a male individuals, but grammatically they decline like feminine nouns. Thus, they change their forms based on feminine endings. In other words, you cannot say *Ja imam tata. You need to say: (1) Ja imam tatu. (2) Ja imam braću.

Who/What is Animate?

Animate nouns include words for:

• people
• their names (Denis, Ivan, Marko, Ana, Anastazija, Dalibora…),
• their professions and occupations (doktor, glazbenik, glumac, pjevačica...),
• their family relations (mama, tata, brat, sestra, ujak, stric, teta…),
• social roles (prijatelj, prijateljica, studentica...),
• nationalities (Amerikanac, Bosanac, Hrvat…),
• animals (pas, mačka...) and insects
  

 *Animacy is a subcategory of grammatically masculine nouns. There is no distinction of animacy for feminine nouns..

| OTAC

Below is more about the noun otac - this time in two different cases: Nominative and Accusative. Look at the chart below, and pay attention to the changes that the noun goes through.

Otac is a masculine noun that undergoes certain sound and form changes in different cases. Here are some examples:

 3.1 Zadatak 2. Obitelj

Read the texts below and mark all the nouns in the Accusative case. Then answer the questions that follow. It is a text about family members. The text is divided in three sections for easier reading and comprehension.

3.1 Zadatak 3. Obitelj

Complete the sentences below paying careful attention to context and to what you have learned about the accusative case thus far.

3.1 Zadatak 4. Koga imaš?

3.1 Zadatak 5. Kutak za gramatiku

Choose the correct statement

| Who and What

So far you learned that a question što (what) has the same form in the Nominative and Accusative forms, as in the following examples:

As these two examples show, when we refer to an inanimate object, whether in the Nominative or Accusative case, the form for what will always be što. However, when we talk about masculine animate nouns, we need to distinguish the forms of who for both cases:

3.1 Zadatak 6. Tko? Što? Koga?

| Masculine names that do not end in a consonant

In this lesson you encountered some male names that do not end in a consonant. Here are the examples:

If you listen to the text again, you will hear the following sentences:

All three masculine names have a different ending in the nominative case: Ivica, Franjo, and Ante (instead of the most common consonant ending). What this means, as the examples show, is that when we want to express those names in the Accusative case, we need to use the feminine Accusative ending. However, you need to remember that this will NOT always be the case. Names that have a male and female form, such as Dino-Dina or Bruno-Bruna, will follow the regular masculine ending.

Imam brata Dina i imam sestru Dinu.

Imam brata Bruna i sestru Brunu.

| First and Last Name in the Accusative Case

If we want to express the full name (first and last name) in the Accusative case, you need to remember the following:

1) When we talk about men, we need to change both the first and last names

Example: Koga ima Hrvatska? - Hrvatska ima…

2) When we talk about women, we need to change ONLY the first name, never the last name. However, if the female full name contains a nickname, then the nickname has to be changed as well.

Example: Koga ima Hrvatska? - Hrvatska ima…

3.1 Zadatak 7. Koga ima Hrvatska?

Look at the pictures and answer the question.

Images used in this document are from these sources.