Position of enclitics in Serbian

From UniLang Wiki

Enclitics are unstressed words which attach themselves to the previous stressed word and form a prosodic unity with it. In Serbian the enclitics are the following words:

• the interrogative particle li
• the unstressed genitive/accusative forms of personal pronouns: me, te, ga, je, ju, nas, vas, ih
• the unstressed dative forms of personal pronouns: mi, ti, mu, joj, nam, vam, im
• the unstressed reflexive pronoun: se (which behaves like an accusative pronoun)
• the unstressed present forms of biti: sam, si, je, smo, ste, su
• the unstressed present forms of hteti: ću, ćeš, će, ćemo, ćete, će
• the aorist forms of biti: bih, bi, bi, bismo, biste, bi (used for forming the conditional)

Position of enclitics

A general rule is that enclitics are placed in the 2nd position of the clause, right after the first stressed word or phrase. They are not necessarily the 2nd word in the clause. Compare:

• Direktor je dobar čovek
• Direktor škole je dobar čovek
• Direktor moje bivše škole je dobar čovek

Sometimes the enclitic can be put within a phrase, usually after a determiner or a simple adverb.

• Ovaj čovek me nervira -> Ovaj me čovek nervira
• Nijedan kandidat nam ne odgovara -> Nijedan nam kandidat ne odgovara

Many times the word order is not so strict so there are several solutions for putting enclitics in the right place:

• Moja majka mi daje novac
• Moja mi majka daje novac
• Moja majka daje mi novac

The enclitics tend not to go far from the verb. If they are put after the verb, they have to go immediately after it. It's not possible to say "Moja majka daje novac mi".

Prescriptive grammar doesn't allow enclitics after a pause (usually expressed by a comma or a dash in writing), even though this happens in the spoken language all the time:

• Moja majka, koja odlično kuva, daje mi novac is considered more correct than Moja majka, koja odlično kuva, mi daje novac

Enclitics go immidately after:

1. relative pronouns: Kupio sam knjigu koju si mi preporučio
2. interrogative pronouns: Ko si ti? Ne znam zašto si mi to uradio?
3. conjunctions (except for i, a, no and ni): Došao je jer si ga zvao. Ja sam ovde da bih upoznao ljude. Niti znam niti me interesuje. Ili mi pošalji pismo ili me zovi telefonom.
   • But: On je došao i rekao mu je nešto.

Grouping of enclitics

Sometimes there are several (2-4) enclitics in one clause. Then they form an enclitical group. This group is inseparable. It's very important to know how the enclitics behave within the group.

1. The particle li always goes before any other enclitic:
   • Da li ga znaš?
   • Mogu li ti pomoći?
   • Da li ćeš mi reći istinu?
2. The verb enclitics (except for je) always go before the pronouns
   • Kupio sam ti poklon.
   • Oni će nam poslati čestitku.
   • Ona bi te zvala, ali ne sme.
3. the verbal enclitic je always comes after the pronoun
   • On me je video
   • Dala mi je knjigu
4. When you have several pronoun enclitics:
   1. the dative ones come before the accusative ones
      • Dopadaju ti se ove rukavice? Poklanjam ti ih
   2. the dative ones come before the genitive ones
      • Biće vam ga žao
   3. the genitive comes before the accusative ones
      • Rešio sam ga se

There can be only up to 4 enclitics in a group (li, one verbal enclitic and two pronouns in different cases)

• Da li si im ga dala?