Serbian Lesson 4
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Četvrta Lekcija: Glagol IMATI / Akuzativ
Lesson 4: The verb TO HAVE / The Accusative case
Well, after a small break this course continues. I hope you haven't forgotten what we've done in the previous lessons. But just in case, I'll remind you: we've learnt the present form of the verb biti, how to make the plural forms of nouns and how to make forms of other genders of adjectives. Now it's time to move a bit further and learn another important verb in the Serbian language: the verb imati (to have).
Imam - I have
Imaš - You have (sg.)
Ima - He / she / it has
Imamo - We have
Imate - You have (pl.)
Imaju - They have
While we're here, we might as well learn the negative form.
Nemam - I don't have
Nemaš - You don't have (sg.)
Nema - He / she / it doesn't have
Nemamo - We don't have
Nemate - You don't have (pl.)
Nemaju - They don't have
Now in order for you to use this verb with nouns you must know how to form the accusative case. For you who only speak languages that don't have cases, you should know that the accusative is one of the 7 cases Serbian has and it shows that the word (noun, pronoun, adjective) in question is the direct object of the verb, i.e. it is affected by the action of the verb.
For now we will only learn the nominal forms.
Let's start with the nouns that end in -a. We've learned that they can be both masculine and femenine and that in plural they change that -a into an -e (knjiga -> knjige, sudija -> sudije). That is, of course, only the Nominative case. You'll need need 12 more forms (6 in singular and 6 in plural) to know the know the complete declension of a word.
The forming of the accusative for these nouns is very simple: in singular you change that -a into an -u, and in plural the accusative is the same as the nominative (plural) form.
Knjiga je dobra = The book is good (N - sing)
Imam knjigu = I have a book (A - sing)
Knjige su dobre = The books are good (N - pl)
Imam knjige = I have books (A - pl)
Now let's move to the neuter nouns. They end in -o or -e in Nominative singular and change that -o/-e into an -a in Nominative plural. (selo / polje -> sela / polja). Well, guess what.. for these nouns the accusative is the same as nominative. One thing less to learn. Smile
Selo je lepo = The village is beautiful (N - sing)
Vidim selo = I see a village (A - sing)
Sela su lepa = The villages are beautiful (N - pl)
Vidim sela = I see villages (A - pl)
Now we come to the masculine nouns that end in a consonant. I've left this for the end, since it's a bit more complicated. For this group of nouns it's important to know their meaning, more specifically whether they are animate (living - people and animals) or inanimate (dead - things, abstract concepts, plants) objects.
We know from the earlier lessons that the Nominative singluar is formed by adding an -i (profesor -> progesori) to Nominative singular. Some nouns get a -ov-/-ev- broadening (grad -> gradovi, put -> putevi), and those nouns that end in k, g, or h change those into c, z, s (vojnik -> vojnici)
Accusative, In singular: animate objects will get one -a: Vidim profesora (I see the teacher), vidim vuka (I see a wolf) while inanimate objects will stay the same: Imam prozor (I have a window)
In plural, the -i from the nominative will change into an -e regardless whether it's animate or not. (profesori -> profesore, prozori -> prozore). If the noun has the -ov-/-ev- broadening, it will stay in the accusative plural (gradovi -> gradove), but the k/g/h -> c/z/s alternation will disappear, because we don't have an -i anymore.
I hope you have understood the basic concept of the accusative case, now let's go to the exercises.
