Articles

fgpc
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Articles

Postby fgpc » 2011-09-16, 14:53

I'm new to the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian page and the language itself, but I really want to learn, focusing on Serbian.
I don't understand how there are no articles in Serbian, ie: 'a', 'an', 'the' in English. How do speakers and writers compensate? There is a definite difference between 'the table', or 'a table' in English.
Is there some way of differentiating between definite and indefinite which is intrinsically built into the grammar and syntax?

Ludwig Whitby
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Re: Articles

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2011-09-16, 15:21

fgpc wrote:I'm new to the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian page and the language itself, but I really want to learn, focusing on Serbian.
I don't understand how there are no articles in Serbian, ie: 'a', 'an', 'the' in English. How do speakers and writers compensate? There is a definite difference between 'the table', or 'a table' in English.
Is there some way of differentiating between definite and indefinite which is intrinsically built into the grammar and syntax?

Well, you just read it from the context most of the time.

Other than that we use some pronouns to mark the distinction.

''Give me the book'' could be translated as ''Daj mi knjigu'', but also ''Daj mi tu knjigu'' = Give me that book.

''Give me a book'' could also be translated as ''Daj mi knjigu'', but also as ''Daj mi neku knjigu'' = Give me some book.

fgpc
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Re: Articles

Postby fgpc » 2011-09-16, 15:25

Thank you :)
It must be just one more challenge to learning the language from English.

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voron
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Re: Articles

Postby voron » 2011-09-17, 10:32

Word order is often the way to express definiteness/indefiniteness.

Word order in the Slavic languages is essentially governed by topic-comment relation, i.e. you tend to move old (definite) information to the beginning of the sentence, and new (indefinite) one to the end.

E.g.
Na stolu je knjiga. - There is a book on the table.
Knjiga je na stolu. - The book is on the table.

Poklonio sam drugu knijgu. - I gave my friend a book.
Poklonio sam knjigu drugu. - I gave the book to my friend.

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TeneReef
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Re: Articles

Postby TeneReef » 2011-10-04, 17:34

In Croatian, there is (in)definiteness with adjectives


Dobar konj = a good horse
Dobri konj = the good horse

Šaren paun = a colorful peacock
Šareni paun = the colorful peacock

Ukusan puding = a tasty pudding
Ukusni puding = the tasty pudding

Jedan lijep dan = one/a beautiful day
Ovaj lijepi dan = this beautiful day


:) Have a nice day! Želim ti dobar dan!
:yep:
विकृतिः एवम्‌ प्रकृति
learning in 2019: (no-nn)


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