Declensions are vital. The Croatian language as such can’t exist without them. You can barely say anything beyond Bok without using declensions!
Croatian uses declensions to provide crucial information about the nouns in a sentence — so that we can know who is doing what to whom and with whom.
In this way, English & Croatian are very different.
English is an analytic language: we know who is doing what to whom in a sentence based on word order.
Croatian is an inflected language: we know who is doing what to whom in a sentence because of the declensions that ‘flag’ the role (e.g. subject, direct object) of each noun.
The information that is packed into declensions tells us the gender & case of the noun.
The case of the noun is how we know what role in the sentence it’s playing. And the gender of the noun is an inseparable feature of the noun that has to come along for the ride.
Since declensions tell us the gender & case of each noun, declensions change dependent on if a noun is masculine, feminine, neuter, or plural AND dependent on if the case is nominative, accusative, dative, locative, instrumental, vocative, or genitive.
Whew! If you’re not already familiar with some of these concepts, this can sound a little overwhelming. But, the ability to break down a sentence into its various parts will be key to Croatian declension. Remember to focus on case, gender and number.
Why does Croatian use declensions?
Declensions matter because you can barely say anything beyond da, ne, and bok! without working with declensions. They are a big deal!
OK, but why?!
How Sentences Have Meaning We couldn’t just say The man the child the woman, right?
That’s not a full sentence. It doesn’t have any meaning. It’s missing crucial elements that tell us how the man, the child, and the woman relate to each other.
There are different ways of stringing information together so that it makes sense.
How Sentences Work in English
In English, we know “who is doing what to whom” because of word order.
Check out these examples:
The man gives the child to the woman. The child gives the woman to the man.
Both of these sentences use the exact same components, but the meaning is changed because the word order is changed!
How Sentences Work in Croatian
In Croatian, however, we don’t know which noun is in which ‘slot’ because of the word order.
Rather, the endings of nouns indicate “who is doing what to whom” because of their declensions!
Check out those same two sentences translated into Croatian.
Čovjek daje ženi dijete. (‘The man gives to the woman the child’) Čovjeku daje žena dijete. (‘The woman gives to the man the child’)
The bolded letters themselves (the small changes!) are the declensions.
And that is how the meaning of the sentences changed even though the word order didn’t!
To properly use declensions in Croatian, you need to know the following:
What gender is the noun?
What case is the noun supposed to be in?
What case-ending does the noun get?
The case of each noun in a sentence indicates what role it is playing in the sentence and therefore also shows its relationship to (i.e. how it’s interacting with) the other nouns in the sentence.
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