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The Genitive Case: Endings and Usage The genitive case endings for the three possible classes of nouns are given in Table 1 below. Table 1: The genitive case of Serbian nouns Class I Class I SINGULAR
(masculine: ending in a consonant in nominative) (neuter: ending in o or e in nominative)

Class II
(feminine: ending in -a in nominative)

Class III
(feminine: ending in a consonant in nominative)

Instrumental PLURAL Instrumental

window prozor-a Jovan-a (Johns) windows prozora

village sel-a villages sel-a

woman en-e women en-a

love ljubav-i loves ljubav-i

Notes on phonology and pronunciation of genitives The genitive case and the accusative case for the masculine animate nouns (ex. Jovan, deak boy, pas dog) have the same ending: a. Class I and Class III nouns have the same endings in singular and plural: a for Class I nouns and i for Class III nouns. Easy? Yes, but The respective genitive endings a and i are pronounced long, as well as the vowel that precedes it. This can dramatically change the pronunciation. Also, if a plural noun in the nominative (default) case ends in a consonant cluster for any declension class, a long a may (but not always!) be inserted in the stem before the a ending. For example: nominative plural: genitive plural: studenti studenata students of students devojke devojaka girls of girls

Some Class II nouns that end in a consonant cluster get the i ending in genitive plural instead of the regular a ending. Here is an example: borbe borbi fights of fights primedba primedbi remarks of remarks

nominative plural: genitive plural:

And some Class II and Class III nouns end the genitive plural in u or iju, respectively. These types of nouns generally denote something that comes in pairs or denote body parts. Some examples: Class II nouns Class III nouns oi eyes nominative plural: ruke hands noge legs ui ears kosti bones prsti fingers oiju of eyes genitive plural: ruku of hands uiju of ears nogu of legs kostiju of bones prstiju of fingers
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When to use the genitive case in sentences? The genitive case is used with many se or reflexive verbs that denote some psychological state. For example: fear (plaiti se), happiness (radovati se), remembrance (seati se), bodily or psychological satisfaction (najesti se eat until full, napiti se booze, get drunk, naigrati se play, dance enough). Here is a list of the most frequently used se verbs. Table 2: A list of se verbs that take an object in genitive case bojati se fear, afraid napiti se binge, booze, get drunk uvati se beware, keep out prihvatiti se to take a part, accept readily doepati se seize, grasp plaiti se fear, afraid kloniti se avoid osloboditi se free, get rid liiti se deprive, get rid seati se remember* najesti se overeat setiti se remember* prejesti se eat until full stideti se ashame * The only difference between the two verbs that both mean to remember is that seati se is an imperfective verb and setiti se is a perfective verb. Table 3: Some examples of genitive nouns as objects of se verbs Serbian English 1. Marija se plai grmljavine. Marija is afraid of thundering. 2. uvaj se psa. Beware of the dog. 3. On se liio svog nasledstva. He rid himself of his inheritance. 4. Zorica se najela voa. Zorica ate (enough) fruit. 5. Dete se napilo mleka. The child drank a lot of milk. 6. Jovan se prihvatio tog posla. Jovan accepted that job. 7. Danko se oslobodio tereta. Danko freed himself of the burden. 8. Ona se seala svog detinjstva. She remembered her childhood. 9. Marko se stideo svog oca. Marko was ashamed of his father. The most common usage of genitive case is to denote possession (like the English prepositions of and s). Table 4: Some examples of genitive nouns denoting possession Serbian English 1. Ovo je slika moje majke. This is a picture of my mother. 2. Slike Beograda su lepe. The pictures of Belgrade are pretty. 3. Imam puno knjiga. I have lots of books. 4. Imam pet sestara. I have five sisters. 5. Imam novca. I have money. 6. Nemam novca. I dont have money. 7. On nema milosti. He has no mercy. 8. Nema eera. There is no sugar.

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Examples 1 and 2 illustrate that the genitive case occurs as the object of a noun, just as in English (e.g., a students book). In addition to the genitive, in Serbian we use the possessive adjective to denote possession: Majina slika mothers picture. As you can see, the possessive majina corresponds to the Saxon genitive in English, mothers. Examples 3 and 4 show that the genitive case occurs after quantity words, such as: puno a lot and pet five. Examples 5-8 show that the genitive case occurs with the verb imati to have. Such genitives nouns are indefinite or unspecified. The genitive case is also used as an object of many prepositions The following prepositions require only the genitive case: blizu near, du alongside, iznad above, ispod below, ispred in front of, iza behind, izmeu between, kod at, mimo, past by, nasred in the middle of, oko around, pored beside, by, pokraj by, beside, next to, preko across, via, put toward. These genitives denote a place, destination or time. Some examples in Table 4 illustrate this. Note that the genitive noun with the preposition kod means at somebodys place. With the prepositions od from and do until, to, the genitive denotes the initial and final point of location or time, respectively (examples 10 and 11). With the preposition u in, at, the genitive denotes possession. This usage is used in poetry, not so much in everyday language (example 17 below). With the prepositions iz from and sa from, off, at, the genitive denotes a separation, detachment, or origination (examples 18 and 19). Note that the preposition sa also takes the instrumental case, but the instrumental case denotes the act of accompanying someone or something, or a means of doing something.

Table 4: Some examples of the genitive case as the object of prepositions Serbian English 1. Moja knjiga je blizu stolice. My book is near the chair. 2. Deca su se igrala du ulice. The children played along the street. 3. erpa je iznad sudopere. The pot is above the sink. 4. Maka je ispod stola. The cat is under the table. 5. Marija sedi izmeu mame i tate. Marija is sitting between (her) mother and father. 6. Nalazim se kod frizira. I am (located) at the hairdressers. 7. Idem kod Marije. I am going to Marijas (house). 8. Mirko je proao mimo nae kue. Mirko passed by our house. 9. Vuk je bacio ranac nasred sobe. Vuk threw the backpack in the middle of the room. 10 Jelena je putovala od Nia do Beograda. Jelena traveled from Ni to Belgrade. 11 ekali smo je od jutra do mraka. Weve waited for her from the morning till dark. 12 Deca skakuu oko drveta. The children are jumping around the tree. 13 To se desilo oko Nove godine. This happened around the New Year.
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14 15 16 17 18 19 On stoji pored puta. Deak je brzo preao preko ulice. Krenuli su put Beograda. Marija je jedinica u majke. Zorica je izvadila sliku iz fioke. Jovan je uzeo knjigu sa police. He stands by the road. The boy quickly walked across the street. They headed toward Belgrade. Maria is the only daughter of (her) mother. Zorica pulled a picture from the drawer. Jovan took the book from the shelf.

To ask questions about the genitive case, we use the following interrogative pronouns in the genitive case: Koga Of whom, whose ega of what Table 7: Some examples of questions that ask about the genitive object Serbian English Whom do you fear? Question: Koga se plai? I fear drunk drivers. Answer: Plaim se pijanih vozaa. Whose picture did you see? Quesiton: iju si sliku videla? Answer: Videla sam sliku ovog profesora. I saw a picture of this professor. What are you ashamed of? Quesiton: ega se stidi? I am ashamed of my lies. Answer: Stidim se svojih lai. Around what are the children playing? Quesiton: Oko ega se deca igraju? The children are playing around the tree. Answer: Deca se igraju oko drveta. Near whom is Milan standing? Quesiton: Blizu koga stoji Milan? Milan is standing near Jelena. Answer: Milan stoji blizu Jelene?

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And now some exercises! If you get stuck or are not sure you got it right, please email me for help. Exercise 1 Fill out the genitive case forms in sentences below Using the nouns below (given in nominative, or dictionary form), please insert the appropriate genitive forms in the following sentences. For convenience, I have indicated which noun goes with which sentence. 1. zemljotres earthquake 4. mrak darkness 7. zgrada building 2. drug male friend, comrade 5. dvorite courtyard 8. televizor tv 3. obaveza duty 6. orman wardrobe, dresser 9. pono midnight 1. Bojim se____________ 2. Milan se setio ______ 3. Marija se oslobodila_________ 4. Devojica se plai_____________ 5. Deca se igraju oko _______. 6. Danko je izbacio straru odeu iz ________. 7. Lopta je pala iza ________. 8. Zorica stalno sedi pored _______. 9. Marija se vratila oko _______. Im afraid of earthquakes. Milan remembered (his) friend. Marija is free from any duties.. The girl is afraid of darkness. The children are playing around the playground. Danko threw away old clothes from the dresser. The ball fell behind the building. Zorica always sits by the television. Marija returned around midnight.

Exercise 2 Translate the following sentences For this exercise you need to know both the present tense and past tense. The boldface nouns require the genitive case. If you dont have a bi-directional Serbian-EnglishSerbian dictionary, you may go to the website: http://www.krstarica.com/dictionary/ to get the words you need for this exercise. Note that for nouns, a dictionary will only give you the nominative case forms. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Today, I remembered Marija. Branko got rid of an old telephone. Beware of snakes. She was traveling from Paris to Texas. She lives near the airport. She dropped her umbrella in the middle of the road. Whom did Maria fear? What was Zorica afraid of?

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