25 Generic Words

• • • Review: Questions, Part 2

"Generic words" are words like "somewhere", "any", "no one" etc. Together with demonstratives, they are a really useful part of any language. They are related to question-words we have already covered.

Adverb-like generic words

Here are "generic" words that behave as adverbs (that is, do not change according to gender, case, number):

	time	place	destination	path
ques- tion	kad(a) "when"	gdjë (!) "where"	kamo "where to"	kud(a) "where through, which way"
no-	nikad(a) "never"	nigdjë "nowhere"	nikamo "to nowhere"	nikud(a) "through nowhere"
some-	nekad(a) "sometimes"	negdjë "somewhere"	nekamo "to somewhere"	nekud(a) "through somewhere"
every-	uvijëk (!) "always"	svugdjë "everywhere"	svakamo "to everywhere"	svukud(a) "through everywhere"
any-	ikad(a) "ever"	igdjë "anywhere"	ikamo "to anywhere"	ikud(a) "through anywhere"

I hope you can see kind of a pattern: k- for questions (k-amo, k-ako), ni- for "negative" adverbs, etc.

They don't change in case, gender or number, that is, they are adverbs. Most words in the table are really often-used, for instance:

Auto je negdjë. "The car is somewhere."
Uvijëk pada kiša. "The rain is always falling."

However, in everyday communication, as with the question-words, the distinction of 'place' vs. 'path' vs. 'destination' is not often observed, so you will often hear:

Putovali smo negdjë. (colloq.) "We were traveling somewhere."
Putovali smo nekamo. (Standard, the same meaning)

Quantity adverbs break between countables and uncountables, and have unexpected forms. There's an additional adverb for "reason" which really don't fit into the scheme:

	manner	quantity		reason
		countable	uncountable
ques- tion	kako "how"	koliko        "how many/much"		zašto "why"
no-	nikako "in no way"	(nijedän) "not one"	ništa "no"	nizašta "for no reason"
some-	nekako "somehow"	(neki) "some"	nešto "some"	—
every-	svakako "in every way"	(svi) "all"	sve "all"	—
any-	ikako "any way"	(ijedän) "any"	išta "any"	—

The word sve "all, everything" has forms for sg. only and slightly specific case endings:

nom.	sve
acc.
dat.	svemu
gen.	svega
ins.	svime

Adjective-like generic words

Now, there are more generic words, this time adjectives (words similar to "big", "my"). There are much less such words compared to adverbs:

	selection	quality	possession	noun
				person	thing
ques- tion	koji "which"	kakäv "what like"	čiji "whose"	tko "who"	što "what"
no-	nijedan "not one"	nikakäv "no (kind)"	ničiji "nobody's"	nitko "noone"	ništa "nothing"
some-	neki "some"	nekakäv "some (kind)"	nečiji "somebody's"	netko "someone"	nešto "something"
every-	svaki "every"	svakakäv "all (kind)"	svačiji "everyone's"	svatko "everyone"	svašta "everything"
any-	ijedan "any"	ikakäv "any (kind)"	ičiji "anybody's"	itko "anyone"	išta "anything"

Another word that could fit into this table is kolik "how big", but there's only a question-word, there's no single adjective "of any size".

Remember that they all change like adjectives, more or less. Some of them we have already encountered.

Ovo je nečiji auto. "This is someone's car."
Netko je bio ovdjë. "Someone was here."

Words netko, itko, nitko, svatko change like tko; likewise, nešto, ništa, išta, svašta change like što, except that some of them end on -a in nom. and acc.

Observe the following curiosity: negative words start with ni- and words meaning "some" on ne-.

Another important word is svi "all people", "everyone" and sve "all things". Really it's just an adjective säv, sva, sve "all", so these are just two gender forms in plural. It's case forms use -em and so instead of the expected -om. It's mainly used in the plural.

Rekäo sam svima. "I told everyone."
Svi će doći. "Everyone will come."
Treba pokositi svu travu. "One needs to mow all the grass." (svu, travu = acc.)

Negation and Generic Words

All of the tables above contain a row with "no-" (negatives). They are used to negate rows "some-", "every-" and "any-". In English, one can negate a sentence by twisting such word:

"Ana has an apple." → "Ana has no apples."
"Ana has some money". → "Ana has no money." or "Ana doesn't have any money."

The 'bad thing' in English is when people make double negations: "Ana doesn't have no money."

But it's the must in Croatian. Every "some-" word must be negated! The words "somewhere", "someone", "somehow", etc. must be negated to "nowhere", "noone", "no way". It means that Croatian counter-parts of "anywhere" etc. are not used in negated sentences. Therefore:

Ana ima nešto novca "Ana has some money".
Ana nëma ništa novca." lit. "Ana doesn't have no money." — Yes. We talk like that all the time.

More examples, for adverbs:

Nigdjë ne mogu naći ključeve. lit. "Nowhere I cannot find keys." = "I can't find keys anywhere."
Nikako ne mogu naći ključeve. lit. "No way I cannot find keys." = "I can't find keys whatever I do."

Unfortunately, there's really no good English translation for nikako; it roughly means, "no way, in no circumstance, in no case".

There is however a non-standard English word "nohow" that has exactly such meaning (check dictionary.reference.com):

"I can't learn this nohow." = Ne mogu nikako ovo naučiti.

Note how this non-standard English sentence is both an exact and literal translation of the Croatian sentence, including a "double negation"!

More examples, for netko vs. nitko and nešto vs. ništa:

Netko je došao. "Somebody came."
Nitko nije došao. lit. "Nobody didn't came." = "Nobody came."
Vidim nešto. lit. "I see something." = "I can see something."
Ne vidim ništa. lit. "I don't see nothing." = "I can see nothing."

Please observe that nešto and ništa when used on its own (and declined) mean "something" and "nothing", but when used as adverbs (and not declined) stand for indefinite quantities "some" and "no":

Ana ima nešto. "Ana has something."
Ana ima nešto čokolade. "Ana has some chocolate." (čokolade gen.)

Words nekakäv, nikakäv are adjectives that also have no good English counterparts, but sometimes they are used like English "some" and "no":

Imam nekakve probleme. "I have some problems."
Nëmam nikakve probleme. "I have no problems whatsoever."

The literal translations would be "I have problems of some kind" and "I don't have problems of no kind". Observe nekakäv in the first sentence, and nikakäv in the second one — they have completely opposite meanings!

"Any-" and "-ever"

In English, generic words starting with "any-" (e.g. "anyone") are mostly used in questions, basically emphasizing "at least (one)". However, in positive sentences, "any-" means "no matter which one", "any will do" (e.g. "Anyone can come").

In Croatian, there are no generic words with special meanings in questions: ne- words are normally used meaning "some/any". But there are still special "any" words, and not just one type but three types. They are listed in tables above, but they are not used very often.

Besides them, there are adverbs meaning "whenever", "whoever", etc. — emphasizing that you don't care exactly when, exactly who, etc. There are two kinds of them, one with bilo, one with god — there's really no difference in meaning:

time	place	destination	path	manner
bilo kad(a)	bilo gdjë	bilo kamo	bilo kud(a)	bilo kako
kad(a) god	gdjë god	kamo god	kud(a) god	kako god

Here are the adjectives:

selection	quality	posse- ssion	noun
			person	thing
bilo koji	bilo kakäv	bilo čiji	bilo tko	bilo što
koji god	kakäv god	čiji god	tko god	što god

For example:

Q: Koju košulju želiš? "Which shirt do you want?"
A: Bilo koju. or Koju god. "Whichever."

Beware, in adjectives the first part is a word that normally changes case, gender and number, and bilo or god never changes, e.g. gen. of što god is čega god, etc.

Adverbs and Adjectives of Low Frequency

This is again a name I invented: there are several adverbs and adjectives derived from ne- generic words, that mean "from place to place", "from time to time". While e.g. nekad means "sometime" — perhaps only once — the adverb ponekad means "sometimes" — more than once, but from time to time, with rather low frequency. English has only "sometimes", while Croatian has a fuller set:

adverbs	adjectives
ponekad "sometimes" ponegdjë "here and there"	poneki "some, few" ponetko "some people" ponešto (similar to nešto)

There's also an adjective pokoji, with meaning similar to poneki. For instance:

Ponegdjë pada kiša. "Rain is falling here and there."

Such adverbs and adjectives are mostly found in literature, newspapers, and are less often used in colloquial speech.

Updated 2014-09-16 (v. 0.4)