41 Imperatives, Permissions and Vocative Case

Finally, I'm going to explain how to yell! Or... how to sing an anthem. Here are some parts of the Croatian national anthem Hrvatska domovina "Croatian homeland", a song frequently referred to with the two first words Lijëpa naša...:

Lijëpa naša domovino,
Oj junačka zemljo mila,
Stare slave djëdovino,
da bi vazda sretna bila!
...

Teci Dravo, Savo teci,
Nit' ti Dunav silu gubi,
Sinje more svijëtu reci,
Da svoj narod Hrvat ljubi.
...

I have underlined imperatives and vocatives.

Imperative

The imperative (abbreviation: imper.) is not really a tense, but something like it. We can call it a tense. In English, the imperative is just a verb without a personal pronoun. Croatian has special forms:

Uzmi jabuku. "Take (an) apple."

It's similar to the present tense, but it does not have forms for all persons. It has forms only for the 2^nd pers. sg., and 1^st and 2^nd pers. plural. When talking about imperatives, people often assume the 2^nd pers. sg., but of course other two forms are imperatives. Nevertheless, I will list 2^nd pers. sg. of imperative as "the imperative" since it's the most often used form, the shortest form, and other forms are derived from it!

The imperative endings are quite similar to present tense endings. The only problem is there are two types of endings, one having an i and another having an j. How do we know which endings to use? I could list verb classes, etc., but a small table is much better. It's only the 3^rd pers. pl. of present tense that matters, what it ends on:

pres. 3rd pl.	-ju	-ku	-u, -e
imper. 2nd sg.	-j	-ci	-i
imper. 1st pl.	-j-mo	-ci-mo	-i-mo
imper. 2nd pl.	-j-te	-ci-te	-i-te

Unless the 3^rd pers. pl. of present ends on -ju, the last vowel is thrown out, and an -i is added. However, the i added is similar to the plural of nouns — it changes k to c; it happens only for few 0-verbs like pečem (peku), tečem (teku), vučem (vuku) etc. since only such verbs can end on -ku. Therefore, their imperatives are peci, teci and vuci.

For our usual example verbs, imperatives are: imaj, misli, drži, brini, pij, tresi, očekuj and kupuj.

The verb legnem, legäo, legla, leći perf. "lie down, come to horizontal position" has two words as its imperative: legni and lezi.

The imperative of säm, bio "be" is budi. Irregular verbs hoću and mogu have no imperative.

It's quite normal to use imperatives of perf. verbs, even ones with seldom used present like rečem - imp. reci; it's an action that takes a very short time:

skoči! ← skačem ~ skočim "jump"
stani! ← stajem ~ stanem "stop, halt"
dođi! ← dolazim ~ dođem "come"

Of course, perf. verbs also imply completion of an action:

pojedi juhu! ← jedem ~ po- "eat the (whole) soup"

When an action that will take longer (or a state) is required, impf. verbs are usually used:

čekaj! ← čekati ~ pri- "wait"
slušaj! ← slušam "listen"
spavaj! ← spavam "sleep"

Imperatives are often inserted in sentences, or start sentences in direct communication:

Reci mi... "Tell me..."
Gledaj, ovo sam kupila. "Look, I bought this."
Dođi ovamo. "Come here."
Pazi, nož je oštar. "Take care, (the) knife is sharp."

Imperative gledaj "look" is frequently shortened to gle. Imperative čekaj is in colloquial speech sometimes shortened to ček.

Purpose clauses are also often used with imperatives. For instance:

Ustani odmah da stigneš na posao! "Get up immediately to get to work in time!"

Negation, Encouragement and Allowing

Negation (like English "don't come") can be constructed in two ways:

1. by adding a ne in front of the imperative (only for impf. verbs!)
2. with a special verb (we could call it "negative imperative verb") that has only imperative forms and the infinitive of the verb.

For example:

ne + imper.	spec. verb + inf.	meaning
Ne reci...	Nemoj reći...	"Don't tell..."
Ne gledajte!	Nemojte gledati!	"Don't look!" (speaking to a group)
Ne brinite!	Nemojte brinuti!	"Don't worry!" (speaking to a group)
Ne čekajmo!	Nemojmo čekati!	"Let's not wait!" (speaking to a group including the speaker)

The first form is a slightly stronger prohibition than the second, in my point of view, but they are used interchangeably for impf. verbs. Surprisingly, for perf. verbs, placing a ne in front of the verb in imperative doesn't work:

Ugasi auto. "Turn off the car."
Ne ugasi auto. (won't work)
Nemoj ugasiti auto. "Don't turn off the car." (must use this form)

Additionally, there is another verb that is used to encourage, similar to English "c'mon", having only imperative forms; it's used on its own or together with an imperative of some other verb.

Hajde! "C'mon!"
Hajde, idi! "C'mon, go!"

Both special verbs are listed here:

	negative imper.	encouraging imper.
imper. 2nd sg.	nemoj	hajde
imper. 1st pl.	nemoj-mo	hajde-mo, haj-mo (!)
imper. 2nd pl.	nemoj-te	hajde (!)

One more imperative is used for encouraging: daj "give!", the imperative form of verb dam perf. "give".

There's a very frequent construct with the imperative this verb: daj da + present, meaning "let", "allow", and ne daj + present, meaning "don't let". Of course, plural forms are possible (ne dajmo da..., ne dajte da...).

The clause after daj is of the desire type, always in present, and often containing perf. verbs. This is actually just a imperative of form dam + desire, described in 39 Verbs 'dajem', 'imam', 'uzimam', kidam'.

For an example of imperatives, including daj + desire, check the song Ne daj performed by Natali Dizdar:

Vozi me po cijëlom gradu     dok se ne digne sunce sviraj mi onu pjësmu što säm tražila jučer	"Drive me over the whole city Until the Sun rises Play to me the song I asked for yesterday
Ljubi me tamo gdjë najmanje ne volim štipaj mi obraze dok ne porumenim	Kiss me where I dislike the least Pinch my cheeks Until I blush
Ne daj da nestanem ne daj da propustim dok se gase svjëtla jedno za drugim (Marin Ostojić i Marta Muždalo)	Don't let me disappear Don't let me miss Lights going out (lit. "while lights go off") One after another"

Here we have also a preposion za used in meaning "after" ("one after another"). Note also use of perf. verbs in da-clauses after daj.

The construct pjësmu što säm tražila jučer is a relative clause; check 47 Relative and Similar Clauses.

To summarize:

Negative imperatives To form a negative imperative (that is, a prohibition), use either ne + imper., or forms of the special "negative imperative verb" nemoj, nemojmo, nemojte + infinitive of the verb

Permissions

There's a word that means a permission, indifference, resignation: neka. It's simply put in front of the verb in present, past, or future and can be roughly translated as "let". However, the verb is usually in 3^rd pers. present (either singular or plural):

Neka ode. "Let him/her go."
Ivan neka bude golman. "Ivan should be the goalkeeper."
Neka Ivan bude golman. (the same meaning)
Neka odu. "Let them go."
Neka su otišli. (rarely used) "It's ok that they went."

It does not have to be directly in front, it can be shuffled around a bit, but cannot come after the verb.

The verb puštam ~ pustim "release, let go" is also frequently used to indicate permission:

Pustila me van. "She let me go outside."
Pusti me u sobu. "Let me in the room." (pusti = imperative)

Vocative Case

As verbs have imperatives, so nouns have the vocative case (abbreviation: voc.). It's mush less often used than the imperative, since:

• For all adjectives and pronouns, it's the same as nominative
• For all nouns, voc.pl. = nom. pl.
• For neuter nouns, voc.sg. = nom. sg.
• Furthermore, many people use nominative instead of vocative.

Let's take a look at the endings:

case	ma-nouns	mi-nouns	n-nouns	a-nouns	i-nouns
nom.sg.	-	-	-œ	-a	-
acc.sg.	-a			-u
dat.sg.	-u			(+)i	-i
gen.sg. / dual	-a			-e	-i
ins.sg.	-œm			-om	-i, -ju
voc.sg.	-#e, -u		-œ	-o (-e)	-i
nom. / voc.pl.	-[œv]+i		-a	-e	-i
acc.pl.	-[œv]e
dat. / ins.pl.	-[œv]+ima		-ima	-ama	-ima
gen.pl.	-[œv]a		-a	-a	-i

This is the final table, there are no more cases left in the Standard Croatian.

For masculine nouns ending on š, ž, nj or lj -u is usually added, but also for some other nouns. Before e, k/c change to č, g/z to ž, and h/s to š (indicated by a # sign):

puž "snail" → pužu konj "horse" → konju päs "dog" → psu doktor → doktore čovjëk "man" → čovjëče     vuk "wolf" → vuče

bog "god" → bože otäc "father" → oče djëd "grandfather" → djëde stric "father's brother" → striče Ivan → Ivane Goran → Gorane

With persons names, vocative is usually used, except for male names that end on a consonant (regardless of their noun class):

Luka → Luka
Ivo → Ivo
Marko → Marko

Affectionate a-nouns, mama and tata, used by children, have voc. same as their nom. For baka "granny" and teta "aunt" both forms are used:

mama → mama
tata → tata
baka → baka, bako
teta → teta, teto

Feminine a-nouns, regularly use vocative on -o, except those ending on -ica: they have their vocative on -ice. Names use sometimes vocative, especially if they end on -ica:

žena "woman, wife" → ženo
majka "mother" → majko
sestra "sister" → sestro
krava "cow" → kravo
mačka "cat" → mačko
kuća "house" → kućo
domovina "homeland" → domovino
djëdovina "things inherited from grandfathers, ancestry" → djëdovino
zemlja "earth, ground, soil, land" → zemljo
Sava (name of a river) → Savo
Ivana → Ivano or Ivana
sestrica "little sister" → sestrice
Janica → Janice

So, you know now how to say "come here, cow!" And words in the anthem.

Again, a lot of people use just nominatives in everyday communication.

Adjective Inversion

If you carefully examined the anthem, you could see phrases like zemljo mila where adjective mila comes after the noun zemlja "ground, earth, land, country" (in voc. zemljo). It's often so in vocatives, but also in poetry and in older Croatian literature, especially medieval.

Updated 2014-06-24 (v. 0.4)