50 Advanced Space and Time

• • • Review: Space and Time

Here I will explain all advanced things with space and time. Once more, some words are different in Serbian and Bosnian: they are marked with asterisks (*).

Origin and Surface Adverbs

There is a set of adverbs that start with either iz-, s- or od- and indicate origin of motion, where something comes from.

However, when used in a 'static' context, they imply the 'surface' (interior or exterior), but when used in a direction context (with verbs meaning "come", "go", "exit"...) they imply "from inside" or "from outside":

adverb		static	origin
izvana *		"on the outside"	"from outside"
iznutra		"on the inside"	"from within"
odozgo		"on the top"	"from above"
odozdo		"on the bottom"	"from below"

To remember their meaning, think about spraying something with paint: to paint the top surface, you need to spray from above! Examples:

Vjëtär dolazi izvana. "The wind comes from the outside."
Kuća je obojana plavo iznutra. "The house is painted blue on the inside."

The asterisk (*) in the above table indicates that in Serbian and Bosnian adverb spolja is used instead of izvana (it's sometimes used in Croatia as well).

The last two adverbs start with iz- and end on -a, similar to izvana and iznutra, but imply only points, either of origin or of action:

adverb	meaning
izbliza	"from a short distance"
izdaleka	"from afar"

For example:

Putujem izdaleka. "I'm traveling from afar."
Moram to pogledati izbliza. "I have to take a look at it closely."

Time Adverbs and Prepositions with Clauses

Recall time adverbs (e.g. prijë "before") that can be used with nouns for time periods (e.g. prijë noći "before the night").

They can also be used with events, expressed as clauses. Compare:

A "I want to clean the yard before the rain." ("before" + noun)
B "I want to clean the house before [guests arrive]." ("before" + clause)

Despite looking quite similar, their structure is different: the sentence B contains a clause "guests arrive" and "before" relates to the whole event in it; in the sentence A, "before" relates just to the noun "rain".

In Croatian, it's a bit more complicated. Generally, you cannot just simply use clauses in place of nouns, but you need to insert the right 'glue'. In case of time adverbs prijë, poslijë, kasnije, you must use nego što:

Želim očistiti dvorište prijë kiše.
Želim očistiti dvorište prijë nego što dođu gosti.

With preposition nakon, just a što is needed:

Probudio säm se nakon kiše. "I woke up after the rain."
Probudio säm se nakon što je kiša prestala. "I woke up after the rain stopped."

Start and End Adverbs

There are additional generic adverbs related to actions that spread in time or space: one can express (or ask) the terminal points, like "from", "since", or "up to", "until" by prefixing (or combining) od "from" and do "up to, until" with many of above adverbs. However, place and direction are not distinguished, and some adverbs have multiple versions:

	time		place
	from	to	from	to
question	otkad(a) otkako (!) "since when"	dokad(a) dokle (!) "how long"	odakle (!) otkud(a) "where from"	dokle (!) dokud(a) "up to where"
close	odsad(a) "now on"	dosad(a) "before now"	odavde (!) "from here"	dovde (!) "to here"
mid	otad(a) "since then"	dotad(a) "until then"	otamo "from there"	dotamo "to there"
far	odonda "since that time"	—	odande	—
some-	—	—	odnekud (!) odnekle (!) "from somewhere"	donekud (!) "to somewhere"

No, these are not typos: sometimes it's od-, and sometimes ot-! Adverbs like odakle "where from" and otkad "since when" are very frequent:

Odakle dolazi vlak? "Where does the train come from?"
Otkad učiš hrvatski? "Since when have you been learning Croatian?"

In contrast, odonda is quite infrequent. Additionally, dokle has two meanings, so you will hear it sometimes instead of dokad:

Q: Dokad će padati kiša? "How long will the rain fall?" (lit. "until when")
Q: Dokle će padati kiša? "How long will the rain fall?"

Answer to such questions wouldn't be "for three hours" or so, but "until..." since the ending is asked (as will all do- words), e.g.:

A: Do navečer. "Until evening." (lit. "up to evening-time")

Also there's the sometimes used otkako having the same meaning as otkad, which is unexpected, I admit... The adverb donekle also exists, but it took an unrelated meaning, something like "to a certain degree", and is really not used in everyday conversation.

Updated 2014-11-07 (v. 0.4)