Talk:Serbo-Croatian grammar

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The term "Serbo-Croatian" is here used as the common English name of the language of the Serb, Croat, Bosniak, and Montenegrin peoples, a name which has been used with this meaning since the 19th century, long before the establishment of Yugoslavia. If you disagree with the name, the appropriate response is to request that it be renamed.
There was consensus on merging the old Serbian and Croatian grammar articles; if you want them back, the appropriate course is to request that this article be split. However, bear in mind that such a split is likely to be considered redundant, which is why they were merged in the first place.
The grammar presented in this article is Shtokavian. It is shared by all four ethnic standards. Differences between the standards may be covered here, but also in more detail at Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. Adding twenty sections of "Serbian and Croatian are not the same!!!!!!" does nothing to improve the article, and will therefore be deleted.
If you wish to refer us to another page, or to an old version of this article, the appropriate means is to link to it. Please don't paste page after page of text or tables clipped from other articles. That adds nothing to the discussion and makes this talk page difficult to navigate, and will therefore be deleted.

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Palatal

There is something profoundly unclear about this article: there are inflection patterns given for palatal consonants with examples that do not correspond to what the Serbo-Croatian phonology article defines as such, namely nj, ć, đ, j, and lj. The word "prišt", given as one example, contains no such sound. If the definition of palatal in grammar is different from the definition in phonology, we should definitely mention this; I am not an expert, so I can't make such an edit myself but, as it is now, the article is confusing. complainer (talk) 07:19, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Addressed, now. The proper nomenclature is "soft", which only partially corresponds with palatal consonants. There are some "soft" consonants which are actually reflexes of old phonemes: št in prišt - prištevi is reflex of proto-Slavic /щ/, while e.g. r in car - carevi (cf. bor - borovi) comes from Old Church Slavonic цaрь 'tzar', the soft sign denoting a palatalization. No such user (talk) 09:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Definite and indefinite adjectives

The examples of declensions of adjectives given in the article are wrong. Adjectives also have grammatical aspect, but not perfective or imperfective, but definite or indefinite. "velik" is indefinite, while "veliki" is definite. Ex: "Vidio sam velik zid" - I saw a big wall. "Vidio sam veliki zid" - I saw the big wall. The declensions are also quite different in the masculine, while feminine and neuter retain a difference only in accents. So for masculine indefinite, it would go something like this:

N velik veliki

G velika velikih

D veliku velikim

Ac velik velike

V velik veliki

I velikim velikim

L veliku velikim

And for masculine definite, it would be like this

N veliki veliki

G velikog velikih

D velikom velikim

Ac veliki velike

V veliki veliki

I velikim velikim

L velikom velikim

It would seem that someone made a mix of these two separate declensions.

P.S.: In the plural, the difference is in the accent, with the final vowel being lengthened. 92.36.135.59 (talk) 00:40, 10 April 2017 (UTC) Corrected. Burzuchius (talk) 16:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Imperfect and aorist

Isn't it that the imperfect is restricted imperfective verbs, whereas the aorist is restricted to perfective verbs, and that hence only those few verbs with both aspects have both of these tenses? That should be mentioned (unless mistaken). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.204.102.111 (talk) 16:13, 9 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Number of patterns

You inflate the number of declension patterns by treating fleeting vowels and predictable orthographical changes as separate declensions, but totally ignore noun animacy and long plural forms. This is very misleading for learners as they would think the particularities as a result of that very pattern instead of animacy or long plurals. Please split the patterns into more categories or reduce the numbers and add notes explaining animacy, long plurals, fleeting vowels and orthographical changes in a clear way. --2001:16B8:311F:5000:4548:E0D3:7A62:EBDB (talk) 17:31, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Animate or inanimate

According to the declension tables bubreg (kidney) would be animate, and sužanj (slave) would be inanimate. Is this really correct?--46.94.137.99 (talk) 11:46, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They are incorrect; bubreg is inanimate and sužanj is animate (click on "Izvedeni oblici" for the declension). Doremo (talk) 12:28, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]