Accusative of time

Lesson opening

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The accusative of time: how long, how often, and when

The accusative has one more job besides the direct object and the goal of a movement (the lessons “Direct object” and “Accusative prepositions (direction)”): time. And it does that job very economically. Where English often reaches for a preposition (for a week, for an hour), Serbian uses the bare case, with no preposition at all. Radim ceo dan is “I work all day”; Čekam celu nedelju is “I’ve been waiting a whole week”. The noun, by its form alone, says “this is how long it lasts”.

This lesson gathers the time uses of the accusative: duration (how long an action goes on), repetition and occasion, a point in time with a preposition and “in … from now”, and, along the way, measure (košta sto dinara, it costs a hundred dinars). And an honest caveat: not every “when” takes the accusative. “Last year” is said with the genitive, prošle godine, and we will see where that border runs as we go.

Duration: ceo dan, celu nedelju

The main meaning is how long an action lasts. The stretch of time goes into the accusative, with no preposition. Where English says for a week or simply all day, Serbian just puts the noun in the right case:

Note the phrase godinu dana, literally “a year of days”: godinu is the accusative (duration), and dana is the genitive plural “of days”, spelling out the count. In the same way: mesec dana (a month), nedelju dana (a week). English just says “a year”; Serbian likes the fuller phrase. The word ceo/cela (whole, all) agrees with the noun in gender and is in the accusative too: ceo dan (masculine), celu nedelju (feminine), celo leto (neuter, all summer). In celu noć (all night) only ceo changes: noć is a feminine noun ending in a consonant, and it stays as it is in the accusative, like stvar in “The three declensions”. And notice the tense in the third example: where English says “I’ve been learning … for a year”, Serbian uses the plain present, učim, because the learning is still going on.

The stretch doesn’t have to be “whole”: duration takes the accusative without ceo as well. Čekam sat vremena (I’ve been waiting an hour), Spavam osam sati (I sleep eight hours), Trajalo je tri nedelje (it lasted three weeks): in each one the bare accusative answers “how long?”. Sat vremena is literally “an hour of time”: sat means both “hour” and “clock, watch”, and vremena makes it clear that time is meant. After numbers the form follows the number rules as always (dva sata, but pet sati), but the role stays the same, a measure of time.

The genitive can say the same thing: celog dana (all day), cele noći (all night). You will hear both, and both are correct; this lesson practises the accusative. One English for does get a preposition: the length of a trip or a rental planned in advance takes na: Idem u Niš na nedelju dana (I’m going to Niš for a week).

Repetition and occasion: svaki dan, ovaj put

The same bare accusative expresses repetition (“every day”) and a single occasion (“this time”). English happens to say these without a preposition too, so follow your instinct and don't add one:

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The accusative of time: how long, how often, and when

The accusative’s third job: time, mostly without a preposition. A preposition is needed only for a point in time (u), for “in … from now” (za, kroz) and for a planned length (na).

Duration: bare accusative, no “for”

Repetition and occasion: also bare

Point in time and “in”: with a preposition

Also: the accusative of measure