B1 — intermediateAdjectives

Definite vs indefinite

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Definite and indefinite adjectives: nov or novi, “a new” or “the new”

A Serbian adjective has two masculine forms: a short one, nov, and a long one, novi. You have met both already. In the lesson “Adjective agreement” the short form stood both before a noun (dobar hleb, good bread) and after je (Hleb je dobar, the bread is good), and the long one appeared in novi stan, the new flat. Serbian grammar calls the short form the indefinite form (neodređeni vid) and the long one the definite form (određeni vid); other lessons of the course simply say the short form and the long form. This lesson shows what the difference means, where it is still alive and where it has almost gone.

In a nutshell: the short form answers the question kakav? (“what is it like?”), the long form answers koji? (“which one?”). Kakav je auto? — Nov. (“What’s the car like? — New.”) Koji auto? — Onaj novi. (“Which car? — The new one.”) That is close to what English does with its articles: nov auto is roughly “a new car”, some new car or other, and novi auto is “the new car”, the one we are talking about.

Definition

Two forms of the adjective. The indefinite (short) form, nov, “a new …”, names a quality. Its main jobs are the predicate, the part of the sentence that says something about the subject after je (Auto je nov, the car is new), and describing something mentioned for the first time (Kupio sam nov auto, I bought a new car). The definite (long) form, novi, “the new …”, points to a known thing, one picked out from the rest (novi auto, the new car). It follows taj, ovaj, moj (“that”, “this”, “my”) and appears in names (Novi Sad, literally “new garden”). In writing the two forms differ only in the masculine (nov / novi) and in the other cases of the masculine and neuter (genitive nova / novog, dative novu / novom); in the feminine, in the neuter nominative and in the plural they look the same (nova kuća, nove kuće).

nov or novi: the short form and the long form

Examples

Short (indefinite)	Long (definite)	The difference
Auto je nov.	—	predicate: the car is new
nov auto	novi auto	a new car / the new car
dobar čovek	dobri čovek	a good man / the good man
tuđ jezik	tuđi jezik	a foreign language / the foreign language
star grad	Stari grad	an old town / Old Town (the district)

Note the pair tuđ / tuđi with a real đ (like the d in British duty): “foreign, someone else’s” has both forms too. Proper names take the long form: Novi Sad (the city), Novi Beograd (New Belgrade, a district of Belgrade), Stari grad (Old Town, another district), Beli dvor (the White Palace in Belgrade), Sveti Sava (Saint Sava, the first archbishop of the Serbian Church). A name points to one thing only, and picking one thing out is the long form’s job.

Compare two sentences about a new worker. Došao je nov radnik. “A new worker has come”: we hear of him for the first time, and the adjective says what he is like. Gde je novi radnik? “Where is the new worker?”: the one we already know about. In the same way Treba mi nov kaput is “I need a new coat”, any new coat, not yet chosen. After taj, ovaj, onaj (“that”, “this”, “that one over there”) and moj, tvoj (“my”, “your”) the thing is already picked out, so the adjective is long: taj novi radnik (that new worker), moj stari prijatelj (my old friend), taj tuđi jezik (that foreign language).

That is how grammars describe the difference; in everyday speech it is not kept strictly. Many people say Kupio sam novi auto about any new car, and you will be understood just as well as with nov auto. Three things hold firm: the short form in the predicate (Auto je nov), the long form after taj, moj and in names (taj novi auto, Novi Sad), and the short form in set phrases such as Dobar dan! (Good afternoon!).

In the predicate, after je, the form is short: Čovek je dobar, Grad je star, Jezik je tuđ, Ovaj radnik je nov. The long form after je exists too, but it means “the … one”: Ovaj kaput je novi, a onaj je stari, “this coat is the new one, and that one is the old one”. Adjectives that have no short form stay long in the predicate as well: On je mlađi od mene, he is younger than me (more on them below). A special case is mali (“small”): its short form mao sounds old-fashioned, and people say Stan je mali, the flat is small.

Deeper semantics

Nov čovek or novi čovek: a new one or the one we know

The difference between the two forms is much like the difference between “some” and “that very one”, which English splits between a and the: nov radnik is a new worker, one we hear of for the first time, novi radnik is the new one, one we already know about. The short form brings a thing onto the stage; the long form points at one already standing there. That is why after a demonstrative, a word like “this” or “that”, which singles a thing out by itself, the long form is needed: taj novi radnik (that new worker), not “taj nov radnik”. English drops the after that; Serbian does the opposite and keeps its “the” inside the adjective.

In the predicate the short form is used because a predicate ascribes a quality rather than singling a thing out: Ovaj radnik je nov (this worker is new), Grad je star (the town is old). English gives you no help with either half: “a new worker”, “the new worker” and “the worker is new” all use the same new. So you have to learn both: the short form after je, and the short form next to a noun in the sense “a, some” (nov auto, dobar čovek). A practical test: if English would say “a” or “some”, take the short form (nov); if it would say “the”, “this” or “that”, take the long one (novi).

Another sign of definiteness is uniqueness. If a thing is one of a kind, Serbian reaches for the long form: Sveti Sava (Saint Sava, there is only one), Tihi okean (the Pacific Ocean). In the feminine and neuter you cannot see this in writing: Crno more (the Black Sea) and desna ruka (the right hand, you have only one) look the same in either form. But if a quality is named as one possibility among many, for the first time, not yet pinned down, the form is short: a new coat, any new coat, not yet chosen, is nov kaput. The same logic explains why after possessives, which already make a thing definite, the adjective is long: moj stari prijatelj (my old friend), not “moj star prijatelj”.

Cheat sheet

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Definite and indefinite adjectives: nov or novi

Two masculine forms: short nov, the indefinite form (neodređeni vid), “a new …”, and long novi, the definite form (određeni vid), “the new …”. Ask the question: kakav? (what is it like?) → short: Kakav je auto? — Nov. Koji? (which one?) → long: Koji auto? — Onaj novi.

Meaning: which goes where

Examples

Short	Long	Meaning
Auto je nov.	—	predicate: the car is new
nov auto	novi auto	a / the new car
dobar čovek	dobri čovek	a / the good man
tuđ jezik	tuđi jezik	a / the foreign language
star grad	Stari grad	an old town / Old Town

Short: predicate (Ovaj radnik je nov, Grad je star, Jezik je tuđ) and first mention, “a, some”: Došao je nov radnik, Treba mi nov kaput.
Long: a known thing (Gde je novi radnik?), after demonstratives and possessives (taj novi radnik, moj stari prijatelj), a unique thing (Sveti Sava), names (Novi Sad, Novi Beograd, Stari grad, Beli dvor).
Long after je means “the … one”: Ovaj kaput je novi, a onaj je stari. For mali the short mao is old-fashioned: Stan je mali.

Masculine and neuter cases

Short = noun endings, long = pronoun endings. Living Serbian uses the long form in these cases; the short ones survive in set phrases: usred bela dana (in broad daylight), iz čista mira (out of the blue).

No choice

Examples

Which words	Example	Form
superlative	najnoviji, najbolji	long only
comparative	mlađi, bolji	long only
ordinals	prvi, drugi	long only
in -ski; also letnji, današnji	srpski, gradski	long only
possessives in -ov, -in	bratov, majčin	short only (Nom.)
one word	rad (glad)	short only

Alive today

Firm: short in the predicate (Auto je nov), long after taj, moj and in names, short in Dobar dan! Before a noun, speech often has the long form too: Kupio sam novi auto. Feminine, neuter nominative and plural forms are spelled the same (nova kuća, nove kuće). rođeni brat (one’s own brother): long only; rođen means “born”.

Case	Short	Long
Nom.	nov	novi
Gen.	nova (like grada)	novog(a) (like tog)
Dat.	novu	novom(e)
e.g.	dobra čoveka, dobru čoveku	dobrog čoveka, dobrom čoveku