The second-place rule
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
The second-place rule: where clitics go and in what order
Clitics are short words with no stress of their own: sam, je, se, mi, ga, li, ću and the like. They cannot stand alone and are said as one with a neighbouring word, a little like English ’s and ’ll in he’s and I’ll. The lesson “The clitic inventory” listed them one by one and split them into two families: those that lean on the word to their left (enclitics) and those that lean on the word to their right (ne and the prepositions). This lesson is about the first family: where its words stand and in what order they line up. Earlier lessons showed it in pieces: in “The perfect” the auxiliary sam went to second place (Radio sam / Juče sam radio), in “Reflexive verbs” se broke away from its verb and swallowed the je (vratio se, not “vratio se je”), and in “Basic da-clauses” the little words sat tight right after da (da mi ga daš).
All of this is one rule, the second-place rule. Ordinary Serbian words move about quite freely, but clitics have one place only: straight after the first stressed word or the first phrase of the clause. Almost every earlier lesson has pointed to this rule; here it is in full.
What counts as “first place”: a word or a phrase
First place can be a single stressed word: a verb (Vidim ga “I see him”), an adverb (Juče sam ga video), a question word (Gde si bio? “Where were you?”), a pronoun (Ja sam ga video “I saw him”). When the sentence starts with a group of words such as “my sister”, Serbian allows two answers, and both are correct.
Option one: first place is the whole phrase. The clitic stands after the entire phrase, as after a single block.
Here Moja sestra and Ovaj stari grad are whole phrases, and the clitics (je; mi se) sit right after them. This is the ordinary order, especially in speech.
Option two: first place is just the first word. The clitic can squeeze inside the phrase, right after its first word, splitting it in two:
Both sentences, Moja sestra je došla and Moja je sestra došla, are correct and mean the same. In everyday speech in Serbia the first, “block” order is the usual one; the split version (Moja je sestra…) sounds more bookish and is more common in writing, and in Croatian. English never splits a phrase like this, so do not be alarmed: build the first version with confidence and simply recognise the second.
A clitic never opens the sentence
The main consequence of the rule: a clitic cannot stand first. It needs a stressed word on its left to lean on. “The perfect” warned you (no “Sam radio”), so did “Reflexive verbs” (no “Se perem”) and “Full & clitic pronoun forms” (no “Ga nema”): first place has to be stressed, and a clitic has no stress.
If a clitic wants to come first, put something stressed in front of it (a verb, an adverb, the full form of a pronoun, as in Meni je hladno), and the clitic settles into second place behind it.
A pause starts the count again. Whatever is cut off from the rest of the sentence by a pause (a comma in writing) does not count as first place: a name you call someone by, an aside, a whole clause in front. The clitic then takes second place in what follows the pause, not right after the comma. You saw this in “Modal & sentence adverbs”: with no pause the clitic stands right behind the adverb (Verovatno je kod kuće “He’s probably at home”), after a comma behind the first word of the rest (Srećom, stigli smo na vreme “Luckily, we arrived on time”). Calling someone by name works the same way:
Marko, video sam te juče. Marko, I saw you yesterday. (not “Marko, sam te video”)
A clause in front (Kad si došao, spavao sam) is taken apart below, in the section on conjunctions.
Questions and negation
The question particle li is a clitic like the rest: it comes second, right after the first word, and any other clitics follow it (see “Yes–no questions”).
Cheat sheet
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The second-place rule: where clitics go and in what order
The second-place rule. Clitics (short words with no stress: sam, je, se, mi, ga, li…) stand straight after the first stressed word or phrase and never open the sentence. Several clitics line up in a fixed order.
First place: a word or a whole phrase
Both correct: after the whole phrase (usual in Serbia) or after its first word (bookish; writing, Croatian). One word can be first too: Vidim ga, Juče sam ga video, Gde si bio?
A clitic never opens the sentence
Put a verb, an adverb or a full pronoun first. A name you call someone by and anything before a pause (comma) do not count: Marko, video sam te juče. Marko, I saw you yesterday.
Questions and negation
- li comes after the first word, other clitics after it: Vidiš li ga? Da li si mu rekao? Je li…? and Bi li…? may open a question.
- ne + verb is one stressed unit: Ne vidim ga. I can’t see him. But Ja ga ne vidim. Nisam, nije, neću open the sentence: Nisam ga video.
The group queue
Logic: question → auxiliary → to whom → whom → se → je. Da li si mi ga dao? Did you give it to me? After Da: li (1) → si (2) → mi (3) → ga (4). Dative before accusative, unlike English “it to me”.
je: the last carriage
- Of the biti family only je goes to the tail: Dao sam mu ga, but Dao mu ga je.
- Next to se, je drops out: Vratio se kući. He came back home. Only the 3rd person singular: vratio sam se, vratili su se; without se it stays: On me je video.
- “Her” before je is ju: Video ju je. He saw her.
Conjunctions: which ones give support
- i and a do not count; the clitic waits for the next word: Ana peva, a sestra joj svira. After ali, pa, ili it usually comes at once: Lep je, ali je skup.
- da, jer, kad, ako, dok, što are first place in their clause: Znam da mu je hladno. Drago mi je što si došao. Kad si došao, spavao sam. When you came, I was asleep.
da-clause clitics stay inside
In the second example li goes with mogu, ti with its own da.