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A2 — elementaryThe dative case

Dative forms

Lesson opening

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

Dative forms

If the genitive answers “from where?” and “whose?”, the dative (dativ) answers “to whom?”. It is the case of the addressee: the person you give something to, tell, write to, help, or head towards. There is nearly always a living person beside it, the one on the receiving end of the action: Pišem bratu, “I’m writing to my brother”.

English marks the recipient with word order (give my brother the book) or with to (give the book to my brother). Serbian marks it with an ending, and the question word is kome? (to whom?). The endings are short and regular, with one striking Serbian feature: ruka (hand) has the dative ruci (to the hand), because before the ending -i the k changes to c. This is sibilarization, the change you met in the plural (junak → junaci, “Plural formation”). One more piece of good news: on paper the dative and the locative have the same forms, so this lesson does half the work of “Locative forms”.

First declension (masculine and neuter): -u

Masculine nouns ending in a consonant (and in -o: Marko → Marku), and all neuter nouns, take -u in the dative:

Notice that in the first declension the dative gradu is spelt exactly like the locative gradu (o gradu, about the city; u gradu, in the city). This is not a misprint: throughout the first declension, dative and locative cannot be told apart by their spelling. Only the context, above all the preposition, tells you which case it is: after o or u it is the locative; with no preposition, or after ka, the dative.

Second declension (nouns in -a): -i and sibilarization

Nouns in -a take -i in the dative: žena → ženi, sestra → sestri, kafa → kafi, škola → školi, and masculine tata → tati too. But if the stem ends in one of the “back” consonants k, g or h (made at the back of the mouth), then before -i it turns into c, z or s respectively. That is sibilarization: the consonant becomes a sibilant, a hissing sound. Remember that Serbian c is the ts of cats.

So “to the hand” is ruci, “to the book” is knjizi, “to my mother” is majci. Some words resist sibilarization. Names and affectionate words (Anka → Anki, baka → baki, “to grandma”) and some words with two consonants before the k (mačka → mački, “to the cat”; but majka → majci, as in the table) keep their k. Hold on to the general rule: an ordinary feminine noun in -ka/-ga/-ha sibilarizes; a name or a pet form usually does not.

Nouns in -đa, -ca and the like have no back consonant, so there is nothing to change; they simply take -i: gospođa → gospođi (to the lady), ulica → ulici (to the street). And even a -ga can hold firm: kolega → kolegi (to a colleague) keeps its g because it is a masculine noun in -a that names a person, while knjiga → knjizi changes as it should.

Cheat sheet

The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.

Dative forms

The dative (dativ) is the case of the recipient: kome? (to whom?), čemu? (to what?). On paper its forms are the same as the locative: learn the dative and you have the locative too.

Endings

Sibilarization: k/g/h → c/z/s before -i

The dative at work

The dative of states

The person who feels it is in the dative; no subject (German mir ist kalt). Also spava mi se (I feel sleepy), ne da mi se (I can’t be bothered). The ethical mi (Šta mi radiš?) adds warmth; don’t translate it.

Pronouns (full / short): meni / mi, tebi / ti, njemu / mu, njoj / joj, nama / nam, vama / vam, njima / im. Full: first, stressed, after a preposition (ka meni); short: everyday (Hladno mi je). Short mi = “to me”, not “we”. The locative has only the full form: o meni.