Abstract & temporal genitive prepositions

Lesson opening

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

Abstract prepositions with the genitive: cause, purpose, time and “against”

You already know the spatial prepositions of the genitive: od, do, iz, kod, iznad, ispod, između, the whole “from where, to where, where” set (the lesson “Spatial genitive prepositions”). The genitive has a second family of prepositions too, not about place. These are the ones you use to explain why, what for, when and against what.

The good news: most of them map neatly onto a single English word. bez is “without”, osim is “except, apart from”, umesto is “instead of”, protiv is “against”. And every one of them takes the genitive. The bad news is a single item, but a big one: the pair zbog (cause) and radi (purpose). English often covers both with one small word, for: “famous for its wine” is a cause, “for your health” is a purpose, and “I did it for you” can be either. In Serbian, radi only ever names a purpose. On top of that come the lovely tokom “during, in the course of” and a few bookish ones: usled, poput, mimo, duž.

Cause and purpose: zbog versus radi

English has “because of the rain” (a cause) and “for the sake of peace” (a purpose), but everyday for blurs the line, and learners carry that blur into Serbian. zbog answers the question “why? for what reason?”; radi answers “what for? for the sake of what? with what aim?”.

A simple check. If what follows is a cause that has already happened and pushed you, take zbog: Zakasnio sam zbog gužve “I was late because of the traffic”. If it is a goal you want and are working towards, take radi: Vežbam radi zdravlja “I exercise for my health”. The traffic jam is a cause behind you; health is a goal ahead of you. This arrow of time, back to the cause, forward to the goal, is how you choose.

A second clue comes from the question. zbog fits “why?”, and its phrase can be unpacked into a because clause: Ne radi lift zbog kvara “The lift isn’t working because of a fault”. (The radi in that sentence is the verb “works”, from raditi, not the preposition.) radi fits “what for?”, and its phrase unpacks into in order to: Štedim radi putovanja “I’m saving up for a trip”, that is, saving in order to travel.

One more thing about zbog: it is neutral, so it names a good reason as easily as a bad one: Volim Beograd zbog ljudi “I love Belgrade for its people”. (For “thanks to”, Serbian also has zahvaljujući, which takes the dative: the lesson “Dative prepositions”.) In everyday speech zbog even names a purpose: Došao sam zbog tebe is the usual way to say “I came for you”. The reverse does not work: radi is only ever a purpose, so “because of the rain” is zbog kiše, never “radi kiše”.

Time: tokom, posle, pre

Next, time. Three main prepositions: tokom (during, in the course of), posle (after) and pre (before). All three take the genitive. Instead of tokom you will also hear za vreme: za vreme rata “during the war”.

Cheat sheet

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

Abstract prepositions with the genitive: cause, purpose, time and “against”

By meaning. Cause: zbog (because of), bookish usled (owing to). Purpose: radi (for the sake of). Time: tokom (during), posle (after), pre (before; ago), bookish nakon (after). Replacement and exclusion: umesto, osim / sem, bez. Opposition: protiv. All take only the genitive.

Cause and purpose: zbog versus radi

Time: tokom, posle, pre, nakon

Without, except, instead of, against

The bookish ones