Reflexive possessive svoj

Lesson opening

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

The reflexive possessive svoj: “his own”, “my own”, “their own” in one word

Here is a sentence English cannot say without ambiguity: Marko took his book. Whose book? Marko’s own, or some other man’s? English leaves it to context or patches it with his own. Serbian settles the question with one word, svoj. Marko je uzeo svoju knjigu can only mean that Marko took his own book. Marko je uzeo njegovu knjigu can only mean that he took another man’s book.

The idea behind svoj is simple: it marks ownership by the subject. The subject is the person or thing the sentence is about, usually the one doing the action (Marko in the example), and whatever belongs to the subject is svoj. The nearest English equivalent is one’s own, but English uses own only for emphasis, while Serbian uses svoj as a matter of course whenever the owner and the subject are the same. You met the rule in “Possessive pronouns”; this lesson fills in the details.

The fork English cannot see

The heart of the matter is the third person, where Serbian makes a choice that English does not. Compare these pairs:

In plain English both lines of the first three pairs come out the same, her sister, his car, and without context you cannot tell who is meant. A Serb hears the difference at once: svoj turns the arrow back to the subject, while njegov and njen send it off to somebody else. The last pair shows which subject: in a longer sentence made of two parts, svoj looks at the subject of its own part. After da (“that”) the subject is Ana, so svoju sestru is Ana’s sister, not Marko’s. This is the one habit you have to build: every time you are about to say “his” or “her” in Serbian, ask whether the owner is the subject.

How svoj declines

svoj has the same endings as moj. It changes for gender, number and case to agree with the noun it goes with, that is, with the thing owned, never with the owner:

In the masculine accusative, as with moj, a thing takes svoj (svoj grad) and a person or animal takes svog (svog brata). One more thing to expect in the examples: deca (children) is plural in meaning but declines like a feminine singular noun, so it takes svojoj.

Cheat sheet

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

The reflexive possessive svoj

svoj means “belonging to the subject”, for any person and number. In the third person the choice changes the meaning: svoj is the subject’s own, njegov, njen, njihov someone else’s. In the first and second person svoj is usual, but moj, tvoj, naš, vaš are also correct. English “his own”, “my own” come closest.

The third-person fork

In a two-part sentence svoj looks at the subject of its own part: Marko kaže da Ana voli svoju sestru. Marko says that Ana loves her own sister.

Declension: like moj and tvoj

Everyday: svog, svom; svoga, svome fuller (proverbs, idioms); svojeg, svojem bookish; all correct. Deca declines as feminine singular: o svojoj deci. Also sa svojim bratom, svojih korena, za svoju porodicu, iz svoje sobe, svojim gradom, u svoju zemlju.

One word for every person

With “I”, “you”, “we”, both are correct: Volim svoj grad, Volim moj grad; svoj is more usual.

The one ban

Never inside the subject: Njegov brat živi u Nišu. Moja sestra radi ovde. Njena majka kuva ručak. Marko i njegov brat su došli. In the object: Ana je videla svoju sestru. Proverb: Svaka ptica svome jatu leti. Every bird flies to its own flock.

Fixed expressions