B1 — intermediateSubordinate clauses

Relative clauses

Lesson opening

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

Relative clauses: from the word koji to the whole clause

In the lesson “Relative pronouns” you learnt the word koji itself: how it declines and where it gets its case. Now we take the whole clause it opens, koji radi ovde in Čovek koji radi ovde je moj brat: how to build it, where it goes in the sentence, where the short words such as je, mi, te go inside it, and when it needs commas.

English gives you a head start: it has relative clauses too, and draws the same comma line. But three things differ. Serbian has one word, koji, for English who, which and that, so the comma alone tells the two kinds of clause apart. Serbian never drops the relative word, as English does in “the man I see”, and it does not shrink a clause to an -ing phrase either: “the man standing by the door” is čovek koji stoji kraj vrata. And the relative word changes its case, as who turns into whom, but in every sentence: koga, not koji, for “the man (whom) I see”.

Defining and non-defining: the comma decides

Relative clauses come in two kinds, and the comma tells them apart, changing the meaning. A defining clause tells you which one is meant and answers “which one exactly?”; without it you would not know who is meant, and it is not set off by commas. A non-defining clause adds something in passing about someone already clear, and it is enclosed in commas on both sides. Grammars also call them restrictive and non-restrictive. If you know the English rule (“the man who works here” / “my brother, who works here,”), you know the Serbian one.

Examples

Serbian	What it means	Comma
Čovek koji radi ovde je moj brat.	of all the men, precisely the one who works here	no (defining)
Moj brat, koji radi ovde, dobro zarađuje.	I have one brother; he happens to work here	yes (non-defining)

In the first sentence the clause is needed to tell which man we mean; take it away and the sentence collapses. In the second, “my brother” is clear without it (there is only one), and koji radi ovde is an optional extra. Hence the test: if the clause could be dropped without losing the meaning, it takes commas; if not, there is no comma before it or after it. A non-defining clause at the end of the sentence takes one comma, before koji: Upoznao sam Anu, koja radi u banci, “I met Ana, who works at the bank”.

Deeper grammar

Zapeta koja menja smisao: one comma, two meanings

Serbian commas are logical (they follow meaning and intonation), not mechanical, as the lesson “Subordinate clauses overview” said. In a relative clause the comma is the only thing separating two readings, and the difference can be one of truth, not of shade. Compare: Studenti koji su položili ispit srećni su, “the students who passed the exam are happy”: only those who passed are happy; the clause picks out a subset. But Studenti, koji su položili ispit, srećni su, “the students, who (by the way) all passed the exam, are happy”: all of them are happy, and the clause only mentions in passing that everyone passed.

So two commas switch the statement from “some of the students” to “all of them”. English marks the distinction the same way (the students who passed against the students, who passed,), and careful English, especially American, adds a second signal: defining that against non-defining which. Serbian has no such pair: koji serves both kinds, so everything rests on the commas. German cannot use the comma this way at all, since it puts one before every relative clause and leaves the difference to intonation. So a Serb writing a sentence must decide whether the clause narrows the noun down or only adds to it, and place the commas accordingly. The whole system is laid out in the lesson “Commas in clauses”.

Watch out

The mistake: a comma wherever you would pause, often after a long subject: “Čovek koji radi ovde, je moj brat”; or round the whole clause, as German does before every relative clause: “Čovek, koji radi ovde, je moj brat”. Or the reverse: no commas round extra information, as casual English often leaves them out, “Moj brat koji radi ovde dobro zarađuje” said of your only brother. Why it is wrong: the Serbian comma follows meaning, and since koji is the same word in both kinds of clause, the comma is the reader’s only signal. A defining clause (one that tells you “that one exactly”) is set off neither before nor after. The correct form: Čovek koji radi ovde je moj brat, with no comma; and, of your only brother, Moj brat, koji radi ovde, dobro zarađuje. You will often see a needless comma before koji in Serbian texts, but the rule of the Pravopis is meaning.

The case of koji comes from its role in the clause

This is the heart of the topic. The lesson “Relative pronouns” gave you the forms. Here we watch one clause change koji while the noun it refers to stays put. Take čovek “man” (masculine) and žena “woman” (feminine) in the nominative and run their clause through different roles: only koji changes, because inside the clause it does a different job each time.

Examples

Role of koji in the clause	After čovek (nominative)	After žena (nominative)
subject (nominative): “who works”	čovek koji radi	žena koja radi
direct object (accusative): “whom I see”	čovek koga vidim	žena koju vidim
“to whom” (dative): “whom I trust”	čovek kome verujem	žena kojoj verujem
after s (instrumental): “with whom I work”	čovek s kojim radim	žena s kojom radim
after o (locative): “about whom I talk”	čovek o kome pričam	žena o kojoj pričam

The two nouns stay in the nominative, while koji runs through the cases: koji / koga / kome / s kojim / o kome. Ask: “what job does this word do inside the clause?”, and let the answer choose the case. English offers a reliable test: turn the clause into a mini-sentence with he or him in place of the relative word. “He works” → koji; “I see him” → koga; “I trust him” → kome; “I work with him” → s kojim; “I’m talking about him” → o kome. English who / whom is a remnant of the same case system.

Cheat sheet

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Relative clauses

A relative clause (odnosna rečenica) tells you about a noun. Opened by koji, što, čiji or gde, kuda, odakle, kad / kada, kako. Law: gender and number from the noun, case from its role in the clause.

Case of koji: from its role

Examples

Role (he/him)	“man”	“woman”
subject, Nom. (he works)	čovek koji radi	žena koja radi
object, Acc. (I see him)	čovek koga vidim	žena koju vidim
recipient, Dat. (I trust him)	čovek kome verujem	žena kojoj verujem
with s, Instr. (with him)	čovek s kojim radim	žena s kojom radim
after o, Loc. (about him)	čovek o kome pričam	žena o kojoj pričam

Masculine accusative: people and animals = genitive, koga or kojeg (both everyday); things = nominative, koji.

Comma: defining or non-defining

Droppable → commas (at the end, one before koji); needed → no commas.

koji, što or ko

Adverb instead of “preposition + koji”

Examples

Adverb	Equals	Example	English
gde where	u kojem, na kojem	grad gde živim	the city where I live
kuda where to	u koje	mesto kuda idemo	where we’re going
odakle where from	iz kojeg	selo odakle je došao	the village he came from
kad / kada when	time	dan kada smo se upoznali	the day we met
kako how	na koji način	način kako priča	the way he talks

In speech gde also means “where to”. For people: koji.

čiji and position

čiji “whose” agrees with the thing owned, in its case: pisac čije knjige čitam “the writer whose books I read”.

The clause sits right after its noun, often inside the main one: Knjiga koju si mi dao je odlična. The book you gave me is excellent. Clitics follow the relative word: čovek koji te čeka, žena s kojom sam radio.

Example	Meaning	Comma
Čovek koji radi ovde je moj brat.	the one who works here	no: defining
Moj brat, koji radi ovde, dobro zarađuje.	one brother; extra info	yes: non-defining