Temporal clauses

Lesson opening

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

Temporal clauses: kad, dok, čim and the exact timing of events

The lesson “Subordinate clauses overview” gave you the map of clauses and the logical comma. Now we take the family you need most for talking about your life: temporal clauses (vremenske rečenice). They answer the question kada?, “when?”, and pin one event to another in time: “when you come”, “while I was asleep”, “as soon as he came in”.

Two things you learned separately meet here: time conjunctions (when, while, before…) and verb aspect, the choice between a perfective verb (one complete event) and an imperfective one (a process, background or habit). Aspect decides whether a link reads as “at the same time” or “one after the other”, so the lesson “Aspect in the past” stays close at hand. First the conjunctions, then the tense and aspect that follow them.

kad(a): the all-purpose “when”

The most versatile conjunction is kad, also kada (one and the same word). It covers a single “when” and a repeated one, events at the same time and one before another; the shade comes from the aspect and tense of the verb:

Look at the first sentence: for a future event the clause has the present tense of a perfective verb, dođeš, not the future; we will come back to this rule. Kad god is English whenever: “every time”, and in an invitation “any time you like”.

dok: at the same time, and “until”

The conjunction dok links two actions that run in parallel, like English while. The verb after it is usually imperfective: a process, a background:

But dok has a second, very frequent meaning: “until”, a limit in time. It is then followed by ne and a perfective verb: Sačekaj dok ne dođem, “Wait until I come.” This ne, “not”, negates nothing; it only marks the limit (French has such a ne too: avant qu’il ne parte, “before he leaves”). English until has no “not”; Serbian keeps the ne. A clitic (a short unstressed word such as se, te, je that never comes first) goes straight after dok, before ne: dok se ne vratim. About the past, ne merges with je into nije (likewise nisam, nisi, nisu), and sve dok ne means “right up until”:

With an imperfective verb, sve dok means “as long as”. And in a story about the past, dok with a perfective verb and no ne means “by the time”: Dok sam stigao, svi su već otišli, “By the time I got there, everyone had left.”

čim: “as soon as”, one moment straight after another

The conjunction čim means “as soon as”: the action of the clause is immediately followed by the action of the main clause. This is a sequence, not simultaneity, so the verbs are usually perfective:

Cheat sheet

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Temporal clauses

A temporal clause (vremenska rečenica) answers kada? “when?”. Its verb has a person ending, never the infinitive. Aspect carries half the meaning.

All the conjunctions

The ne after dok negates nothing: Uči dok ne naučiš. Keep studying until you’ve learned it. A clitic goes before it: dok se ne vratim. Nor does the one in samo što nije, “about to”: Gosti samo što nisu stigli. Dok + perfective past, no ne: “by the time” (Dok sam stigao, svi su već otišli).

Aspect under the conjunction

The future: perfective present or Future II

Never ću in such a clause. A perfective verb takes the present (čim završim); an imperfective one, or biti, usually the Future II (budem + participle; for biti, budem alone). The main clause: future or imperative. Same after ako “if”.

Comma: by the order of the parts