Direct address

Lesson opening

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

Direct address: how to call someone in Serbian

You already have the vocative forms: ženo, druže, gospodine, Bože. Now for the lively part: learning to use them. Addressing someone is an act in itself: you call out, you catch someone's attention, you name the person you are speaking to. How you address people, and whether you address them at all, sets the tone of the conversation: warm, neutral or official. This lesson joins the vocative to the greetings you already know: Dobar dan, gospodine! is a greeting plus a form of address.

We will look at three things: the comma that always comes with a form of address, the set of polite forms for strangers and for people you know, and, the subtlest part, when a form of address fits and when it is better left out. For an English speaker part of this is easy and part is new. The comma rule is the one careful English writing already follows (“Thank you, John”). What is new is that the word itself changes: English calls a friend “friend”, while Serbian calls a drug druže, and your hand will keep reaching for the dictionary form.

The comma with a form of address

The first rule is iron: a form of address is always separated by a comma. At the start or the end of the sentence it takes one comma; in the middle, one on each side. English has the same rule on paper, though English writers often drop that comma; Serbian spelling rules insist on it:

In the last example gospođo sits in the middle, with a comma on each side. You can lift the form of address out and Izvinite, gde je pijaca? ("Excuse me, where is the market?") is still a complete sentence. That is the proof that a form of address lives apart from the grammar of the sentence.

Strangers: gospodine, gospođo, gospođice

A stranger who is an adult is addressed with a polite title, in the vocative. You met these words in "Greetings & politeness lexis"; now we put them into the form of address:

Cheat sheet

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Direct address: how to call someone in Serbian

A form of address (oslovljavanje) is a word or phrase in the vocative that names the person you are speaking to. It is not part of the sentence: it stands apart, is always set off by a comma, and can go anywhere: start, middle, end.

The comma

Strangers: a title

People you know: name or a warm word

The greeting sets the tone

Address or not