Wh-questions
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
Wh-questions: who, what, where, when
You can already ask questions answered with “yes” or “no”. More often, though, you want to find out a specific thing: who has come, what happened, where the café is, when the bus leaves, how much something costs. For that there are wh-questions, named after the English question words who, what, where, when, why. Their Serbian counterparts are ko, šta, gde, kada and a few more. Each such question takes one piece out of a sentence and puts a question word in its place.
The basic pattern is one you already use in English. The question word goes first, the verb follows, and the rest comes after: "Where do you work?" is Gde radiš?. Better still, Serbian needs no do. After the question word the sentence stays an ordinary statement: Gde radiš? is, word for word, "Where you-work?".
Two things still need attention, and you have met both before. First, the unstressed clitics rush in straight after the question word: this is the "second place" from the lesson "Basic word order". Second, the question word takes the case its role in the sentence demands: Serbian "who" changes shape when it is the object, as formal English still does with "whom".
The question words: an inventory
First, the set itself. Some question words are pronouns and change their endings (ko, šta, koji); others are adverbs and never change (gde, kada, kako). Here is the working minimum:
Note that in everyday speech kada is often shortened to kad; both are correct. And koji and kakav were covered in detail in "Interrogative pronouns": koji asks "which one (of several)?", kakav asks "what kind? what is it like?". Here they work the same way inside a full question. Say šta "shtah", zašto "ZAH-shtoh", and gde as one syllable, "gdeh".
Where the question word goes
The question word comes first. If a preposition goes with it, the preposition stands in front, as you saw in “Interrogative pronouns”: S kim ideš? (“Who are you going with?”). The verb usually follows at once, then the rest. “Question word → verb → the rest” is the most neutral order:
Unlike English, you never need a helper verb (do, does): after the question word the sentence is built like an ordinary statement. The verb ending already says who is meant (radiš = "you work"), so "you" usually stays out. One Serbian present covers both English presents, too: Šta radiš? is "What are you doing?" or "What do you do?", and context decides. And, unlike yes–no questions, the particle li does not appear: the question word by itself already makes the sentence a question.
The clitic goes straight after the question word
This is where the "second place" from "Basic word order" comes in. If the sentence has an unstressed clitic, such as a short form of "to be" (si, je), the reflexive se or the future ću, it goes right after the question word, not somewhere at the end:
Cheat sheet
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Wh-questions
Question word first (a preposition before it: S kim ideš?), then the verb, then the rest. No do, no li in a plain question: the question word does the job. zar ("surely…? really?") may be added for surprise: Zar ne znaš gde je? You mean you don't know where it is?
Inventory
Pronouns (ko, šta, koji) change form; adverbs (gde, kada, kako) never do. koji = "which (of several)", kakav = "what kind".
Clitic straight after the question word
si, je, se, ću take second place, never the end.
Case follows the role
Place, reason, quantity
- Place: Gde si? Kuda ideš? Odakle si? Gde je pijaca? Kuda vodi ovaj put? Where are you? Where are you going? Where are you from? Where's the market? Where does this road lead? Colloquially also Gde ideš?
- Reason: Zašto ne radiš? Zašto je zatvoreno? Zašto učiš srpski? Why aren’t you working? Why is it closed? Why are you learning Serbian? Answer with zato što (“because”): Zato što živim u Novom Sadu. Because I live in Novi Sad. Colloquial što = “why”: Što plačeš?
- Quantity: Koliko košta? Koliko je sati? Koliko imaš godina? Koliko dugo učiš srpski? How much is it? What time is it? How old are you? How long have you been learning Serbian? No price tag? Ask Kolika je cena? koliko takes the genitive ("how much of"): koliko vremena.