Impersonal Predicates and Raising

A large family of Croatian main clauses opens with an impersonal predicate — a neuter adjective or a reflexive verb with no subject of its own — that then attaches a subordinate proposition: moguće je da… "it is possible that…", važno je da… "it is important that…", teško je… "it is hard to…", bolje je da… "it is better that…", čini se da… "it seems that…", dogodilo se da… "it happened that…". The whole upper clause is subjectless in the way described on impersonal and subjectless sentences: the verb sits in the third-person-singular neuter and there is no dummy it. The single decision that governs this entire family is how to attach the lower proposition — with a da-clause or with a bare infinitive — and that decision is not stylistic. It tracks whether the embedded action has a specific subject of its own or a general one. This page lays out that logic so you can predict the right form rather than memorising verb by verb.

The subjectless upper clause

Every predicate here is genuinely impersonal: moguće, važno, teško, bolje are neuter singular adjectives standing alone, and čini se, dogodilo se are reflexive verbs in the third-person singular. None of them has a nominative subject. What looks like the "subject" in English — the it of "it is possible" — has no Croatian counterpart; the proposition that follows is the logical content, but it does not occupy the subject slot the way an English that-clause subject does.

Note already a sub-distinction inside the da/što choice: a predicate reporting a real, factual state of affairs often takes što (šteta je što, dobro je što), while one reporting something wished, doubted, or merely possible takes da with the present (moguće je da, bolje je da). This mirrors the broader factive split you meet across Croatian subordination.

The core choice: da-clause vs. infinitive

Here is the rule that unifies the family. Use the infinitive when the embedded action has no specific subject — when it is a general truth about doing the thing, true of anyone. Use the da-clause when the action has a specific subject you want to name, which then surfaces inside the da-clause as the verb's person ending.

So Teško je učiti says, flatly, that studying-in-general is a hard activity — there is no learner in the picture. But the moment you want to say it is hard for a particular person to do a particular thing on a particular occasion, you switch to the da-clause and let the verb carry the person:

čini se da — the raising predicate

Čini se "it seems" is the family's clearest case of what linguists call raising: the subject of the lower clause can climb into the upper clause. You can say it two ways, and the difference is purely one of information structure, not meaning.

In the first, čini se da… is impersonal and Marko lives in the subordinate clause. In the second, Marko has been raised to be the grammatical subject of čini se itself, and the predicate adjective umoran now agrees with him in gender and number. English does exactly the same raising in "It seems that Marko is tired" versus "Marko seems tired" — so this one maps cleanly. The dative-experiencer use, čini mi se da… "it seems to me that…", is covered in full on činiti se (to seem); note it always takes da, because the thing that seems so is a specific proposition, not a generality.

dogodilo se da — narrating an event

Dogodilo se da… "it happened that…" and its relatives (ispalo je da… "it turned out that…", desilo se da…) report an event befalling someone. Because the event has a real, specific content, they take da with a finite verb, never an infinitive.

When both are grammatical but mean different things

For predicates that allow either attachment, the two are not free variants — they say different things, and an English speaker who reaches for the infinitive by reflex will sometimes flatten a meaning the speaker wanted specific. Compare:

The first is the kind of thing you would print on a poster; the second is what you say to your friend who keeps skipping the gym. The relationship to the broader da-clause vs. infinitive choice is direct: same principle, applied under an impersonal predicate. And whenever the lower subject is the same as a controller you have already named, the subject control and da page covers the finer agreement facts.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• These predicates head a subjectless upper clause: moguće/važno/teško/bolje je, čini se, dogodilo se — there is no Croatian word for the English dummy it.
• The governing choice is da-clause vs. infinitive, and it tracks the lower subject: specific subject → da
  • finite verb (Važno je da dođeš); general subject → bare infinitive (Teško je učiti).
• A factual state often takes što (šteta je što…); a possible/wished one takes da with the present (moguće je da…, bolje je da…).
• Čini se shows raising: keep the subject in the da-clause (Čini se da je Marko umoran) or raise it into the main clause (Marko se čini umoran), with the adjective agreeing.
• Event-reporting predicates (dogodilo se da, ispalo je da) describe a specific outcome and therefore always take da
  • finite verb, never the infinitive.