Declension of Determiners | Croatian Grammar

Croatian determiners — sav ("all"), svaki ("each, every"), neki ("some"), nikakav ("no kind of"), and the demonstratives — all take the pronominal case endings, the same -og / -om / -im family you already meet on adjectives and on taj / ovaj / onaj. The good news is that almost the entire group is regular: learn the pronominal endings once and you can decline svaki, neki, nikakav on sight. The one genuine exception is sav, whose oblique forms (svega, svemu, svim) are irregular — and because sav is buried in dozens of fixed phrases (prije svega, sa svim, svemu unatoč), its odd paradigm is the single highest-value thing on this page. Master sav and you unlock the idioms; master the pronominal pattern and you've got everything else for free.

The shared engine: pronominal endings

Most determiners decline exactly like a definite (long-form) adjective, which is to say like a demonstrative. If you can do tog / tom / tim for taj, you can do svakog / svakom / svakim for svaki — the endings are identical. Here is the masculine singular line for three of them, side by side with taj, so the shared signature is visible:

Case	taj	svaki	neki	nikakav
Nominativ	taj	svaki	neki	nikakav
Genitiv	tog(a)	svakog(a)	nekog(a)	nikakvog(a)
Dativ	tom(u)	svakom(u)	nekom(u)	nikakvom(u)
Akuzativ	taj / tog	svaki / svakog	neki / nekog	nikakav / nikakvog
Lokativ	tom(e)	svakom(e)	nekom(e)	nikakvom(e)
Instrumental	tim	svakim	nekim	nikakvim

The endings are the same all the way down: genitive -og, dative/locative -om, instrumental -im, with the optional final -a / -u / -e that you know from adjectives (svakog ↔ svakoga). The feminine runs -a, -e, -oj, -u, -om (svaka, svake, svakoj, svaku, svakom) and the plural genders merge into -ih (genitive) and -im(a) (dat/loc/instr), again exactly as on adjectives. Note that nikakav drops the -a- of the nominative when it adds an ending — nikakav but nikakvog, the same "fleeting a" you see in dobar → dobrog.

U svakom slučaju, javit ću ti se sutra.

In any case, I'll get in touch with you tomorrow. — locative 'svakom' in the fixed phrase 'u svakom slučaju'.

Razgovarao sam s nekim čovjekom iz Splita.

I talked with some man from Split. — instrumental 'nekim' after 's'.

Nemam nikakvih problema s tim.

I have no problems whatsoever with that. — genitive plural 'nikakvih' under negation.

Svakog jutra trčim uz more.

Every morning I run along the sea. — genitive 'svakog' marking 'every morning' (time expression).

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If you already know how to decline taj, you already know svaki, neki, and nikakav — swap the stem, keep the endings. The pronominal endings are a single pattern shared across demonstratives, definite adjectives, and these determiners.

The exception: sav / sva / sve

Sav ("all, the whole") is the determiner that breaks the mould. Its stem shifts and several endings are not the pronominal ones you'd predict. Here is the full paradigm — this is the one to memorise outright:

Case	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural (m / f / n)
Nominativ	sav	sve	sva	svi / sve / sva
Genitiv	svega	svega	sve	svih
Dativ	svemu	svemu	svoj	svima
Akuzativ	sav / svega	sve	svu	sve / sve / sva
Lokativ	svemu	svemu	svoj	svima
Instrumental	svim(e)	svim(e)	svom	svima

Read off what's irregular. The masculine/neuter genitive is svega, not the predicted svog; the dative/locative is svemu, not svom; the instrumental is svim or svime (the -e variant is common here). The feminine and plural, by contrast, are well-behaved pronominal forms (sve, svoj, svu, svom; svih, svima). So the irregularity is concentrated in the masculine/neuter oblique — precisely the cells (svega, svemu, svim) that turn up in fixed expressions.

Prije svega, hvala što ste došli.

Above all, thank you for coming. — genitive 'svega' in the set phrase 'prije svega'.

Unatoč svemu, nije odustao.

Despite everything, he didn't give up. — dative 'svemu' after 'unatoč' (which takes the dative).

Bila je zadovoljna sa svim.

She was happy with everything. — instrumental 'svim' after 'sa'.

To je iznad svega što sam očekivao.

That's beyond everything I expected. — genitive 'svega' after 'iznad'.

The neuter singular sve deserves special note: standing alone it means "everything" (Sve je u redu — "Everything is fine"), and svi on its own means "everyone" (Svi znaju — "Everyone knows"). These are the most frequent forms of sav in the language, and they pull the whole irregular oblique set (svega, svemu, svim) along with them whenever a case is needed.

Sve je u redu, ne brini.

Everything's fine, don't worry. — neuter 'sve' = 'everything'.

Svi su otišli kući.

Everyone went home. — masculine plural 'svi' = 'everyone'.

Set phrases that hard-wire these forms

Because Croatian leans on these determiners constantly, many of their case forms survive only inside fixed expressions, where you should treat them as ready-made chunks rather than building them from scratch each time:

Phrase	Form	Meaning
prije svega	gen of sve	above all, first of all
svemu unatoč / unatoč svemu	dat of sve	despite everything
u svakom slučaju	loc of svaki	in any case
na sve strane	acc of sav	in all directions, everywhere
svaki dan	nom/acc of svaki	every day
na svaki način	acc of svaki	in every way
od svih	gen pl of sav	of all (of them)

Cvijeće je bilo na sve strane.

There were flowers everywhere. — accusative 'sve' in 'na sve strane'.

Vidimo se svaki dan na poslu.

We see each other every day at work. — 'svaki dan' as a frozen time phrase (accusative).

Ona je najbolja od svih.

She's the best of all. — genitive plural 'svih' after 'od'.

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Learn sav through its idioms, not as an isolated table. Prije svega, unatoč svemu, sa svim, u svakom slučaju — drilling these phrases installs the irregular forms in the only places you actually need them.

A note on svaki vs sav

Both relate to totality, but they slice it differently and this affects which you reach for. Svaki ("each, every") picks out members one by one and is grammatically singular (svaki student — "each student", svaki dan — "every day"). Sav / svi ("all") takes the group as a whole and is typically plural for count nouns (svi studenti — "all the students") or a mass for uncountables (sva voda — "all the water"). This is treated in depth on sav vs svaki; for declension purposes the takeaway is simply that svaki is regular pronominal, while sav is the irregular one.

Svaki student mora predati zadaću.

Each student has to hand in the homework. — singular 'svaki' picking out individuals.

Svi studenti su položili ispit.

All the students passed the exam. — plural 'svi' for the group as a whole.

Common Mistakes

❌ Prije svoga, hvala vam.

Incorrect — the genitive of 'sve' is the irregular 'svega', not the pronominal 'svog/svoga'.

✅ Prije svega, hvala vam.

Above all, thank you. — irregular genitive 'svega'.

❌ Unatoč svom sam ostao miran.

Incorrect — 'unatoč' takes the dative, and the dative of 'sve' is 'svemu', not 'svom'.

✅ Unatoč svemu sam ostao miran.

Despite everything I stayed calm. — dative 'svemu'.

❌ U svaki slučaju ću doći.

Incorrect — 'u' here is locative ('in any case'), so it must be 'u svakom slučaju'.

✅ U svakom slučaju ću doći.

In any case I'll come. — locative 'svakom'.

❌ Razgovarao sam s neki čovjekom.

Incorrect — after the instrumental preposition 's', the determiner must also be instrumental: 'nekim'.

✅ Razgovarao sam s nekim čovjekom.

I talked with some man. — instrumental 'nekim'.

❌ Nemam nikakav problem s tim — point is fine, but: Nemam nikakav problema.

Incorrect — under negation the noun goes genitive, and the determiner agrees: 'nikakvih problema'.

✅ Nemam nikakvih problema s tim.

I have no problems at all with that. — genitive plural 'nikakvih'.

Key Takeaways

Almost all determiners (svaki, neki, nikakav, the demonstratives) take pronominal endings — the same -og / -om / -im / -ih / -im(a) you know from definite adjectives and taj.
Nikakav drops its -a- before endings (nikakav → nikakvog), the fleeting-a pattern.
Sav is the genuine irregular: masculine/neuter genitive svega, dative/locative svemu, instrumental svim(e); feminine and plural (sve, svoj, svu, svom; svih, svima) are regular.
The irregular forms of sav live mostly in fixed phrases — prije svega, unatoč svemu, sa svim, u svakom slučaju — so learn them as idioms.
Svaki ("each", singular) vs svi / sav ("all", plural/mass) differ in meaning, but only sav differs in declension.

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