Case in Coordination and Shared Government

Coordination is straightforward when one governor assigns the same case and semantic relation to every conjunct: са директором и заменицом, о буџету и роковима. It becomes difficult when English shares a single complement across words that require different Serbian cases. Serbian cannot normally let one noun form satisfy incompatible government.

At C1 level, the challenge is less about knowing individual endings than about auditing the structure: What governs each conjunct? Does an omitted preposition truly scope over both? Do coordinated verbs select the same complement? If not, repeat or pronominalize the material so that every governor receives the form it requires. Unless labeled otherwise, the examples below are neutral contemporary standard Serbian.

The overview of verb government supplies the lexical case frames assumed here; this page concentrates on what happens when two such frames meet inside coordination.

Shared government: one case for every conjunct

When a preposition or verb governs a coordinated phrase, each conjunct bears the required case. The preposition need not be repeated if its scope and meaning are clear.

The shared preposition о governs locative in all three conjuncts: буџету, роковима, расподели. A conjunct whose ending happens to resemble another case is not exempt; government applies to the phrase structure, not only to visibly distinctive forms.

Repeating the preposition

Repeating a preposition is grammatical and often improves clarity, especially with long conjuncts, contrast, or separate discourse roles.

Correlative structures such as и ... и, ни ... ни, and не само ... него и frequently favor repetition because each conjunct carries its own contrastive weight. Repetition is not a sign of poor style when it clarifies scope.

The preposition can also be shared across place names with the same spatial relation and case:

Both locations are locative under у. Repeating у—у Београду и у Новом Саду—would make the two locations more explicitly contrastive but would not change their case.

Coordinated prepositions

Two prepositions may share one complement only when they both license the same case and the intended structure is clear. Испред and иза both govern genitive:

With incompatible government, Serbian normally repeats the noun or substitutes a pronoun. English readily says “with and without a passport,” but Serbian с(а) requires instrumental and без requires genitive:

The repeated noun is пасошем under с and пасоша under без. A single ending cannot satisfy both.

The same problem appears in compact administrative phrases:

Из requires genitive Београда; за requires accusative Београд. The English compression “from and to Belgrade” must be expanded because the Serbian government conflicts.

Coordinated verbs with a shared object

Two verbs can share a complement when both govern it in the same way:

Both verbs take a direct accusative object, so своју менторку satisfies both. The same principle works with a shared dative or prepositional complement when the lexical government genuinely matches.

Different government blocks simple sharing. Сећати се takes genitive, while размишљати о takes о + locative:

The repair gives each verb its own complement: genitive тог разговора and locative о њему. Serbian does not allow the final locative phrase to satisfy сећати се as well.

Another useful repair combines a full complement with a clitic:

Разговарати с requires instrumental; слушати takes accusative. The clitic га avoids repeating колегу while preserving the second verb's government.

Adjectives and nouns also govern complements

Government is not limited to verbs. Поносан на takes на + accusative, while задовољан takes bare instrumental:

Trying to share one complement here would create a mismatch. Careful prose supplies each adjective with the construction it selects. Deverbal nouns can also change government: анализирати податке has an accusative object, but анализа података uses genitive. Coordination must respect the actual head present, not a related verb learned earlier.

Attraction errors

In a long coordinated phrase, the form of the nearest conjunct can pull another conjunct into the wrong case. This is case attraction in the practical editorial sense: the writer begins correctly but lets a neighboring form override the governor.

The solution is to trace each noun phrase back to its head or preposition. In упркос киши и јаком ветру, упркос governs dative for both conjuncts. In без потписа директора и сагласности одбора, без governs genitive throughout, although several genitives are nested inside the larger phrase.

Phrase-wide agreement is a diagnostic: јаком ветру and писмене сагласности show that modifier and noun belong to the case selected for their conjunct.

Syncretism can hide faulty sharing

Identical endings sometimes make an ill-formed analysis look plausible. Masculine inanimate accusative may resemble nominative; dative and locative forms coincide; several plural forms overlap. Do not validate coordination merely because the forms “look right.” Expand every omitted governor and test its case frame.

For example, веровати и подржати кандидата cannot share кандидата: подржати takes accusative кандидата, but веровати requires dative кандидату. A clear repair is:

The noun and clitic now satisfy different governors without awkward repetition.

Editorial repair strategies

When a coordination fails the government test, choose one of four repairs:

1. Repeat the noun in the required form: из Београда и за Београд.
2. Use a full or clitic pronoun: с колегом и слушао га.
3. Repeat the preposition for scope: и са директором и са заменицом.
4. Recast one predicate: сећам се разговора и он ми је често у мислима.

Good editing favors explicit parallelism over compressed English-like phrasing. The result may contain more words, but each relation becomes recoverable from Serbian morphology.

Practice Tasks

Task 1: test shared government

Why can the preposition be omitted before the second city?

Answer: both place names express stable location, and у governs locative in both: expanded у Нишу и у Крагујевцу.

Task 2: repair conflicting verb government

Give each verb its required complement:

Answer: сећати се governs genitive старог професора; говорити о governs locative о њему.

Common Mistakes

1. Leaving the second conjunct outside the shared case.

2. Sharing one complement across incompatible verbs.

3. Giving two incompatible prepositions one noun form.

4. Letting nominative attraction override the governor.

Key Takeaways

Shared government is legitimate only when every coordinated element bears the case required by the same head and expresses the same relation. A preposition may be omitted before later conjuncts—or repeated for clarity—when that test succeeds. Conflicting prepositions, verbs, adjectives, or nouns require separate case forms. Because syncretism can conceal a mismatch, expand ellipsis mentally and audit each governor; if one form cannot serve all heads, repeat, pronominalize, or recast.