Advanced Relative-Clause Strategies | Serbian Grammar

Serbian can build a relative dependency in several ways: inflected који carries case inside the relative clause, invariant што can introduce a clause with a resumptive pronoun, and forms such as ко, шта, где can head relatives without an expressed antecedent. These strategies are not interchangeable stylistic decorations. Each packages the missing participant, preposition, and discourse link differently.

The basic који paradigm belongs on the relative koji page. Here the question is how advanced strategies compete and what their structure makes visible.

Inflected који: Agreement Outside, Case Inside

In an ordinary који relative, gender and number come from the antecedent, while case comes from the relative pronoun's role inside its own clause.

Разговарала сам са инжењерком којој смо јуче послали нове нацрте.

I spoke with the engineer to whom we sent the new drawings yesterday. (female speaker)

Feminine singular којој agrees with antecedent инжењерком, but its dative case comes from послати некоме нешто. The matrix instrumental са инжењерком does not copy into the relative clause.

Ово је пројекат који ми је директор предложио прошлог месеца.

This is the project that the director suggested to me last month.

Masculine accusative који is the object of предложио. Because the relative form is the first constituent of its clause, the cluster follows it: који | ми | је | директор предложио. Flexible placement of the lexical subject does not change the dependency.

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Compute a који form in two passes: copy gender and number from the antecedent, then assign case from the pronoun's job inside the relative clause.

Invariant што and Resumptive Pronouns

Invariant што does not display the antecedent's gender, number, or case. When the relativized participant is an object, Serbian can represent that role again with a personal clitic.

То је човек што сам га упознао на летњој школи.

That's the man I met at the summer school. (informal)

The structure is човек [што сам га упознао]. Што links the clause; accusative га resumes човек in the object position. This pattern is well established, especially in restrictive relatives, and occurs in both speech and literary prose; its stylistic value varies by construction and speaker. Inflected којег сам упознао remains the most transparent choice in formal edited prose.

With a dative role, the resumptive clitic bears dative:

Сећаш ли се жене што смо јој помогли око селидбе?

Do you remember the woman we helped with her move? (informal)

Јој realizes the complement required by помоћи. A subject relative needs no resumptive subject pronoun:

Жена што води ову радионицу радила је годинама у Нишу.

The woman who runs this workshop worked in Niš for years.

Here the unexpressed subject position is understood directly from жена. Adding она would normally turn it into a marked topic-like or appositive structure rather than the neutral relative strategy.

Invariant што also has a distinct sentential use: it can comment on an entire preceding proposition.

Воз је каснио скоро два сата, што нас је све прилично изненадило.

The train was almost two hours late, which surprised us all quite a bit.

There is no noun antecedent whose gender што should copy. It refers to the fact that the train was late. This supplementary relative is natural in careful prose as well as speech; do not confuse it with informal concrete-noun што + resumptive.

Prepositions: Pied-piping or a Resumptive Phrase

Neutral који relatives place the preposition before the inflected relative form. Serbian does not strand the preposition at the end as English often does.

Колегиница с којом делим канцеларију враћа се у понедељак.

The colleague I share an office with is coming back on Monday.

The relative constituent is с којом; instrumental којом is required by с. In an invariant што strategy, the full prepositional phrase appears resumptively inside the clause:

То је колегиница што делим канцеларију с њом.

That's the colleague I share an office with. (informal)

This conversational pattern (informal) keeps с њом intact. It is not English-style preposition stranding, because the pronoun remains after the preposition. For formal writing, колегиница с којом... is more compact and predictable.

Free Relatives: the Clause Is Itself an Argument

A free relative has no separate antecedent noun. The relative expression supplies a meaning like “whoever,” “what(ever),” or “wherever” and the whole clause fills a matrix role.

Ко први стигне, нека сачека остале испред главног улаза.

Whoever arrives first should wait for the others in front of the main entrance.

The clause ко први стигне functions as the understood person relevant to the matrix instruction. Ко год makes the unrestricted meaning explicit:

Ко год жели да учествује, може да се пријави до петка.

Anyone who wants to take part can apply by Friday.

For things, шта is common:

Узми шта ти треба за пут, а остало остави овде.

Take whatever you need for the trip, and leave the rest here.

For place, path, or destination, relative adverbs avoid a nominal case conflict:

Ићи ћемо куда нас пут одведе, без унапред одређеног плана.

We'll go wherever the road takes us, without a predetermined plan.

Free relatives can face case matching pressure because one form participates in both the matrix and embedded dependency. If the two predicates require incompatible forms, an explicit correlate is clearer:

Разговараћу с оним кога ти препоручиш за тај посао.

I'll talk to the person whom you recommend for that job.

Matrix с оним is instrumental; embedded кога is accusative. Trying to make one bare relative form satisfy both разговарати с + instrumental and препоручити + accusative produces an avoidable clash. Онај ко / онај кога / оно што provides separate case slots.

Structural Attachment Beats the Nearest-Noun Guess

The form of који can expose which noun the relative modifies:

Одлука одбора која је објављена јутрос ступа на снагу у понедељак.

The board's decision, which was published this morning, takes effect on Monday.

Feminine која selects одлука, not adjacent masculine genitive одбора. Change it to masculine који, and the natural antecedent becomes одбор: “the board that was announced,” an unlikely meaning in this context. Agreement encodes attachment; proximity alone does not.

Coordinated antecedents require resolved agreement if the relative modifies the entire coordination:

Књига и филм који су објављени исте године различито приказују исти догађај.

The book and the film, which were released in the same year, portray the same event differently.

Masculine plural који су објављени links to the combined mixed-gender antecedent. If only филм is intended, rewrite rather than trusting adjacency: филм који је објављен... и књига....

Restrictive Force, Order, and Register

A relative normally follows its antecedent, but Serbian can place heavy supplementary material later for information flow. Case morphology helps recover links; it does not make every separation equally readable. Keep a restrictive relative close to its head in careful prose. Extraposition works best when the antecedent is identifiable and the postponed clause is long or carries new information.

The register choices can be summarized as follows:

Strategy	Typical use	Register guidance
inflected који	people and things, all case roles	neutral; safest in formal prose
concrete noun + што + resumptive	especially restrictive object relatives	established but stylistically variable; који is safest in edited prose
sentential што	comment on a whole proposition	neutral, including formal prose
ко/шта/куда free relative	clause as person, thing, or path argument	neutral

An Edited Passage

Ко год прочита извештај приметиће податак који смо раније превидели. Реч је о трошку за који немамо потпуну документацију, што ће вероватно одложити усвајање буџета. Разговараћемо са свима који могу да нам помогну.

Anyone who reads the report will notice a figure that we previously overlooked. It is an expense for which we do not have complete documentation, which will probably delay adoption of the budget. We will speak with everyone who can help us.

The passage combines a free relative (ко год...), accusative који, prepositional за који, sentential што, and a plural human relative. Each form makes a different dependency explicit.

Practice Tasks

Task 1: Change the strategy

Recast човек којем сам послао поруку with conversational што and a resumptive dative clitic. Then explain why the clitic is му, not га.

Task 2: Repair a case mismatch

Express “I will work with whoever the director chooses” by using с оним кога... so that the matrix instrumental and embedded accusative are both visible.

Common Mistakes

Copying the antecedent's matrix case

❌ Разговарала сам са женом којом смо јуче послали уговор.

Incorrect—inside the relative clause the woman is the dative recipient, not an instrumental companion.

✅ Разговарала сам са женом којој смо јуче послали уговор.

I spoke with the woman to whom we sent the contract yesterday. (female speaker)

Giving the resumptive pronoun the wrong case

❌ То је аутор што смо му позвали на разговор.

Incorrect—the author is the direct object of позвати, so the resumptive pronoun must be accusative га, not dative му.

✅ То је аутор што смо га позвали на разговор.

That's the author we invited for an interview. (informal)

Stranding a preposition

❌ Колега који радим с данас није у канцеларији.

Incorrect—neutral Serbian does not strand с without its complement.

✅ Колега с којим радим данас није у канцеларији.

The colleague I work with isn't in the office today.

Using English zero relativization

❌ Документ смо јуче потписали већ је послат клијенту.

Incorrect—the object relative needs који or an invariant што strategy with a resumptive clitic.

✅ Документ који смо јуче потписали већ је послат клијенту.

The document we signed yesterday has already been sent to the client.

Key Takeaways

Који agrees with its antecedent in gender and number but receives case from its own relative clause.
Invariant што can use a resumptive clitic or prepositional pronoun; its concrete-noun use is stylistically variable, while sentential што is neutral.
Prepositions precede који or remain with a resumptive pronoun; Serbian does not use neutral English-style stranding.
Free relatives fill an argument slot themselves, and explicit онај/оно helps when matrix and embedded case requirements conflict.

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