Organizing a festival involves tracking a lot of moving parts. You are constantly talking about the "setting up" of equipment, the "printing" of invitations, or the "sale" of tickets. When discussing these logistical processes in Croatian, you will combine action nouns with the Genitive case.
Action Nouns
Before you can express the object of an action, you need nouns that represent the action itself. These are often derived directly from verbs (known as verbal nouns) or are closely related nouns describing a process.
| setting up | postavljanje |
| sale | prodaja |
The Objective Genitive
When you use an action noun, the "target" or "object" of that action is placed in the Genitive case.
In English, we typically express this relationship with the preposition "of" (e.g., the renting of the equipment). In Croatian, no preposition is needed; the Genitive case on the second noun does all the work.
| The setting up of the stage starts tomorrow. | Postavljanje pozornice počinje sutra. |
Notice how the stage (pozornica) becomes pozornice (Genitive) because it is the thing being set up.
| The sponsors paid for the renting of the equipment. | Sponzori su platili iznajmljivanje opreme. |
Plural Objects
Very often, the logistical task involves multiple items. The rule remains exactly the same, but you will use the Genitive plural for the object.
| The printing of the invitations is our next step. | Tiskanje pozivnica je naš sljedeći korak. |
| The sale of tickets begins in the morning. | Prodaja ulaznica počinje ujutro. |
Case Independence
Like any noun, the action noun itself will change its case depending on its role in the sentence. It might be the subject (Nominative), the direct object (Accusative), or it might follow a preposition that requires a specific case.
Regardless of what happens to the action noun, the object attached to it remains firmly locked in the Genitive.
| We need help with the financing of the festival. | Trebamo pomoć s financiranjem festivala. |
In the sentence above, financiranjem is in the Instrumental case because it follows the preposition s (with). However, the festival—the object being financed—stays in the Genitive (festivala).
| After the renting of the hall, the setting up of the chairs began. | Nakon iznajmljivanja dvorane, počelo je postavljanje stolica. |
Here, iznajmljivanja takes the Genitive because of the preposition nakon (after), while dvorane (the hall) is in the Genitive because it is the object being rented. Then, postavljanje is in the Nominative as the subject of the second clause, while stolica (chairs) is in the Genitive plural as the objects being set up.