Questions & Answers about Novi gosti nas čekaju vani.
The English translation says "waiting for us". Where is the word "for" in the Croatian sentence?
You don't need one! In Croatian, the verb čekati (to wait) takes a direct object in the accusative case. This means instead of saying "waiting for us", you literally just say "waiting us" (čekaju nas).
What kind of word is nas?
Nas is the short, unstressed form of the pronoun "us" in the accusative case. These short pronouns are called clitics, and they are used whenever you don't need to put special emphasis on the pronoun.
Why does nas come right after Novi gosti?
Because nas is a clitic, it must follow the second position rule in a sentence. The entire noun phrase Novi gosti (The new guests) acts as a single block of information in the first position, so the clitic nas slots in perfectly into the second position right after it.
Why does Novi gosti end in -i?
This is the nominative plural form for masculine subjects. The singular masculine noun gost (guest) adds an -i to become plural. The adjective must match the noun it describes, so nov (new) also takes the masculine plural ending to become Novi.
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