Breakdown of Šef danas zove dragog zaposlenika.
danas
today
zvati
to call
šef
boss
zaposlenik
employee
drag
dear
Questions & Answers about Šef danas zove dragog zaposlenika.
Why does the adjective drag (dear) have the ending -og here?
This is exactly what this lesson is about! The employee is the direct object of the verb, meaning we need the accusative case. Since an employee is a living, masculine being (animate), any adjective describing him gets the special -og (or -eg) ending. So, drag becomes dragog.
Why does the noun zaposlenik (employee) end in -a?
Just like the adjective, masculine nouns for living beings take an -a ending in the accusative case. That's why zaposlenik changes to zaposlenika. If the boss were calling for an inanimate object (like a taxi), the noun and adjective wouldn't add these extra endings!
The dictionary form for "to call" is zvati. Why is it spelled zove here?
Many Croatian verbs have a present tense stem that looks different from their infinitive (dictionary) form. For zvati, the stem changes to zov- before adding the usual present tense endings. For "he/she/it", the ending is -e, giving us zove.
Could danas (today) go somewhere else in the sentence?
Yes! Croatian word order is very flexible. You could say Danas šef zove dragog zaposlenika to emphasize "today", or put it at the very end. Having it right after the subject (Šef) is just a very common, neutral way to structure the sentence.
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