Breakdown of Oni trebaju novine, poslat ću im ih.
oni
they
trebati
to need / should (ought to)
ih
them
htjeti
to want (intent, will)
poslati
to send
im
to them
novine
newspaper
Questions & Answers about Oni trebaju novine, poslat ću im ih.
Why do we say im ih instead of ih im?
This is the strict rule for ordering small, unstressed words (enclitics) in a sentence. When you have both a dative pronoun (im, meaning "to them") and an accusative pronoun (ih, meaning "them"), the dative pronoun must always come before the accusative pronoun.
Why does ću come before both pronouns?
In the strict enclitic order, the future tense helper verb (ću) always takes the very first spot in the cluster. The pronoun enclitics like im and ih must line up after it.
Why is the verb written as poslat instead of poslati?
When forming the future tense, if an infinitive verb ending in "-ti" comes directly before the helper verb (ću), it drops its final "i". So, poslati ću becomes poslat ću.
Is novine singular or plural here?
It is plural! In Croatian, the word for newspaper (novine) is a "pluralia tantum" word, meaning it is always plural, just like "scissors" or "pants" in English. That is why we use the plural pronoun ih ("them") to refer back to the newspapers in the second half of the sentence.
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