Word
Netko je pokazao ovaj ured.
Meaning
Someone showed this office.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Netko je pokazao ovaj ured.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ovaj
this (m) / ova (f), ovo (n)
ured
office
pokazati
to show
Questions & Answers about Netko je pokazao ovaj ured.
The verb here is from pokazati. What is its imperfective pair, and how do they differ?
Pokazati is the perfective verb, meaning the action of showing is viewed as a single, completed event ('showed'). Its imperfective partner is pokazivati, which you would use for an ongoing or repeated action ('was showing'). They form an aspect pair by changing the stem suffix (-ati versus -ivati).
Ovaj ured is the object being shown. Why didn't the endings change?
Because ured (office) is an inanimate masculine noun. For inanimate masculine nouns, the accusative case (used for direct objects) looks exactly the same as the nominative (dictionary) case. If the object were alive, like pas (dog), it would take the animate ending and change: pokazao je ovog psa.
Netko means 'someone', who could be male or female. Why does the verb pokazao have a masculine ending?
In Croatian, indefinite pronouns like netko (someone), nitko (no one), and svatko (everyone) always take default masculine singular agreement. Even if you know the 'someone' was a woman, grammar rules dictate you must still use the masculine singular form je pokazao.
Why is je placed right after Netko? Could I say 'Netko pokazao je ovaj ured'?