Breakdown of Dijete će plakati dok ne kupiš sladoled.
dijete
child
ne
no, not
htjeti
to want (intent, will)
kupiti
to buy (perfective)
sladoled
ice cream
dok
until
plakati
to cry
Questions & Answers about Dijete će plakati dok ne kupiš sladoled.
Why does the Croatian sentence use ne here? Doesn't that mean "not"?
In Croatian, to say "until" something happens, we use the combination dok ne. Even though ne usually makes a verb negative, here it works with dok to mean "until the moment you do." If you just used dok without ne, it would mean "while" (The child will cry while you buy ice cream).
Since this is about the future ("will cry"), why isn't kupiš in the future tense too?
After dok ne (until), Croatian typically uses a perfective (completed action) verb in the present tense to talk about future events. Kupiš is the present tense of kupiti, meaning "you buy." It acts as a condition that must be met.
What case is sladoled here, and why doesn't its ending change?
Sladoled is in the accusative case because it is the direct object (the thing being bought). Because it is a masculine, non-living (inanimate) noun, its accusative form looks exactly the same as its dictionary form.
Why is će placed before plakati?
The word će is a "weak" word (an enclitic) that generally wants to sit in the second position of a sentence. Because the subject dijete is in the first position, će naturally slides into the second spot, pushing the infinitive verb plakati to the third spot.
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