Breakdown of Sviđa li vam se njegov životopis?
li
question particle
vam
to you
njegov
his
sviđati se
to like (Sviđa mi se)
životopis
resume
Questions & Answers about Sviđa li vam se njegov životopis?
Why are there three small words (li, vam, se) right after the verb, and why are they in that specific order?
These are clitics (unstressed words that must group together in the second position of a sentence). When you have multiple clitics, they follow a strict rule. The question word li is special and always takes the absolute first position in the cluster. After li, the dative pronoun (vam) must come before the reflexive pronoun (se).
Why do we use the dative vam here instead of the nominative vi for "you"?
The verb sviđati se (to like) literally means "to be appealing to". In Croatian, you don't say "You like the resume." Instead, the structure is "The resume is appealing to you." The person who likes the object is the indirect receiver of that appeal, so they must be in the dative case (vam).
If sviđati se means "to be appealing to", what is the actual subject of this sentence?
The subject is njegov životopis (his resume). Because it is the subject doing the "appealing", it is in the nominative case, and the verb sviđa is in the third-person singular to match it.
Since this sentence is about someone's resume, why don't we use the reflexive possessive svoj instead of njegov?
We only use svoj when the owner of the object is also the subject of the sentence. Because the subject here is the resume itself, and a resume cannot own itself, we must use the regular possessive njegov (his).
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