Breakdown of Sinoć je počelo grmjeti.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
sinoć
last night
početi
to begin
grmjeti
to thunder
Questions & Answers about Sinoć je počelo grmjeti.
Why must we use the imperfective verb grmjeti here?
The main verb is počelo (from početi, meaning to start). In Croatian, phase verbs that express starting, stopping, or continuing an action must always be followed by an imperfective verb. Because you are talking about the ongoing process of thundering beginning, you use the imperfective infinitive grmjeti.
Why does the verb počelo end in -o, which is the neuter form?
Sentences about the weather usually do not have a specific subject doing the action. When talking about general conditions like 'it thundered' or 'it started raining', Croatian uses the neuter singular form of the past tense. That is why the masculine počeo becomes the neuter počelo.
Where is the word for 'it' in je počelo?
English needs the dummy pronoun 'it' for weather expressions (like 'it started'), but Croatian simply leaves it out. The idea of 'it' is already built into the neuter verb form je počelo, so no extra pronoun is needed.
Why does the helper verb je come right after Sinoć?
The word je is an enclitic, which is a weak word that typically must sit in the second position of a sentence. Because the adverb Sinoć takes up the first position, je immediately follows it, pushing the main verb počelo to the third spot.
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