Breakdown of Znam stanodavca o kojem susjedi pričaju.
susjed
neighbor
znati
to know
koji
which
pričati
to talk
o
about / on (dependent on)
stanodavac
landlord
Questions & Answers about Znam stanodavca o kojem susjedi pričaju.
Why is it o kojem here, and how do we determine its case?
The phrase o kojem translates to "about whom". The relative pronoun koji is in the locative case because the preposition o (about) requires it. It takes the masculine singular form to match the noun it refers back to: stanodavca (the landlord).
In English, the sentence ends with the word "about". Why doesn't the Croatian sentence end with o?
In Croatian, you cannot leave a preposition dangling at the end of a clause like we often do in English. The preposition must be placed immediately before the relative pronoun it connects to. You have to structure the sentence as "the landlord about whom the neighbors are talking".
Why does the word for landlord change from stanodavac to stanodavca?
It is the direct object of the verb znam (I know), so it must be in the accusative case. Because a landlord is a living being (animate), the masculine accusative gets the -a ending. Also, notice that the final "a" from the base word stanodavac drops out when the ending is added, which is a very common spelling pattern called the fleeting a.
How would this sentence change if the landlord were a woman?
The sentence would be: Znam stanodavku o kojoj susjedi pričaju. The noun changes to the feminine accusative form stanodavku, and the relative pronoun must change to the feminine locative form, kojoj, to match it.
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