Breakdown of Pas je sjedio pod stolom u kuhinji.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
stol
table
u
in, into
kuhinja
kitchen
Questions & Answers about Pas je sjedio pod stolom u kuhinji.
Why do we use the Instrumental case (stolom) after the preposition pod?
In Croatian, the preposition pod (under) takes the Instrumental case when describing a stationary location, meaning where something currently is. Because the dog is already resting under the table, we use the Instrumental.
If the dog was moving to get under the table, would it still be pod stolom?
No. When pod involves motion towards a destination (moving from away from the table to under it), it takes the Accusative case instead. You would say pod stol. We only use the Instrumental here because it is a fixed location.
Both pod and u show location in this sentence. Why does u take the Locative case (kuhinji) while pod takes the Instrumental?
Different prepositions demand different cases, even when they both describe location. The prepositions u (in) and na (on) always take the Locative for stationary positions. However, the spatial group of pod (under), nad (above), pred (in front of), za (behind), and među (among) take the Instrumental for location.
Why does the sentence use sjedio instead of sjeo?