Breakdown of Što je tlo suše, to je urod manji.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
mali
small
što
the (correlative: the more...)
tlo
soil
to
the (correlative: ...the more)
suh
dry
urod
yield
Questions & Answers about Što je tlo suše, to je urod manji.
How does the "The..., the..." structure work in this sentence?
To express "The [more], the [more]" in Croatian, you use the pattern Što + comparative, to + comparative. In this sentence, Što pairs with the comparative adjective suše (drier), and to pairs with the comparative manji (smaller).
Why does the verb je come right after Što and to?
je is an enclitic (a "weak" word without its own stress), which means it naturally wants to sit in the second position of its clause. Because Što and to are the first words in their respective clauses, je tucks in immediately behind them.
Why do the two comparative adjectives have different endings (suše vs. manji)?
Comparative adjectives still have to match the gender of the nouns they describe. tlo (soil) is a neuter noun, so it takes the neuter comparative ending -e (suše). urod (yield) is a masculine noun, so it takes the masculine comparative ending -i (manji).
Is suše related to the noun for "drought"?
Yes, they share the same root. The base adjective is suh (dry). The neuter comparative form used here is suše (drier). It happens to look just like certain forms of the feminine noun suša (drought), but in this sentence, it is strictly an adjective describing the soil.
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