Breakdown of U muzeju su vidjeli mater i kćer.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
i
and (additive)
vidjeti
to see
u
in, into
muzej
museum (m)
kći
daughter
mati
mother
Questions & Answers about U muzeju su vidjeli mater i kćer.
Why does the sentence use kćer instead of the dictionary form kći?
Because the daughter is the direct object being seen, the noun must be in the accusative case. The word kći is highly irregular. In almost all cases except the nominative, its stem changes to kćer-. Therefore, the accusative form is kćer.
Is mater just another form of mati (mother)?
Yes. Just like kći, the irregular noun mati changes its stem when it leaves the nominative case. The stem expands to mater-. Since the mother is also a direct object here, it takes the accusative case, which is exactly mater.
I sometimes hear Croatian speakers say kćer even when it is the subject of a sentence. Is that wrong?
In strict standard Croatian grammar, yes, it is incorrect. The nominative (subject) form is always kći. However, in everyday colloquial speech, it is very common for native speakers to simplify this irregular noun and just use kćer as the base form for everything. This sentence follows the standard formal rules.
Why does the word muzej have an -u at the end?
The phrase u muzeju tells us where the action happened. The preposition u takes the locative case when it describes a static location (being somewhere rather than moving to a destination). For masculine nouns like muzej, the locative case ending is -u.
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