Breakdown of On je naslonio plakat na stolicu.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
on
he
na
on, at / to, onto (with motion) / about (thinking about)
stolica
chair
Questions & Answers about On je naslonio plakat na stolicu.
Why is stolicu in the accusative case here instead of the locative?
Because nasloniti (to lean) is a dynamic placement verb. It describes the action of moving the poster to its destination. When the preposition na indicates movement towards a destination, it takes the accusative case (stolicu). If the poster were already just resting on the chair, you would use the locative case (na stolici).
I thought the preposition na means "on". Why is it translated as "against" here?
In English, we usually say we lean an object "against" a wall or a chair. In Croatian, the logic is that you are placing or leaning it onto the surface of the object, so the preposition na is the natural choice.
Why didn't the word for poster (plakat) change its ending? Isn't it the object of the sentence?
Yes, plakat is the direct object, so it is in the accusative case. However, plakat is a masculine inanimate noun (a thing, not a living being). For masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative form is exactly the same as the nominative dictionary form.
Is naslonio from a perfective or imperfective verb?
It is from the perfective verb nasloniti, meaning the action of leaning the poster is viewed as a single, completed event. If you wanted to describe the ongoing process of leaning something, you would use its imperfective partner, naslanjati.