Breakdown of Hoću uspavati nestašno dijete!
dijete
child
htjeti
to want (intent, will)
nestašan
mischievous
uspavati
to put to sleep
Questions & Answers about Hoću uspavati nestašno dijete!
Why doesn't dijete have the -t- stem expansion here?
The current lesson focuses on how dijete adds a -t- to its stem, but that only happens in the genitive, dative, locative, and instrumental cases. Because the child is the direct object of the verb uspavati, it is in the accusative case, which uses the base form dijete without the extra -t-.
Why does the adjective nestašno end in -o?
In Croatian, grammatical gender does not always match biological gender. The noun dijete is grammatically neuter in the singular, so any adjectives describing it must take the neuter accusative ending -o, making it nestašno.
How do we know hoću means 'want' here and not the future tense 'will'?
The verb htjeti is used both to mean 'to want' and as a helper verb for the future tense. While the short form ću almost always creates the future tense, using the full emphatic form hoću with an infinitive like uspavati focuses on desire, meaning 'I do want to'.
Why use uspavati instead of the base verb spavati?
The base verb spavati simply means 'to sleep' and is an intransitive verb (it can't take a direct object). Adding the prefix u- and slightly changing the verb creates the perfective verb uspavati, which means 'to put someone to sleep' as a completed action.
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