Questions & Answers about U mlađoj grupi ima više djece.
Why does the adjective mlađoj end in -oj?
The noun grupa (group) is feminine. Because it follows the preposition u to show a static location, it takes the locative case (grupi). The comparative adjective mlađa (younger) must agree with it, so it takes the feminine locative ending -oj, becoming mlađoj.
Doesn't ima usually mean "he/she/it has"? Why does it mean "there are" here?
You are right that the verb imati means "to have". However, its third-person singular form ima is very frequently used as an impersonal verb to mean "there is" or "there are". When used this way to state that something exists, the noun that follows it must be in the genitive case.
Why is the word for children djece instead of djeca?
The word više (more) is an adverb of quantity. In Croatian, words that express an amount, quantity, or measure always require the noun that follows them to be in the genitive case. Because of više, djeca becomes djece.
Why does the genitive of djeca end in -e (djece)? Isn't it a plural noun?
Even though djeca means "children" and refers to multiple people, grammatically it is a collective noun that declines exactly like a feminine singular noun (such as žena). Just as the genitive of žena is žene, the genitive of djeca is djece.
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