Breakdown of Sam sam završio taj iscrpljujući zadatak.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
završiti
to finish
zadatak
task (m)
taj
that (masculine)
sam
alone
iscrpljujući
exhausting
Questions & Answers about Sam sam završio taj iscrpljujući zadatak.
Why does the sentence start with Sam sam?
The first Sam is an adjective meaning alone or by oneself in the masculine nominative singular, showing that a male speaker did the action. The second sam is the unstressed auxiliary verb used with završio to form the past tense.
How is the adjective iscrpljujući formed here?
It is a present active participle acting as an adjective. You form it by taking the third person plural present tense of the imperfective verb iscrpljivati (they exhaust: iscrpljuju) and adding -ći.
Since iscrpljujući is in the accusative case, why doesn't it take the -eg ending?
The noun it describes, zadatak, is a masculine inanimate noun (a thing, not a living being). For masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative case is identical to the nominative. Therefore, the adjective takes the inanimate accusative form iscrpljujući rather than the animate accusative form iscrpljujućeg.
As a quick refresher, what happens to the word zadatak in other cases like the genitive?
It becomes zadatka. The final a in zadatak is a fleeting a, which means it drops out in all cases except the nominative and the inanimate accusative used in this sentence.
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