Breakdown of U siječnju je većina ispitanika odobravala to istraživanje.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
većina
majority
siječanj
January
taj
that (masculine)
u
at (a time)
ispitanik
respondent
odobravati
to approve (imperfective)
istraživanje
research
Questions & Answers about U siječnju je većina ispitanika odobravala to istraživanje.
Why is the verb odobravala in the feminine singular if there are multiple respondents?
The verb agrees grammatically with the noun većina (majority), which is a feminine singular noun. This is called syntactic agreement. Even though ispitanika (of respondents) is plural, the verb takes its cue directly from the head noun of the subject phrase.
Could I use the plural form su odobravali instead?
Yes. Because većina ispitanika represents a group of people, many native speakers use semantic agreement, meaning the verb agrees with the plural meaning rather than the singular grammar of većina. So, većina ispitanika su odobravali is also common in everyday Croatian, though je odobravala is preferred in formal writing.
What case is ispitanika and why?
It is in the Genitive plural. Nouns like većina, mnoštvo (a multitude), or hrpa (a pile) that express a quantity or group are always followed by the Genitive case to express 'of what' the group consists.
Why is to istraživanje in the Accusative case? Doesn't the English translation 'approved of' suggest a different preposition or case?
Unlike the English phrasal verb 'approve of', the Croatian verb odobravati (to approve) directly takes an object in the Accusative case without any prepositions. Here, to istraživanje (that research) is the direct object.
Why does the sentence use the Locative case for siječnju?
When you want to say that something happens 'in a certain month', you use the preposition u followed by the Locative case. Because siječanj (January) has a fleeting 'a', that vowel drops out, and the masculine Locative ending -u is added to make u siječnju.
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