Breakdown of Onaj tko ne riskira, nema ništa.
ne
no, not
nemati
to not have
ništa
nothing
onaj tko
he who
riskirati
to risk
Questions & Answers about Onaj tko ne riskira, nema ništa.
Why do we use the pair onaj tko instead of just tko (whoever)?
Onaj tko literally means "that one who" or "he who". In Croatian, it is standard to use a demonstrative pronoun like onaj as an anchor in the main clause for the relative pronoun tko to attach to. While you might hear just tko in casual speech, onaj tko is the grammatically complete way to form general statements and proverbs.
If the main clause needed a different case, would both onaj and tko change?
Not necessarily! They each take the case required by their own specific clause. Here, both are subjects, so both are in the nominative. But if the sentence was "I respect him who takes risks", it would be Poštujem onoga tko riskira. Onaj becomes accusative (onoga) as the object of the main clause, while tko stays nominative as the subject of its own clause.
Could we use ono što in this sentence instead?
No, because ono što translates to "that which" or "the thing that" and is used for inanimate objects or abstract concepts. Since this proverb is about a person taking a risk, we must use the human pronoun pair onaj tko.
As a refresher, why does the sentence use both nema and ništa?
In Croatian, whenever you use a negative pronoun like ništa (nothing) or nitko (nobody), the verb must also be negated. This is called negative concord or double negation. You can't say ima ništa (has nothing) like in English; you must say nema ništa (literally "doesn't have nothing").
Is the verb riskira perfective or imperfective here?
Riskirati is a loanword ending in -irati. Like many verbs with this suffix, it is biaspectual, meaning the same word acts as both perfective and imperfective depending on the context. Here, it describes a general, ongoing attitude, so it functions imperfectively.
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