Learn Croatian: Zbog novca su ga izdali. - For money, they betrayed him.

In standard, neutral Croatian, you would typically say Izdali su ga zbog novca (They betrayed him for money). Placing the prepositional phrase Zbog novca at the front is a syntactic inversion used for emphasis or topicalization. It highlights the specific reason they did it, translating closely to 'It was for money that they betrayed him.'

The enclitics su and ga are technically the third and fourth words. Why don't they come immediately after Zbog?

Enclitics must take the second position in a sentence. However, 'second position' can mean either after the first word or after the first phrase (prosodic unit). Because Zbog novca is a single, tightly bound prepositional phrase functioning as the fronted topic, the enclitic cluster su ga naturally follows the entire phrase as a whole.

Why is the order of the enclitics su ga instead of ga su?

When multiple enclitics cluster together, Croatian follows a strict sequence. Verbal enclitics (like the auxiliary su) almost always come before pronominal enclitics (like the accusative pronoun ga). The only exception to this rule is the 3rd person singular auxiliary je, which always goes last in a cluster.

Why is the word for money written as novca here instead of novac?