Breakdown of Iako trojica muškaraca danas pjevaju, to nije kvartet.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
to
that
danas
today
pjevati
to sing
muškarac
man
iako
although
kvartet
quartet
trojica
three men
Questions & Answers about Iako trojica muškaraca danas pjevaju, to nije kvartet.
Why use trojica muškaraca instead of just tri muškarca?
Trojica is a special numeral noun used exclusively for groups of males. When using these special male-only numerals (like dvojica, trojica, četvorica), the noun being counted must take the genitive plural. This is why we use muškaraca. If you used the standard number tri, you would use the genitive singular: tri muškarca.
Trojica ends in '-a' and declines like a feminine singular noun. Why is the verb pjevaju plural?
Even though trojica is grammatically a feminine singular noun, it logically represents a plural group of men. Because of this, it takes a 3rd-person plural verb in the present tense (pjevaju).
Is muškaraca the genitive singular or plural? They look very similar.
It is the genitive plural. For nouns ending in -ac like muškarac, the genitive singular is muškarca (the 'fleeting a' from the nominative is lost). But in the genitive plural, the 'fleeting a' returns before adding the plural -a ending, resulting in muškaraca.
Why use to instead of a regular personal pronoun like ono for 'it'?
In Croatian, to (meaning 'that') is commonly used as a neutral dummy subject to refer back to an entire preceding fact or situation. Here, it points back to the whole concept of 'three men singing today', rather than standing in for a specific noun.
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