Breakdown of Kandidat mora dokazati svoje majstorstvo.
morati
must
svoj
one's own
dokazati
to prove
kandidat
candidate
Questions & Answers about Kandidat mora dokazati svoje majstorstvo.
How is majstorstvo formed in this sentence?
It is created by adding the neuter suffix -stvo to the noun majstor (master). This suffix is highly productive in Croatian for deriving abstract concepts, skills, or collectives from base nouns. Here, it changes a person (a master) into an abstract quality or skill (mastery).
Why does the sentence use svoje instead of njegovo to mean his?
Because the subject (the candidate) is acting upon his own possession. In Croatian, when the object belongs to the subject of the sentence, you must use the reflexive possessive pronoun svoj (in this case, the neuter accusative svoje). Using njegovo would mean the candidate is proving some other man's mastery.
Why use the perfective verb dokazati here rather than the imperfective dokazivati?
The combination of the modal verb mora (must) with the perfective dokazati shows that the action needs to be successfully completed. The candidate isn't just required to engage in the ongoing process of proving (dokazivati); he must definitively accomplish it.
What case is svoje majstorstvo in, and why doesn't its ending change?
It is in the accusative case because it functions as the direct object of the verb dokazati. Neuter nouns ending in -o or -e, such as majstorstvo, always have identical forms for the nominative (subject) and accusative (object) cases.