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Questions & Answers about Evo poštara!
Why is poštara in the genitive case instead of the nominative poštar?
The presentational particles evo, eto, and eno always require the noun that follows them to take the genitive case. Even though "the postman" is the subject in the English translation, in Croatian, these pointing words govern the genitive.
Why did we use evo here instead of eto or eno?
Evo points to something physically close to the speaker. If the postman were standing closer to the person you are talking to, you would use eto poštara. If he were far away from both of you, like walking down the street, you would say eno poštara.
There is no verb in this sentence. Do we ever need to add je (is) after evo?
No, you do not need a form of the verb biti (to be) in this structure. The particle evo inherently carries the meaning of "here is" or "here are." Adding je would be incorrect when simply pointing out a noun like this.
Since poštara is in the genitive, how do we know from the text if it is singular or plural?
For masculine nouns like poštar, the genitive singular ends in -a (poštara). The genitive plural also ends in -a, just with a longer spoken vowel length that isn't written down. Because they look identical in text, you have to rely on the context to know if you are pointing at one postman or several.