Questions & Answers about Preostali novac pripada njoj.
What verb does preostali come from, and how is it functioning in this sentence?
It comes from the perfective verb preostati (to remain / to be left over). Here, it acts as an adjective describing novac. This is a common pattern where an active past participle (the form you normally use to build the past tense) becomes a standard adjective meaning "remaining" or "leftover".
If the masculine past participle of preostati is preostao, why does it end in -i here?
When an active past participle is used directly in front of a noun as an adjective, it takes the definite adjective endings. Because novac is masculine nominative singular, the base participle preostao drops the -o (which originally evolved from an -l) and takes the definite masculine ending -i, becoming preostali.
Could we use the short pronoun joj instead of njoj?
Yes, but the word order would have to change because joj is an enclitic and must go in the sentence's second position. You would say Preostali joj novac pripada. Using the stressed, full form njoj at the end of the sentence is grammatically standard here and puts slightly more emphasis on the fact that the money belongs to her.
Does the verb pripadati always take the dative case?
Yes, pripadati (to belong to) always requires its object to be in the dative case. This is why we use the dative pronoun njoj here rather than the accusative nju.
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