Breakdown of Polovica malina mi je dosta.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ja
I
dosta
plenty / enough
polovica
half (noun, one of two equal parts)
Questions & Answers about Polovica malina mi je dosta.
Why does the genitive plural malina look exactly like the nominative singular here?
For many feminine nouns ending in -a, the genitive plural also ends in -a. In spoken Croatian, they are distinguished by a lengthened final vowel in the genitive plural. Since polovica requires the genitive case to say 'half of the raspberries', you can easily tell from context that this is plural.
Could I say pola instead of polovica in this sentence?
Yes, Pola malina mi je dosta is also completely natural. The main difference is grammatical: polovica is a fully declinable feminine noun meaning 'a half', whereas pola is an indeclinable word expressing quantity.
Why are the clitics mi je placed after the two words Polovica malina instead of just after the first word?
While clitics generally go in the second position of a clause, closely bound noun phrases like Polovica malina (Half of the raspberries) act as a single grammatical unit taking up the entire first position. Splitting them up to say Polovica mi je malina dosta would sound unnatural here.
Why is the singular verb je used when the sentence is talking about multiple raspberries?
The verb must agree with the grammatical subject of the sentence, which is the singular noun Polovica. The plural word malina is in the genitive case, acting as a modifier, so it does not dictate the verb's number.