Word
Arhitekti su danas crtali pravokutnik i valjak.
Meaning
The architects drew a rectangle and a cylinder today.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Arhitekti su danas crtali pravokutnik i valjak.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
danas
today
i
and (additive)
crtati
to draw
Questions & Answers about Arhitekti su danas crtali pravokutnik i valjak.
Why is the plural of arhitekt arhitekti and not arhiteci?
You are thinking of the sound change rule where k, g, and h change to c, z, and s before an i (sibilarization). However, many foreign loanwords and words ending in consonant clusters like -kt resist this change to preserve the original pronunciation.
How is the word pravokutnik formed?
It is a descriptive compound word. It combines prav (straight or right) and kut (angle or corner) with the noun suffix -nik. Literally, it means a right-angle shape.
As direct objects, pravokutnik and valjak are in the accusative case. Why do they look identical to their dictionary forms?
Because they are inanimate. In Croatian, masculine nouns only take the -a ending in the accusative case if they represent living things (animate). For inanimate objects like shapes, the accusative form is exactly identical to the nominative.
If we needed to change valjak to a different case that requires a suffix, what happens to the second a?
It disappears. The word valjak contains a fleeting a (nepostojano a), which drops out when most suffixes are added. For example, the genitive form is valjka, not valjaka. It only stays in this sentence because the inanimate accusative uses the base dictionary form.