Breakdown of Vidiš li onu crnu vranu u šumi?
li
question particle
vidjeti
to see
crn
black
u
in, into
šuma
forest
onaj
that (over there) / the one (who)
vrana
crow
Questions & Answers about Vidiš li onu crnu vranu u šumi?
Why is onu used here instead of tu for "that"?
Croatian makes a three-way distinction for pointing words. You use ova for something near the speaker, ta for something near the listener, and ona for something far from both. Because the crow is out in the forest, onu (the accusative form of ona) is the most accurate word for "that one over there".
Why is it u šumi rather than u šumu?
The preposition u takes the locative case when answering the question "where?" (static location), which gives us u šumi. It only takes the accusative case (u šumu) when answering the question "where to?" to show destination or movement into a place.
Is it acceptable to say Da li vidiš instead of Vidiš li?
Yes, you will hear Da li vidiš very often in casual speech. However, in standard Croatian, forming yes/no questions by using the verb followed by the particle li (Vidiš li) is grammatically preferred and sounds more proper in writing.
Since a crow is a living thing, does the accusative form vranu follow an animate rule here?
No, the animate/inanimate distinction in the accusative case only applies to masculine nouns. For feminine nouns like vrana, the accusative singular always ends in -u regardless of whether the object is alive or not, making it vranu.
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