Breakdown of Njihova zastava pade na tlo i carstvo propade.
i
and (additive)
na
on, at / to, onto (with motion) / about (thinking about)
njihov
their
tlo
soil
pasti
to fall (perfective)
propasti
to fail / to perish
carstvo
empire
zastava
flag
Questions & Answers about Njihova zastava pade na tlo i carstvo propade.
What tense are pade and propade, and why aren't they written as je pala and je propalo?
These are in the aorist tense, which expresses a sudden, completed past action. While je pala and je propalo are the standard perfect tense you would use in daily speech, the aorist is used here to give the sentence a dramatic, literary, or historical flavor.
How is the 3rd person singular aorist formed for these two verbs?
Both pasti (to fall) and propasti (to collapse) are perfective verbs that share the root -pad-. For the 3rd person singular aorist, the ending -e is attached directly to this root, giving us pade and propade.
Why does the sentence use na tlo instead of na tlu?
Because the action involves motion towards a destination. The preposition na takes the accusative case (tlo) to show where the flag ended up. If the flag were just lying there statically, you would use the locative case (na tlu).
Would I ever hear pade or propade in everyday spoken Croatian?
Rarely in standard conversation. Saying pade instead of je pala to a friend would sound like you are narrating an epic poem. You only really hear the aorist in modern speech in a few frozen expressions like odoh (I am out of here), otherwise it is mostly reserved for written literature and journalism.
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