Sunce greje zid.

sun

Breakdown of Sunce greje zid.

• grejati: to heat
• zid: wall

Questions & Answers about Sunce greje zid.

Why is sunce ending in -e? Is that normal for a subject?

Yes. Sunce is a neuter noun, and its nominative singular form is sunce. In this sentence, it is the subject, so nominative is exactly the form you expect.

A lot of Serbian neuter nouns end in -e or -o in the nominative singular, so this is completely normal.

• sunce = the sun
• grammatical role: subject
• case: nominative

Why is zid not changed? Shouldn’t the object have a special ending?

Good question. Zid is the direct object, so it is in the accusative case. But with masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative singular is usually the same as the nominative singular.

So:

• nominative: zid
• accusative: zid

That is why the form does not change here.

Compare that with a masculine animate noun, where the accusative often looks different from the nominative.

What form is greje?

Greje is the 3rd person singular present tense form of the verb grejati.

It matches the subject sunce, which is singular, so:

• ja grejem = I heat / I am heating