# Slovenian: dual agreement



## levec

I have been trying to construct some sentences in Slovenian but I do not know for sure the rule on dual agreement between the subjects and the so-called 'L-participles'. I have the sentences in the singular or the plural, but need to make some new ones using the dual.

This sentence should be correct : 'Klobuk je padel z mize.' (The hat fell off the table.) The subject klobuk is singular and masculine and so is the form of the participle.  If I have 'kravata in srajca' as the new noun phrase, is the sentence below correct?

'Kravata in srajca sta padli z mize.' (The tie and the shirt fell off the table.) Both nouns are feminine, and are two things together, so I use the dual?  

What about when both nouns are already in the dual : 'vijaka in ključa'.  Is this correct?
'Vijaka in ključa sta padla z mize.' (Both screwdrivers and both keys fell off the table.)

Or does it switch to the plural, 'Vijaka in ključa so padli z mize.'

Thank you for your help,
levec


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## skye

Hi, 

your sentences are correct. 

When it comes to the last two, I would use:
"Vijaka in ključa sta padla z mize." 

I don't know what the rule behind this is, but "Vijaka in ključa so padli z mize" sounds very unnatural to me.


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## levec

Thank you skye, for your very quick reply! I have a few books on Slovene grammar, but none touch very heavily on the dual and the different requirements for agreement. Would you be so kind to judge a few more sentences for me? They involve a few more pairs of nouns, in different combinations of gender and number. I've noted the genders [M,F,N] and the numbers [SG,DU,PL] just in case I've made an error in the inflection and to be sure they are the combinations I'm interested in testing.

1. The ties and the medicines fell off the table.
a. Kravate [F-PL] in zdravila [N-PL] so padle [F-PL] z mize.
b. Kravate [F-PL] in zdravila [N-PL] so padla [N-PL] z mize.

Or does the pair of plurals change to the dual? If so, to which gender would the participle agree (seeing that the feminine dual and the neuter dual participle would have the same form)?

c. Kravate [F-PL] in zdravila [N-PL] sta padli [F-DU] z mize.
d. Kravate [F-PL] in zdravila [N-PL] sta padli [N-DU] z mize.

2. The sandwiches and the (one) pizza fell off the table.
a. Sendviča [M-DU] in pica [F-SG] sta padla [M-DU] z mize.
b. Sendviča [M-DU] in pica [F-SG] so padli [M-PL] z mize.

Thank you again for help with my questions here. Hopefully it is not too confusing with so many things falling off the table. 

Kind regards,
levec


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## skye

I think I would use the plural masculine form here (or maybe the plural neutral form - I'm not quite sure - but I wouldn't use the feminine form):

1: Kravate in zdravila so padli z mize. 

In the second example I would use the plural form:

2: Sendviča in pica so padli z mize. 


I wonder where some of the other members who seem to study Slovene are. I can only tell you what sounds right. We didn't go into such details when I was at school. 

I hope my replies helped at least a bit.


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## levec

This helps a great deal skye! Thank you again for you help. I would say a judgement on a sentence from a native speaker of a language is much more valuable than any grammar text. I'd like to post a few more sentences for you to take a look at. I don't have time today, but wanted to let you know now I'm very grateful for your assistance.


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## sokol

Skye, I was tempted to answer twice and each times considered my Slovenian skills insufficient. 

I would have wrongly chosen plural for "vijaka in ključa sta padla z mize", for example; but I never learned about that in so much detail.

What I did learn though was that:

- with natural pairs you don't use dual but plural: so "parents - starši" would require plural, as would "feet - noge" (when you mean your own feet, and not a thousand feet of marathon runners hitting the road)

- when you talk about you and a friend going somewhere you use dual and not singular or plural, as in (example from Jenko: Grammatik der slowenischen Sprache): "s prijateljem sva bila v gledališču" means "I went to the theatre with a friend of mine" (that is, two persons went)

As I wrote above, with two subjects of which at least one would not be in singular I would have chosen plural with the verb (that is, with singular + dual as well as dual + dual as well as dual + plural); but as you said above that with dual + dual the verb also should be dual I don't feel able to contribute here anything useful. 

My Slovenian grammar (that Jenko mentioned above) does not say anything about that, but probably I'm able to find more detailed information in another grammar.


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## skye

levec said:


> This helps a great deal skye! Thank you again for you help. I would say a judgement on a sentence from a native speaker of a language is much more valuable than any grammar text. I'd like to post a few more sentences for you to take a look at. I don't have time today, but wanted to let you know now I'm very grateful for your assistance.


 
Not a problem. I'll take a look, I should be at home in the afternoons this week. 

I used to think that a judgement from a native speaker is better than grammar books too and I still think that in certain cases this is so - but in such rare examples as the ones you listed above, which don't come up in real life that often, I think, a grammar book would help too.


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## skye

sokol said:


> Skye, I was tempted to answer twice and each times considered my Slovenian skills insufficient.


 
I used to be tempted to answer in the German forum too, but I then I thought that despite my degree in German the native speakers are probably a better source of knowledge than me and my learnt-from-the-book rules. Not that I didn't answer occasionally if the question was simple enough. 

(But really, where are all the other Slovenians?)


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## TriglavNationalPark

Even though Slovenian is my native language, I wasn't educated in Slovenia. The forms recommended by Skye sound right to me (I would use them myself), but it's very difficult for me to justify these choices using grammatical logic. I just play it by ear.


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## rosarosae

Hi, guys, I'm one of those "who have been studying Slovene". Participles are used exactly like adjectives, thus

kozarec je padel z mize/kravata je padla z mize
kozarca sta padla z mize (dvojina moškega spola)/kravati sta padli z mize (dvojina ženskega spola)
kozarci so padli z mize/kravate so padle z mize

kozarec in kravata sta padla z mize (čeprav sta moškega in ženskega spola, dvojina mora biti v obliki ženskega spola)

And yes, everything that's obviously in pairs (like hands, parents, legs, eyes) does not go with dual. Funny, ha? It's plural:
Starši so prišli iz tujine (namesto Starši sta prišla iz tujine)

Any doubts don't hesitate to ask!


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## rosarosae

Just one more thing, of course when you have two or more of one of the items, I mean when the subject sums three or more, you use plural:

kravati (2) in kozarec (1) so padli ...
kravati (2) in kozarca (2) so padli ...

It's different when the sentence specifies the quantity of a certain noun:

Miza je bila v učilnici.
Mizi sta bili v učilnici.
Tri mize so v učilnici.
Štiri mize so v učilnici.
AMPAK, oziroma, but
Pet miz je bilo v učilnici. Pet + miz (rodilnik, množina=genitiv plural) je bilo (srednji spol, ednina=neutral singular).
Jih je bilo pet v učilnici.

Upam, da je vse jasno in natančno. If not, you can always find answers at www.amebis.si


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## roko-si

For parents you can use also dual starša and singular starš

Oba moja starša sta prišla na šolsko predstavo. or
Moji starši so prišli na šolsko predstavo.


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## rosarosae

"Oba moja starša sta prišla ... "

Tukaj je dvojina verjetno smiselna, ker se poudarja, da oba mama in oče sta prišla, in seveda ne bi šlo "Oba moji starši so prišli ..."

I mean it's slightly different, not so slightly I'm afraid, to say "Both my parents came" than the plain "My parents came".


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## skye

I don't know if "starša" in dual has been accepted as a standard form yet, but it is quite widely used in conversation. It does not sound strange (well, maybe to older generations). 

"Tam sta moja starša." "Tvoja starša te čakata."

The singular "starš" still sounds a bit weird to me, but you can hear it used too - especially in contexts where you need to talk about parents a lot (school, etc.).


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