# Serbian (BCS): Ništa/Ničega



## Roxannah_

Nema ništa na stolu or Nema ničega na stolu?

I can't find "ničega" in my Serbian dictionary, could it be because it's exclusively a Croatian word? 

Thanks


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## bibax

I guess that ništa is nominative and ničega is partitive genitive.

The difference between the nominative and the partitive is basically like in French (Il fait le pain. vs. Il fait du pain.).

But in this particular case I do not see any difference.


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## Duya

bibax said:


> I guess that ništa is nominative and ničega is partitive genitive.
> 
> The difference between the nominative and the partitive is basically like in French (Il fait le pain. vs. Il fait du pain.).
> 
> But in this particular case I do not see any difference.



Mostly correct. Actually, "ništa" is accusative here, but it has the same form as nominative for inanimate nouns.

There's no difference in this case, and in BCS accusative and partitive genitive are practically interchangeable as grammatic objects (of appropriate verbs, of course). For some really fine points on definiteness, see http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1481230&page=2, posts 24-29.


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## Roxannah_

I confess I'm not very literate when it comes to grammar and I don't speak French. Is that equal to say, at least in this case, that it's irrelevant to use either ništa or ničega?


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## Majalj

Both sentences have the same meaning.  And they are both equally Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian.


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## Duya

However, with impersonal use of verb "nema" (meaning, "there is not"), only genitive fits in 99% cases: "nema vode", "nema svetla" etc. Only "nema ništa" may come in accusative, and even then I'd argue that "nema ničeg" is more correct.


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## Juri

Quite agree with Duya.
 The same is also in Slovenian, named "nikalni rodilnik"- negative genitive.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Juri said:


> Quite agree with Duya.
> The same is also in Slovenian, named "nikalni rodilnik"- negative genitive.


 
I was also wondering about that. As far as I know (i.e. based mainly on what I learned here), BCS does not use the negation genitive in other instances. For example...

...in Slovenian:

*Gledam televizijo.* = I'm watching television.

*Ne gledam televizije.* = I'm not watching television. *<-- negation genitive*

...in BCS:

*Gledam televiziju.* = I'm watching television.

*Ne gledam televiziju.* = I'm not watching television. *<-- no negation genitive*

I'm wondering whether the use of the genitive with "nema" in BCS is a surviving remant of the "genitive in negation" rule, which survives in Slovenian and several other Slavic languages (including Russian, if I remember correctly), or whether it's just the partitive genitive.


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## DenisBiH

Duya said:


> However, with impersonal use of verb "nema" (meaning, "there is not"), only genitive fits in 99% cases: "nema vode", "nema svetla" etc. Only "nema ništa" may come in accusative, and even then I'd argue that "nema ničeg" is more correct.




I've read once that _šta_ itself is etymologically a dialectal genitive of _što_.


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## Awwal12

> I was also wondering about that. As far as I know (i.e. based mainly on what I learned here), BCS does not use the negation genitive in other instances. For example...
> 
> ...in Slovenian:
> 
> Gledam televizijo. = I'm watching television.
> 
> Ne gledam televizije. = I'm not watching television. <-- negation genitive
> 
> ...in BCS:
> 
> Gledam televiziju. = I'm watching television.
> 
> Ne gledam televiziju. = I'm not watching television. <-- no negation genitive


In Russian, in expressions "there is no"/"I have no"/"none" we use genitive as well.
Здесь его (gen.) не было. - He wasn't there (don't let the impersonal construction confuse you).
У меня нет ручки. (gen.) - I have no pen (lit. "by me {there is} no pen" - purely Russian construction, I suppose?).
Он не сделал ни одного (gen.) движения (gen.).

As for verbal negations, the genitive may be used only in the meaning of partitive (i.e. only if necessary).
Мне не нравится коньяк (acc.). - I do not like cognac
but:
Я не выпил ни рюмки коньяка (gen.) / коньяку (second genitive = partitive, has the same affixes as dative). - I haven't drunk a glass of cognac.


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## Roxannah_

Summing up, *ništa* (in the example I gave at the top) is accusative, while *ničega* is genitive. With the verb "*nema*" the genitive is generally used, hence "nema novaca", "nema vode" etc, with the exception of "nema ništa...", which uses the accusative. Just wanted a confirmation that this is indeed accurate. 

(Sorry guys, I'm leaning Serbian through a Croatian course so sometimes I get a little paranoid (as someone put it ) regarding what's Serbian and what's Croatian).


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## doorman

That's correct, Roxannah_. More generally speaking, genitive always answers the questions _koga? čega? nema_, while accusative answers to _koga? što? vidim_.

_Nema ništa (na stolu)_ is an exception. However, I'd say it's a spoken-language phenomenon only - I don't think it's grammatically correct.


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## DenisBiH

Roxannah_ said:


> (Sorry guys, I'm leaning Serbian through a Croatian course so sometimes I get a little paranoid (as someone put it ) regarding what's Serbian and what's Croatian).




I see how that could be somewhat tricky at times. You may already be aware of this resource, and it may not be of much use if you're already on your way with the Croatian course, but this freely available Serbo-Croatian course developed by the US Foreign Service Institute may come in handy. Sentences and vocabulary are, from what I can see, written both in Croatian ("central" in the text. in latin) and ekavian Serbian ("eastern" in the text, in cyrillic) and the first course includes tapes with the text spoken by a native Serbian speaker. It could be useful either for contrasting or simply as a Serbian course with audio (or Croatian without).


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## Duya

TriglavNationalPark said:


> I'm wondering whether the use of the genitive with "nema" in BCS is a surviving remant of the "genitive in negation" rule, which survives in Slovenian and several other Slavic languages (including Russian, if I remember correctly), or whether it's just the partitive genitive.



That's an interesting question, Triglav, but I think it's too advanced for us to tell. Only someone specialized in historic/comparative linguistic would know. On the surface, one can't tell the difference (it's just a genitive after all).

@Roxannah: Just a remark: note that we were talking only about impersonal verb "nema" (meaning "there is not"), and its positive pair "ima" ("there is") which probably should be regarded as a special case, separate from the personal verb "imati"/"nemati" (have/have not). Being impersonal, it is defective and exists only in 3rd person singular neutrum, and for other tenses it has suppletive forms (of verb "biti"):

Present: Ima/Nema novca. (There is [no] money).
Perfect: *Bilo je/Nije bilo *novca. (There was [no] money).
Future I: *Biće/Neće biti *novca. (There will [not] be money).
Future II: Ako *bude bilo/ne bude bilo* novca. (If there is [no] money).
Conditional: *Bilo bi/Ne bi bilo* novca. (There wоuld [not] be money).

Compare the normal, personal form of imati ("to have"), where both accusative and genitive can be used for the object:

Present: Imam/Nemam novac/novca.
Perfect: *Imao sam/Nisam imao *novac/novca.
Future I: *Imaću/Neću imati *novac/novca.
etc.


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## phosphore

Duya said:


> Mostly correct. Actually, "ništa" is accusative here, but it has the same form as nominative for inanimate nouns.
> 
> There's no difference in this case, and in BCS accusative and partitive genitive are practically interchangeable as grammatic objects (of appropriate verbs, of course). For some really fine points on definiteness, see http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1481230&page=2, posts 24-29.


 
What makes you say it's an accusative? I think it's a nominative, because you have a similar situation with "niko":

(1) Nema niko kod kuće.
(2) Nema nikoga kod kuće.

where in (1) you obviously have a nominative.


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## Duya

"Nema niko kod kuće" is obviously ungrammatical, so you cannot compare the situations. An impersonal verb ("nema") can not have a subject, thus "niko" or "ništa" can not be in nominative.

"Nema ništa kod kuće" is an answer to question "šta ima kod kuće"? Similarly, "nema nikog kod kuće" is an answer to question "koga ima kod kuće?". But you cannot ask *"ko ima kod kuće?" nor answer *"nema niko kod kuće". In my opinion.


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## phosphore

I don't see why is "šta ima kod kuće" grammatical and "ko ima kod kuće" obviously agrammatical? You accepted some notions like "impersonal verb" and "subject case" and with them you judge the grammaticality of these phrases, but the truth is that "nema ništa u stanu" i "nema niko u stanu" are both heard in everyday language.


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## Duya

phosphore said:


> I don't see why is "šta ima kod kuće" grammatical and "ko ima kod kuće" obviously agrammatical? You accepted some notions like "impersonal verb" and "subject case" and with them you judge the grammaticality of these phrases, but the truth is that "nema ništa u stanu" i "nema niko u stanu" are both heard in everyday language.



Pardon me, but since when we measure correctness of terms by their usage in everyday language? 

Of course I judge the grammaticality of these phrases by comparing them against existing notions and language axioms. How else can we judge it? Two of those I used are:

1) Impersonal verbs don't have a subject
2) A nominative can only appear as a verb's subject (or as both arguments of a copula)

Therefore, in "nema ništa", "ništa" is the object of the verb, therefore it's in accusative. 

It is possible to say "nema niko", but in another meaning, and, I repeat, *not* in the sentence* "nema niko u stanu". In that construct, "niko" is the subject, "nema" is the personal form, and you need a direct object (unless implied by context) to specify the argument:

"Nema niko para." = "Niko nema para."
"Ima li iko para?" -- "Nema niko."

Even by googling,  I don't find instances of "nema niko" in the sense you used it (there is nobody).


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## phosphore

Duya said:


> Pardon me, but since when we measure correctness of terms by their usage in everyday language?


 
Since always 

There is certainly some logic in all language constructions, but the formal logic often fails to catch it and so it declares some of these constructions agrammatical. I think that kind of reflection is wrong.

If you google for "nema niko", the first link you get is Nema niko jači od Intera, with the exact same construction (nema+nominative).


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## Duya

phosphore said:


> Since always
> 
> There is certainly some logic in all language constructions, but the formal logic often fails to catch it and so it declares some of these constructions agrammatical. I think that kind of reflection is wrong.



I'm not a prescriptivist -- far from it -- but grammar of a language is formal system. If you don't find axioms of that system, you can't analyse it. Granted, some rules may have exceptions, but you cannot just pick up random phrases said by few random people and argue that they constitute valid sentences in the considered language.



phosphore said:


> If you google for "nema niko", the first link you get is Nema niko jači od Intera, with the exact same construction (nema+nominative).



OK, I concede that "nema+niko+comparative" (nema niko bolji, nema niko jači...) is indeed a frequently used construction, and I don't know how to analyse it. I still don't think that "nema niko u kući" (or any nema+niko+locational phrase) is either correct or widely used, and Google hits show 8 versus 26.300 hits.


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## phosphore

Duya said:


> I'm not a prescriptivist -- far from it -- but grammar of a language is formal system. If you don't find axioms of that system, you can't analyse it. Granted, some rules may have exceptions, but you cannot just pick up random phrases said by few random people and argue that they constitute valid sentences in the considered language.


 
I am not denying that, what I'm trying to say is that when you fail to explain certain examples with the set of grammatical rules you established, you should change your grammar rather than say that the problematic examples are agrammatical.

Anyway, my initial question was why you though "ništa" in "nema ništa" is an accusative rather than a nominative and you have answered it. I'm still not sure whether you're right about that or not, but I wouldn't go any further with this discussion.


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## Roxannah_

So is it irrelevant using the Genitive or the Accusative after the conjugated "imati" verb?
That is, is it my choice whether to say "Ona ima novac" or "Ona ima novca", provided that it means the exact same thing?


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## doorman

Roxannah_ said:


> So is it irrelevant using the Genitive or the Accusative after the conjugated "imati" verb?


No, it isn't. _Ništa/ničega_ is a special case.



Roxannah_ said:


> That is, is it my choice whether to say "Ona ima novac" or "Ona ima novca", provided that it means the exact same thing?


It doesn't mean the same thing 
_Ona ima novac = She has got the money (for a particular thing, i.e. the topic of the discussion)._
_Ona ima novaca = She is rich._


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## Duya

Doorman, now you're confusing Roxannah completely (as if Phosphore and I weren't confusing enough) .

I'd just say that the nuance between genitive and accusative in this case is too fine, especially for a foreign learner. Even grammars do not universally record it.

Indeed, accusative can have a sense of "definiteness" (She's got *the* money), and genitive of "indefiniteness" (She's got [some] money). But in 90% cases, I'd say it doesn't particularly matter. Yes I know I argued in another thread (linked in my first post above) that the difference does exist, but the topic there was definiteness in Slavic languages, not the basic terms of verb reaction initiated by a learner.


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## doorman

Duya said:


> Doorman, now you're confusing Roxannah completely (as if Phosphore and I weren't confusing enough) .



I hope not  That wasn't my intention. I just wanted to be precise since Roxannah had asked whether the two have the exact same meaning (of course, if somebody's rich (i.e. _ima novaca_), (s)he probably has got *the* money for something(_ima novac_), but that was not the question)


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## Roxannah_

No it's fine, I get it.
Čovek neće da kupi kuću jer *nema novac*. (the money to buy the house)
Čovek je siromašan, on *nema novaca*. (he hasn't got money)
Right.....?


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## doorman

Roxannah_ said:


> No it's fine, I get it.
> Čovek neće da kupi kuću jer *nema novac*. (the money to buy the house)
> Čovek je siromašan, on *nema novaca*. (he hasn't got money)
> Right.....?


Precisely!


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## Roxannah_

Yay... now for the cherry on top.
Is the correct spelling for the Genitive of novac "novca" or "novaca"?


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## DenisBiH

Roxannah_ said:


> Yay... now for the cherry on top.
> Is the correct spelling for the Genitive of novac "novca" or "novaca"?




Both.  Novca is gen. singular, and novaca gen. plural.


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## Duya

No, there's so-called "nepostojano a" we mentioned in another thread. It originates from old Slavic semivowel, and it is preserved only in "strong" position. For masc. nouns ending in -ac and -ak, it survives only in nom. sg.  and gen. pl: _novac-novca-...novci-novaca; opanak-opanka-...-opanci-opanaka_.

Now technically, novac is collective noun so it shouldn't have a plural. However, "novci" is quite often used informally.


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## DenisBiH

Duya said:


> Now technically, novac is collective noun so it shouldn't have a plural. However, "novci" is quite often used informally.



You sure about it being collective grammatically and plural forms being only used informally? HJP usually marks such nouns with zb. (check lišće for example) but doesn't do the same here. And it lists the plural forms as well.


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## doorman

DenisBiH said:


> You sure about it being collective grammatically and plural forms being only used informally? HJP usually marks such nouns with zb. (check lišće for example) but doesn't do the same here. And it lists the plural forms as well.



I think the word _novac_ is both  It is a collective noun because it refers to the direct translation of _money - any circulating medium of exchange_, and at the same time it isn't because it can also refer to the actual paper bills and coins. For example, to me, the phrase _Imaš šta novaca?_ means _Do you have any bills and/or coins?_ (although you're right Duya, it's highly informal).


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## DenisBiH

doorman said:


> I think the word _novac_ is both  It is a collective noun because it refers to the direct translation of _money - any circulating medium of exchange_, and at the same time it isn't because it can also refer to the actual paper bills and coins. For example, to me, the phrase _Imaš šta novaca?_ means _Do you have any bills and/or coins?_ (although you're right Duya, it's highly informal).




I don't think we can mix the current "collective" meaning of novac (which is, as you said, only one possible meaning) with how it is treated grammatically. The only way, I suppose, to formally satisfy your statement "it is a collective noun...and at the same time it isn't" would be to have two nouns, sounding the same, one being collective _novac m. zb._ and the other _novac m. (N mn. novci)_, but that might be a bit of an overkill I guess.  But, one should check other relevant dictionaries as they might treat it differently.

Compare to what I believe is a similar but (much) less pronounced development with para. It is regular (neither collective nor singularia tantum) noun, but in jargon it can have the "collective" meaning similar to novac.



> *1. *_žarg._ novac [_sitna para_ malo novca]


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## doorman

DenisBiH said:


> Compare to what I believe is a similar but (much) less pronounced development with para. It is regular (neither collective nor singularia tantum) noun, but in jargon it can have the "collective" meaning similar to novac.



Same thing with lova. There is no mention of neither its plural nor is it identified as a collective noun, although I'm quite sure it is (I've never heard/read the plural of that noun).

As for the _collectiveness_, I see it as too different points. Grammatically, the noun has a plural because of its other meanings. On the other hand, the meaning itself implies collectiveness. Am I too off-track here?


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## Roxannah_

I'm surprised "money" even has a plural form at all... I mean, sure there is a plural form of "money" in English, as well as in Portuguese, but these are very rarely used or are used in a very specific context. I would say money, both in English and Portuguese, would refer to something abstract, not meaning specifically either notes or coins. Does this constitute the basis for it to be a collective noun? I can't say. Does the same happen in BCS or is the plural of money (in whatever padez) used in a regular basis?


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## Duya

DenisBiH said:


> You sure about it being collective grammatically and plural forms being only used informally? HJP usually marks such nouns with zb. (check lišće for example) but doesn't do the same here. And it lists the plural forms as well.



I'm not sure . That's why I carefully formulated that "_technically, it shouldn't have a plural_", not that it's outright incorrect.



DenisBiH said:


> I don't think we can mix the current "collective" meaning of novac  (which is, as you said, only one possible meaning) with how it is  treated grammatically. The only way, I suppose, to formally satisfy your  statement "it is a collective noun...and at the same time it isn't"  would be to have two nouns, sounding the same, one being collective _novac  m. zb._ and the other _novac m. (N mn. novci)_, but that might  be a bit of an overkill I guess.



Well, I don't think it's particularly weird. At least, that's what the situation _is_: we have both singular and plural form in use, and their meaning is _identical_ (although they might be used in different context). I don't agree with Doorman that "_novci_" refers to bills and coins: it's perfectly normal to say "imaš li novaca na računu?"

@Roxannah: yes, both forms are used actively, and they mean the same (as English _money_). The singular is somewhat bookish and formal, and the plural is rather informal. I was surprised too that both coexist (never thought about it, you know). There's however, another synonym, _pare_ (pluralia tantum, fem.), also informal (but not as much as _novci_, I'd say) which is arguably the most common of the three.


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## DenisBiH

> Same thing with lova. There is no mention of neither its plural nor is it identified as a collective noun, although I'm quite sure it is (I've never heard/read the plural of that noun).


I'm not sure that lova is collective at all, and I think HJP is right. To me lova is parallel to mlijeko or hrana, singularia tantum material noun (gradivna imenica) that does not refer to a collective but rather an unspecified quantity of some substance. Here is from Stevanović



> 157. Prema prirodi onoga što se njcma označava, posebnu vrstu, različnu od vrsta imenica o kojima je dosad bilo reči, čine tzv. gradivne imenice, tj. imenice koje istim oblikom označavaju svaku, najveću kao i najmanju, količinu materije. Takve su imenice: voda., vino, žito, mast, mleko, nafta, petrolej, pesak, prašina, ugalj, ulje i sl.


That's the reason I even put "collective" in quotes when using it with novac, as novac with the meaning of "money" seems parallel to _gradivne imenice_ here, but it could still plausibly be understood to refer to both unspecified quantity and a collection of coins/bills.

unspecified quantity - Uplatio je novac na račun (compare with Stavio je hranu na sto)
collection - Nemam sitnog novca da platim taksi. (Nemam novčića/sitniša da platim taksi)

But even in the second example I'm not really sure if it could properly be considered to have a collective meaning.

I'm not sure what the official definition of collective nouns is in Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian and whether it differs between standards, but here they are defined as (usually) singularia tantum nouns that refer to a collection made of many objects understood as a whole, and that end in -je (cvijeće, kamenje), -ad (telad, siročad) or -a (gospoda, braća, djeca).

If you take a closer look, those nouns defined as collective grammatically are clearly analyzable as singular/root form + collective suffix.

kamen(0) + je - kamenje
tel(e) + ad - telad

It is a bit unclear about those ending in -a, I'll have to consult Matasović on that, but presumably

gospod(in) + a - gospoda
brat(0) + (j)a - braća

So the grammatical category of collective in BCS seems to refer primarily to the etymological origin / formation of a noun, not its meaning.

Neither novac, lova or para fit this pattern so neither is marked as collective. However lova is a s. tantum material noun (gradivna imenica) so no plural listed.

However, it should be noted that gradivne imenice can sometimes have plural, but with a different meaning. Stevanović again:



> a)  gradivne imenice se ne upotrebljavaju u množini za označavanje više čestica (ili delova) materije. Ali se ipak upotrebljavaju i oblici množine ovih imenica, kao u primerima:
> 
> Od silnih *kiša* su *sve vode* nadošle


It seems to me that where gradivna imenica can be used in plural, HJP lists its plural ending(s) (as in voda), where not, it doesn't (lova, hrana, mlijeko)


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## Duya

My bad -- sloppy terminology -- I meant to say that _novac_ is a _mass noun_ (_uncountable noun_). However, mass nouns share most properties with collective nouns, especially the lack of plural.

I don't think that _vode _should be treated as plural of _voda_. Grammatically it is, but it has quite a different meaning (waterflows and lakes) than the singular (and we don't usually refer to a waterflow as just "_ova voda_", but we always explicitly say "_ovaj vodotok_" or "_ova rijeka/jezero/potok_").

In some circumstances, we can use the plural to denote different _types_ of the mass noun, ("_Sve mineralne *vode* na tržištu_", "_Pšenična *brašna* imaju visok sadržaj glutena_"). However, that's not normally the case with _novac; _"novci" simply doesn't fit into any category.


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## DenisBiH

Duya said:


> I don't think that _vode _should be treated as plural of _voda_. Grammatically it is, but it has quite a different meaning (waterflows and lakes) than the singular (and we don't usually refer to a waterflow as just "_ova voda_", but we always explicitly say "_ovaj vodotok_" or "_ova rijeka/jezero/potok_").




I would have to agree here. The more proper listing in a dictionary should be:

voda, gradivna, s. tantum - water
vode, pl. tantum

Maybe there's some other reason (other than simply saving space ) that they are listing both as a single entry in HJP, but I can't see it at the moment.


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## DenisBiH

As for novac/novci, my assumption (quite possibly incorrect)

*1)* novac starts out from *novi pjenez as HJP states. Originally it may have meant "coin" in singular. HJP still lists the meaning "novčić" but I would say I would never understand it as such in singular.



> *2. **a. *pojedini komad kovanog novca; novčić, para



*2)* plural is regular at the beginning and means "coins" but may have developed a "collective" meaning as a separate pl. tantum noun (maybe similar to kolo - kola "car")

*3)* novac at one point in time develops the material meaning "money" along with "coin", with the earlier meaning pretty much gone today

There may have been some interaction between singular and plural forms. Perhaps one should list novac/novci as

novac, gradivna, s. tantum - "money"
novci, pl. tantum

Whether one could plausibly defend the statement that there actually in modern speech still exists any kind of a difference between the two forms I'm really not sure.

But here is one potential example (I may be wrong)

Novac kojim me je plaćao je bio prljav.
Novci kojima me je plaćao su bili prljavi.


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## phosphore

I never use "novac" in plural and such use sounds dialectal to me. So one would normally say "imaš li (dovoljno) novca (na računu)" (gen.sg. novca with the long rising accent on the first syllable, acc.sg. novac with the short falling on the first syllable, gen.pl. novaca with the short falling on the first syllable and two postaccent lengths) just like "imaš li vremena" (gen.sg. vremena with the short falling on the first syllable, acc.sg. vreme with the long rising accent on the first syllable, gen.pl. vremena with the long rising on the second syllable and the postaccent length), "ima li vode" (gen.sg. vode with the short rising on the first syllable and the postaccent length, acc.sg. vodu with the short rising on the first syllable, gen.pl. voda with the long falling on the first syllable and the postaccent length), etc. and would use "imaš li novac" only in the sense "do you have the money".


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## DenisBiH

Interesting. A search on Serbian Wikipedia shows several uses of "novci" with the meaning "coins", but I guess that might be literary/archaic.

And this page even shows the use of novac in singular as "coin" in the title.



> _Најстарији бугарски новци, 1908._
> 
> 
> _*Два непозната босанска новца*, 1910._


But note the years of publication.


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## phosphore

In the sense of "coin" nowadays we would normally say "novčić" ("bacali su novčić"), and "metal" ("vratio mi je u metalu") or "sitno" ("nisam imao sitno") in the sense of "change".


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## DenisBiH

Duya said:


> I don't think that _vode _should be treated as plural of _voda_. Grammatically it is, but it has quite a different meaning (waterflows and lakes) than the singular (*and we don't usually refer to a waterflow as just "ova voda"*, but we always explicitly say "_ovaj vodotok_" or "_ova rijeka/jezero/potok_").




This is of course true, but I just remembered the song:

Za goricom vodica, na vodici curica...


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