# Bosnian (BCS): 7 things you never knew about



## Bosta

How would you say? =

- 7 things you never knew about Ivan. -

 (7 stvari koje niste znali o Ivanu.)???

Hvala.


----------



## phosphore

Bosta said:


> How would you say? =
> 
> - 7 things you never knew about Ivan. -
> 
> (7 stvari koje niste znali o Ivanu.)???
> 
> Hvala.


 
You missed "nikad", it is "sedam stvari koje nikada niste znali o Ivanu".


----------



## Bojan

I think Bosta's translation is correct and "nikada niste" is pleonasm (which is unfortunately heard often).


----------



## Majalj

Bojan said:


> I think Bosta's translation is correct and "nikada niste" is pleonasm (which is unfortunately heard often).


 
I agree.

It can stay as Bosta translated it if it is totally informal; if there is a dash of formality in it I'd write: "Sedam stvari..." instead of "7 stvari..." Explanation: one-word numbers are always written in words, so are any numbers at the beginning of a sentence.


----------



## Duya

Bojan said:


> I think Bosta's translation is correct and "nikada niste" is pleonasm (which is unfortunately heard often).



It is not really a pleonasm, it just specifies the timeframe. In this case, it is redundant because it is obvious from the rest of the sentence that the action (knowledge) has never existed, but it needs more redundancy to qualify as a pleonasm. 

With the verb _znati_ (know), it is rather unusual to know something and then not-know the same thing (so the "never" is sort of default). However, it may be useful when a repeating action is specified:

_Nikada ne znam ko me traži na telefon._ (=whenever the phone rings..,)
_Ne znam ko me traži na telefon. _(=in this particular instance)


----------



## Orlin

Majalj said:


> I agree.
> 
> It can stay as Bosta translated it if it is totally informal; if there is a dash of formality in it I'd write: "Sedam stvari..." instead of "7 stvari..." Explanation: one-word numbers are always written in words, so are any numbers at the beginning of a sentence.


 
Off-topic, izvinjavam se, i mislim da je samo (lični) stil u pitanju. Ja uvek koristim cifre kad pišem na bilo kom jeziku - ne znam zbog čega treba da se zamaram pisanjem "sedam" ako mogu da napišem "7", koje je ekonomičnije i čak "razumljivije" (možda neki, npr.
stranac, ne zna kako se pišu brojevi slovima). Ne me briga da li je tekst formalan ili ne.


----------



## doorman

I'd translate it as _Sedam stvari koje (nikada) niste *saznali* o Ivanu_


----------



## phosphore

Bojan said:


> I think Bosta's translation is correct and "nikada niste" is pleonasm (which is unfortunately heard often).


 
Do you think that "you never knew" is a pleonasm too? This may be an example of redundancy but is definitely not a pleonasm in the sense used by our elementary school teachers in order to teach pupils how to use language "properly".

Anyway, "stvari koje niste znali" means "things you didn't know". Bosta, however, asked for a translation of "things you *never* knew", which would be "stvari koje *nikada* niste znali".



doorman said:


> I'd translate it as _Sedam stvari koje (nikada) niste *saznali* o Ivanu_


 
That would be "seven things you never found out about Ivan".


----------



## Bojan

"You never knew" is not a pleonasm because there is no double negation in English, but the phrase with double negation is pleonasm in BCS. If we could say "stvari koje ste nikada znali" like in English, there would be no pleonasm, but we can't. And in this case "stvari koje niste znali" and "stvari koje nikada niste znali" have the same meaning.


----------



## Duya

Bojan said:


> "You never knew" is not a pleonasm because there is no double negation in English, but the phrase with double negation is pleonasm in BCS. If we could say "stvari koje ste nikada znali" like in English, there would be no pleonasm, but we can't.



That line of argumentation does not make sense, sorry. If you want to implicate double negation here, treat _nikad_ as the negation of _(od)uv(ij)ek_. So, _"stvari koje nikad niste znali"_ means the opposite of "_stvari koje ste oduvijek znali_", and is formed by negating both the verb and the temporal adverb.



Bojan said:


> And in this case "stvari koje niste znali" and "stvari koje nikada niste znali" have the same meaning.



What Phosphore and I argue is that it still does not make "nikad nisam" a pleonasm. "_Nisam jeo pitu_" and "_Nikad nisam jeo pitu_" and "_Jutros nisam jeo pitu_" do not mean the same thing. The second and third example provide more specific timeframes; the first is non-specific.

The redundancy in the original example comes only from the semantics of verb "znati" -- normally, if you _don't know_something now, you have probably never knew it (well, unless you forgot it), so it is not necessary to stress that you have not _ever_ knew it. So, there is certain redundancy indeed, but a pleonasm it is not; natural language is full of various redundancies anyway.


----------



## Duya

...and here's a counterexample, where usage of the adverb matters:

1)
- Kako je bilo na ispitu?
- Ma pao sam. Pitao me je integrale, a ja to _nikad nisam znao_.

2)
- Kako je bilo na ispitu?
- Ma pao sam. Pitao me je integrale, a ja to _nisam znao_. Bio sam spremio za prošli rok, ali sam sad zaboravio.


----------

