# BCS: Spavala je u Milanovoj sobi



## TheRock87

Spavala je u Milan*ovoj* sobi.
_She slept in Milan’s room._

Where does the -voj ending come from and what case is it?

Any help is appreciated.


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## VelikiMag

Possessive adjectives for the noun _Milan_ are:
_Milanov_ - masculine
_Milanova_ - feminine
_Milanovo_ - neuter
_Milanovi_ - plural

You have word _soba_ which is feminine gender, so it will be _Milanova soba_.
There is preposition _u _which requires locative, so you have _u Milanovoj sobi_.

N: _Milanov*a*_
G: _Milanov*e*_
D: _Milanov*oj*_
A: _Milanov*u*_
V: _Milanov*a*_
I: _Milanov*om*_
L: _Milanov*oj

*_P.S. Preposition _u_ also goes with accusative case, but only for verbs of motion. _Ušla je u Milanovu sobu (She entered Milan's room) _would be such an example.


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## yael*

Hi!
OV is a possessive adjective (prisvojni pridev) suffix: Milanov, Nenadov, Brankov. 
OJ because it's locative, feminine gender (because "soba" is feminine) - In my room - U mojoj sobi.
Hope this helps.
Cheers


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## TheRock87

Thank you VelikiMag and yael!

I need some example for masculin and neuter too to understand this.

She slept in Milan's car
She slept in Milan's church
She slept in Milan's house


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## yael*

- Spavala je u Milanovim kolima. (kola neuter, pl.)
   (alternatively: Spavala je u Milanovom autu - masc.)
- Spavala je Milanovoj crkvi(?). (as in soba: feminine)
- Spavala je u Milanovoj kuci. (as above).


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## TheRock87

That's great. So I hope for the easier part this is correct.

_Milan's car_
Milanovo auto

_Milan's church_
Milanova crkva

_Milan's house_
Milanova kuća


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## TheRock87

Just realized a mistake

_Milan's car_
Milanov auto
Milanovo kola


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## Orlin

yael* said:


> - Spavala je u Milanovim kolima. (kola neuter, pl.)
> (alternatively: Spavala je u Milanovom autu - masc.)
> - Spavala je u Milanovoj crkvi(?). (as in soba: feminine)
> - Spavala je u Milanovoj kuci. (as above).


Slučajna greška je ispravljena.


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## TheRock87

This is what I found. Corrections welcome.



> autu - auto (m)
> N: Milanov
> G: Milanov*og*
> D: Milanov*om*
> A: Milanov
> V: Milanov*i*
> I: Milanov*im*
> L: Milanov*om*





> kolima - kola (n)
> N: Milanov*o*
> G: Milanov*og*
> D: Milanov*om*
> A: Milanov*o*
> V: Milanov*o*
> I: Milanov*im*
> L: Milanov*om*


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## VelikiMag

TheRock87 said:


> _Milan's car_
> Milanovo auto


As the matter of fact, word _auto_ is used both as masculine and neuter noun. There was a brief discussion here about that some time ago, but I can't remember in which thread. Anyhow, the difference is only in nominative and accusative cases, others are identical. So I guess you can use both.
_Automobil _is however only masculine.

_Kola_ on the other hand is pluralia tantum. That means that no matter if there is only one car or there are many of them, it will always be just _kola_. And in order to distinguish singular and plural, you usually need some context.
In your case it is correct to say _Milanov*a* kola_.

These two are maybe not the best examples to start with, but now it shouldn't be so hard I guess. Luckily for you, there aren't so many words like these, so don't get discouraged!


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## TheRock87

VelikiMag said:


> In your case it is correct to say _Milanov*a* kola_.



Because it "behaves" like a feminine? Or js it completely irregular?


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## VelikiMag

N: Milanov auto
G: Milanov*og *auta
D: Milanov*om *autu
A: Milanov auto
V: Milanovi auto
I: Milanov*im* autom
L: Milanov*om *autu


N: Milanov*a *kola (kȍla)
G: Milanov*ih *kola (kȏlā)
D: Milanov*im *kolima
A: Milanov*a *kola (kȍla)
V: Milanov*a *kola (kȍla)
I: Milanov*im *kolima
L: Milanov*im *kolima

Though it may not be necessary for you now, I wrote in brackets accentuation marks. You can see that only genitive is pronounced a bit differently - both syllables are long.


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## TheRock87

Excellent. This is going to need a lot of practice.


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## VelikiMag

TheRock87 said:


> Because it "behaves" like a feminine? Or js it completely irregular?


Like I said, it only has a plural form. The singular form, which now doesn't exist, was supposed to be neuter gender and have _-o_ ending. Therefore, plural form would need to have _-a_ ending (compare: _ostrvo - ostrva_). So we need a form for neuter plural - _Milanova._


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## yael*

Orlin said:


> Slučajna greška je ispravljena.



Hvala Orlin! 

And regarding the gender of the noun auto - in Serbia, as far as I know, it is always masculine. It's true that it can be neuter as well - in Bosnian (not sure about Croatian), but I think it's a slang and considered not be correct. 

TheRock87, we don't have many pluralia tantum nouns, but the ones we have are commonly used, so I am afraid you will have to learn this lesson. 

Some examples: vrata, novine, pantalone, gaće, makaze, leđa, pluća, usta.

Some are feminine other neuter, but the good news is that there is a rule: those ending in -a are neuter (ta vrata, ta usta) while those ending in -e are feminine (te makaze, te pantalone).

You might have noticed that we have also singularia tantum (nouns appearing only in singular form), like: mleko, voće, povrće, žito, itd.

Cheers


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## Orlin

yael* said:


> TheRock87, we don't have many pluralia tantum nouns, but the ones we have are commonly used, so I am afraid you will have to learn this lesson.
> 
> Some examples: vrata, novine, pantalone, gaće, makaze, leđa, pluća, usta.
> 
> Some are feminine other neuter, but the good news is that there is a rule: those ending in -a are neuter (ta vrata, ta usta) while those ending in -e are feminine (te makaze, te pantalone).
> 
> Cheers


Pošto pluralia tantumi dekliniraju kao "obične" imenice respektivnog roda (samo množina, završetak nominativa pokazuje rod, važno je i to što u BCS jezicima, za razliku od mnogih drugih, ima diferencijacije po rodu i u množini), jedini problem je prepoznati imenice koje su pl. tantum.
Zanima me ima li u BCS jezicima pl. tantuma muškog roda - nije dat takav primer, i ja ne mogu da se setim nijednog.


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## yael*

Orlin said:


> Pošto pluralia tantumi dekliniraju kao "obične" imenice respektivnog roda (samo množina, završetak nominativa pokazuje rod, važno je i to što u BCS jezicima, za razliku od mnogih drugih, ima diferencijacije po rodu i u množini), jedini problem je prepoznati imenice koje su pl. tantum.
> Zanima me ima li u BCS jezicima pl. tantuma muškog roda - nije dat takav primer, i ja ne mogu da se setim nijednog.



Ne, ne postoje. Singularia tantum - da (npr. ječam, zob). 
Osim ako se imenica ljudi nije pluralia tantum. Ali zaista ne znam da li može tako da se definiše ili je jednostavno množina imenice čovek. 
Logično mi je da pluralia tantum budu srednjeg roda i ne znam zašto su neke ženskog (osim "novine", pošto nastaje od reči novina)... za ostale bih rekla da označavaju objekat koji je sastavljen iz dva dela (naočare, pantalone, makaze... ali zašto gaće?... i zašto ne usta?)... Hmmm... Na sreću, nema ih mnogo.


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## VelikiMag

Orlin said:


> Zanima me ima li u BCS jezicima pl. tantuma muškog roda - nije dat takav primer, i ja ne mogu da se setim nijednog.


Na srpskoj vikipediji vidim da je kao primjer dat toponim Karlovci, eto to je množina muškog roda.

Što se tiče riječi _auto_, ja je lično upotrebljavam možda češće kao srednji rod, mada mi nije strano ni kada čujem kao muški. Međutim, ako pogledamo oblik množine - _auta_, vidimo da je to ustvari množina za srednji rod. Može se čuti (čini mi se uglavnom u hrvatskom govornom području) oblik _auti_ i to bi ustvari trebao biti pravilniji oblik za množinu muškog roda, ali to mi već zvuči strano.


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## Orlin

VelikiMag said:


> Što se tiče riječi _auto_, ja je lično upotrebljavam možda češće kao srednji rod, mada mi nije strano ni kada čujem kao muški. Međutim, ako pogledamo oblik množine - _auta_, vidimo da je to ustvari množina za srednji rod. Može se čuti (čini mi se uglavnom u hrvatskom govornom području) oblik _auti_ i to bi ustvari trebao biti pravilniji oblik za množinu muškog roda, ali to mi već zvuči strano.


Mislim da se preferira oblik _auta_ umesto _auti _pošto _auti_ može da bude i množina od _aut_ (u sportu), tj. imamo najmanje homografija, nisam siguran da li postoji neka razlika u akcentuaciji - mislim da sam video nešto slično na drugoj temi.


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## DenisBiH

yael* said:


> And regarding the gender of the noun auto - in Serbia, as far as I know, it is always masculine. It's true that it can be neuter as well - in Bosnian (not sure about Croatian), but I think it's a slang and considered not be correct.



Both _auto _m. and _auto _n. are accepted as correct in standard Bosnian. There was a discussion, or perhaps two, about this some time ago.


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