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48 CHAPTER 4 40 Present tense, continued The majority of verb types which must be individually learned belong to the e-conjugation, although a few belong to the i-conjugation. 40a. Type ići Verbs with infinitive in -ći always follow the e-conjugation. By far the most important of these is ići “go”. The present tense stem of this verb ends in -d. 40b. Type kazivati Most verbs with infinitive in -ivati follow the same conjugation as those in -ovati (review [14e]). This means that -iva- in the infinitive is replaced by -uj- in the present tense. The infinitive accent is always long rising on -iv-, and the present tense is short rising on the syllable preceding -uj-. For more on this type, illustrated here by kazivati “narrate”, see [153h]; for the relationship between kazati and kazivati see [83a, 147c]. 40c. Type jesti Verbs whose infinitives end in -ti preceded by s all belong to the e-conjugation. In one group of these, the s of the infinitive is replaced by d in the present tense. For more on this type, represented here by jesti “eat”, see [153p]. 40d. The verbs sedeti and sjediti Nearly all verbs whose infinitive theme vowel derives from old Slavic jat belong to the iconjugation , and to the videti / vidjeti type (review [14c]). The verb meaning sit also follows this model, but is distinctive in two ways. First, it has separate ekavian and ijekavian forms in both the present tense and the infinitive. Second, whereas the ekavian infinitive form sedeti is regular, the older ijekavian infinitive *sjedjeti has gone out of use, having been replaced everywhere by sjediti. The conjugations in question are given below alongside the base verb for this group, videti / vidjeti. For more on verbs of “body-position”, see [120]. videti/vidjeti see sèdeti sit sjèditi sit vidim vidimo sèdim sèdimo sjèdim sjèdimo vidiš vidite sèdiš sèdite sjèdiš sjèdite vidi vide sèdi sède sjèdi sjède J vidjeti / E videti E sedeti / J sjediti; E sedim etc. / J sjedim etc. ìći go idem idemo ideš idete ide idu kazìvati narrate kàzujem kàzujemo kàzuješ kàzujete kàzuje kàzuju jesti eat jedem jedemo jedeš jedete jede jedu CHAPTER 4 49 41 Possessive pronominal adjectives, continued Possessive pronominal adjectives (review [11b]) have short forms only in the nominative case. Their meaning is related to that of the personal pronouns. In 1st and 2nd person, these pronominal adjectives can refer only to humans: they correspond to English my/mine, our(s), your(s). 3rd person pronominal adjectives referring to humans correspond to English his, her(s), their(s). If the “possessor” is not human, however, English must almost always use the pronominal adjective its. The BCS rules for 3rd person possessives differ from English in this respect. In addition, BCS has another set of possessive pronominal adjectives referring primarily to humans. 41a. Possessive adjectives referring to non-humans In BCS, it is not the identity of the possessor (human vs. non-human) that determines the form of the 3rd person possessive, but rather the gender of the noun denoting the possessor. Thus, the possessor referred to by the forms njen, njezin can be a female human, but it can also be any noun of feminine gender. Similarly, the possessor referred to by the form njegov can be a male human but it can also be any noun of masculine or neuter gender. The three sentences below illustrate this fact of usage. The first is centered around the noun ideja, which is feminine in gender. This fact of gender requires one to choose the possessive adjective njen or njezin to refer to it. The second sentence is focused on the neuter noun pismo, and the third sentence on the masculine noun predlog / prijedlog. The gender of these nouns requires that one to refer to them by the possessive pronominal njegov. Note carefully that once one has chosen the proper BCS translation of the English possessive its, this BCS possessive form then obeys the rules of any adjective. That is, it must agree with the noun it modifies. In the sentences below, it is masculine in the first two (agreeing with smisao and sadržaj, respectively), and feminine in the third (agreeing with važnost). ideja (f) To je prekrasna idèja. Njen opći This is a fine idea. Its basic meaning smisao je vrlo...

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