BCS: šta

Discussion in 'Other Slavic Languages' started by iobyo, May 1, 2013.

  1. iobyo Senior Member

    Bitola, Macedonia
    Further to this post, is somebody able to explain the etymology of šta (specifically, the origin of the -a) or provide a link to some literature?

    Hvala unapred.
  2. FilipSoul New Member

    en wikipedia org slash wiki slash Old dash Church dash Slavonic dash grammar

    I was able to find this link; I think it's only a variation o/a > što/šta. In standard Croatian you use only što, while in standard Serbian you use both. The declension in both languages goes: što/a; čega; čemu; što/a; (vocative); čemu; čime.

    Serbian: Nema onih koji vole da mi sole pamet
    zato što oni ne znaju šta će sa sobom.
    Croatian: Nema onih koji mi vole soliti pamet
    zato što oni ne znaju što će sa sobom.

    Ignore the subjunctive in Serbian and the infinitive in Croatian. These verses mean: There aren't those who like to tell me what to do because they don't know what to do with themselves.
    It's from a Serbian rap song called Sunce (Sun) by Marcelo & Filteri. I recommend it ;)

    hope it helps :)
  3. thegreathoo Senior Member

    "Sto" ili "Sta" is a question, translates to "What." There is no genitive version of "Sta" (What). It does not exist and genitive does not apply here.

    in the case of "zato što oni . . ," here "sto" is an abbreviated version of posto. Posto means "since."
  4. itreius Senior Member

    And how would you then explain the same construction in dialects? What's the non-abbreviated form of zato kaj oni?
  5. thegreathoo Senior Member

    Go back to relative pronoun explanation.
  6. FilipSoul New Member

    No, zato što isn't abbreviated from pošto, it's insane. Pošto is a temporal conjunction meaning "after(wards)" and zato što is pure causal.
    Pošto napišeš zadaću, možeš izaći. (After you write your homework, you can go out.)
    Možeš izaći zato što si napisao zadaću. (You can go out because you wrote your HW.)

    And yes, interrogative pronouns do have cases, as any other pronoun: što/a, čega, čemu, što/a, čemu, čime.

    And then, if we were to substitute što with kaj, we would get pokaj, which means what for :)
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2014
  7. jasio Senior Member

    Sorry for off-topic, but does this phrase mean that going out is a sort of reward or compensation for doing the homework, or doing the homework is a pre-condition of going out?

    If I'm not clear, let me give you other examples to distinguish between the two:
    * puting shoes on may be a pre-condition of going out
    * extra pocket money may be a reward for painting a fence

    I'm just curious, because in Polish a form "...za to, że..." is typically used in a context of reward-type situations, and in pre-condition situations other forms are used.
  8. FilipSoul New Member

    Grammatically speaking, it's a causal sentence; semantically it can be both, it depends on the context.

    I haven't a clue about Polish, but it seems to me your conjunction is made of two elements with a correlation, one belonging to the main clause and the other to the subordinate, whilst ours is a single conjunction made of two elements, both belonging to the subordinate clause and making no correlation with the main. Am I right?
  9. jasio Senior Member

    In fact, I didn't provide any complete sentence, so let me construct and confront two examples:

    * "Możesz wyjść na dwór w nagrodę za to, że wyjątkowo dobrze odrobiłeś pracę domową" ('you can go out as a reward for doing your homework exceptionally well')
    * "Możesz wyjść na dwór, ponieważ już odrobiłeś pracę domową" ('you can go out because you have fulfilled a condition of doing your homework first')

    In both cases you would actually use different wording in English (and most probably slightly different in Polish), but I wanted to clearly focus on one nuance and make the difference between them more clear. How would you express both meanings in Croatian?
  10. FilipSoul New Member

    In Croatian you say:
    * Možeš ići van za nagradu zato što si izuzetno dobro napisao zadaću. (napisao is masculine, napisala would be fem.)
    * Možeš ići van zato što si prije/prethodno napisao zadaću.
  11. Vanja Senior Member

    In Serbian:
    Možeš izaći (= ići van) kao nagrada za izuzetno dobro napisan zadatak.
    Pošto si napiasao/napisala zadatak, možeš izaći (van).
    Pošto si napisao/napisala zadatak za nagradu možeš izaći (van).

    "za nagradu zato što si..." is less natural.

    More common is:
    Za nagradu za (nešto)
    .... dobiti nagradu jer si.....
    ...kao nagrada za... or... kao nagradu za... (depends on the context)
  12. jasio Senior Member

    Thank you.
    Now I got it.

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