The Instrumental Case (Instrumental) in Serbian
Instrumental Case: Means and Company (7. padež – Instrumental)
Answering S kim? (With whom?) and Čime? (With what means?), expressing instruments/vehicles (bare: autom, perom), companionship (s/sa + noun), and spatial relations.
In Serbian grammar, the *Instrumental Case (Instrumental / Sedmi padež) answers the questions S kim? (With whom?) and Čime? (By what means / With what tool?)*:
1. The Crucial Syntactic Rule for Preposition 's / sa': - *Instrument / Tool / Means of Transportation (Bare Instrumental without preposition): - Pišem olovkom (I write with a pencil — NO 'sa'!). - Putujem vozom / autom (I travel by train / by car — NO 'sa'!). - Using sa with an instrument (putujem sa vozom) is considered a major error by native speakers (it implies the train is your traveling companion!). - Companionship / Togetherness (With preposition s / sa): - Šetam sa prijateljem (I walk with a friend). - Razgovaram sa profesorom (I speak with the professor). - Sa is used instead of s before sibilants (sa sestrom, sa psom, sa mnom). - Spatial Relations (Static Position): pod (under), nad (above), pred (in front of), za (behind), među (between/among): stoji pred kućom* (stands in front of the house).
2. Morphological Endings: - Masculine & Neuter sg.: -om (after hard consonants: studentom, gradom, selom) or -em (after soft consonants: mužem, prijateljem, poljem). - Feminine sg.: -om (ženom, knjigom, sobom); consonant feminines take -lju / -ju (noć → noću, ljubav → ljubavlju). - Plural: Syncretic -ima (masc./neuter) and -ama (feminine).
Examples
Student je potpisao važan univerzitetski dokument novim crnim perom.
The student signed the important university document with a new black pen.
Putujemo brzim vozom sa našim kolegama na naučni skup u Novi Sad.
We are traveling by fast train with our colleagues to a scientific gathering in Novi Sad.
Ispred naše univerzitetske biblioteke stoji prelep spomenik Vuku Karadžiću.
In front of our university library stands a beautiful monument to Vuk Karadžić.
Sinoć sam dugo razgovarao sa svojim dragim roditeljima preko telefona.
Last night I spoke for a long time with my dear parents over the phone.
Related terms
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