Causative and permissive constructions

English has one handy verb for permission (let) and one for pressure (make): Mom let me go, Grandma made me eat it. Serbian has no such single verb. Instead it uses a small set of ordinary verbs — dati, pustiti, dozvoliti, naterati — followed by a da-clause that says what the other person does.

Look at who does what in Mama me pušta da idem (Mom lets me go). Mom does the letting; I do the going. Two different subjects. You already know from the lesson on da-clauses and the infinitive that when the second verb has a different subject, the infinitive is impossible — you need da + present tense, and the present tense agrees with the person who acts: pusti me da idem (me → I go), pusti ga da ide (him → he goes), pusti nas da idemo (us → we go).

Never put an infinitive after these verbs. Pusti me ići is wrong; say Pusti me da idem. The verb after da always takes the person of the one who is let or made to act, not of the one who lets.

Four verbs, two cases

The person who is let or made to act stands in a case chosen by the verb — exactly like the verbs with a dative object you met earlier. dati and dozvoliti take the dative (mi, ti, mu, joj, nam, vam, im, detetu). pustiti and naterati take the accusative (me, te, ga, je, nas, vas, ih, dete).

Learn the case together with the verb: dozvoli MI, daj MI, but pusti ME, natera ME. Pusti mi da idem and Dozvoli me da idem are the classic mistakes.

In the past

In the past tense the matrix verb is an ordinary perfect: the clitic of biti plus the l-participle, which agrees with the person who lets or makes. The clitic pronoun (mi, me…) comes before je, as all clitics do. The da-clause stays in the present — it describes the action from the point of view of that moment: Pustili su me da idem (They let me go).

Not letting

Refusing permission is the form you will hear most often from parents. In the present put ne before the verb: Mama mi ne da da idem, Ne puštaju ga da izlazi, Otac mi ne dozvoljava da …. In the past use the negative clitic: Nisu mi dali da idem na žurku (They didn't let me go to the party), Niko me nije naterao (Nobody made me).

• ne da — the everyday "won't let": Mama mi ne da da farbam kosu.
• ne pušta / ne puštaju — the ongoing form of pustiti, for a rule that holds: Ne puštaju ga da izlazi posle ponoći.
• ne dozvoljava — the ongoing form of dozvoliti, for a standing ban.
• Ne daj … / Nemoj da … — telling someone not to let it happen: Ne daj deci da jedu slatkiše.

Mama mi ne da da idem has da twice, and that is correct: the first is the verb ("gives, lets"), the second is the conjunction "that". Don't drop either.