Complement da-clause after verbs of saying, thinking and knowing

Most of what we say about other people is a report of what they think, know or said: I think he's coming, She says she can't, We knew we would lose. Serbian builds all of these the same way: a verb of thinking, knowing or saying, then the little word da, then a whole sentence of its own.

Two sentences in one

Take a statement — Film je dosadan (the film is boring) — and put an opinion verb in front of it with da in between: Mislim da je film dosadan. Nothing inside the reported statement changes except one thing: unstressed words like je, sam, se, ga move to sit right after da, because da counts as the first word of its clause.

da is never dropped. English says I think he's coming and leaves that out; Serbian must have da every single time: Mislim da dolazi.

Two verbs share the job of say. In the present use kazati: kažem, kažeš, kaže, kažemo, kažete, kažu. In the past use reći: rekao je (he said), rekla je (she said), rekli su (they said). Both are followed by da in exactly the same way.

The clause has a subject of its own

This is where the lesson differs from lesson 23. After a modal verb — mogu da dođem, hoću da idem — the verb after da is FORCED to agree with the main subject: whoever can, is the one who comes. After misliti, znati, reći there is no such rule. The clause after da is a complete sentence with its own subject, and that subject may be the same as the main one or completely different.

Mogu da dođem (modal: one subject, forced) against Mislim da dolazi (report: two subjects, free). If the sentence reports what someone thinks or says, ask separately who thinks? and who does? — and conjugate each verb for its own person.

No change of tense after a past main verb

English shifts the reported clause back in time: He said he was coming, She said she had been ill, We knew we would lose. Serbian does not do this. The clause after da keeps exactly the tense the person originally used — what he actually said was Dolazim, so the report is Rekao je da dolazi.

When translating from English, ignore the English tense in the reported clause. Ask instead: what did the person actually say or think at the time? Present in their mouth means present after da.

Saying no inside the clause

Negation belongs to whichever verb is negated. If the reported statement is negative, ne goes in front of the verb after da — or the fused forms nije, nisam, nemam, neću stand there: Kaže da ne može, Mislim da ne zna, Rekla je da ne veruje u to, Vidim da niste zadovoljni. The main verb can be negated too, with its usual meaning: Ne mislim da je to istina — I don't think that's true.

• Mislim da ne zna. — I think he doesn't know. (the not-knowing is reported)
• Ne mislim da zna. — I don't think he knows. (the thinking is denied)

Where an unstressed word and ne both belong to the reported clause, ne stays glued to its verb and the unstressed word sits after da: Kaže da ga ne zna — he says he doesn't know him.