Pronominal declension of demonstratives and possessives

At A1 you learned to say Ovo je moj pasoš and Ta karta je tvoja — this, that, my and your in front of a subject. Since then you have watched nouns change their ending when they become the object (pasoš → vidim pasoš, karta → vidim kartu), when they follow a preposition (u koferu, bez karte), when they name a receiver (čoveku) or a companion (s bratom). The little word in front of the noun cannot stay behind: if the noun is in the accusative, ovaj and moj have to be in the accusative too. This lesson gives you those forms.

They are not adjective endings

You have just spent six lessons on adjective endings, and it is tempting to bolt them onto ovaj or moj. Do not. The endings look similar, but the stem you attach them to is not the nominative form: taj shrinks to t- (tog, tom, never tajog), ovaj shrinks to ov- (ovog, ovom), and moj and tvoj lose their -j- in the genitive and dative (mog, mom, tvog, tvom) but keep it in the instrumental (mojim). Learn these words as their own small tables and read the forms off them, not off an adjective.

Masculine and neuter

Vidiš li ovaj pasoš? — a passport is a thing, so the accusative looks like the nominative. Poznaješ li tog carinika? — a customs officer is a person, so the accusative borrows the genitive form tog. This is the same split you already make for the noun itself (pasoš but carinika) and for adjectives (novi pasoš but novog carinika); the demonstrative or possessive simply joins in.

The animate accusative is the cell learners drop most. Before you write ovaj or moj in front of an object, ask: is this a person or an animal? If yes, use the genitive-looking form: čekam mog brata, pitaj tog čoveka, vidim njegovog psa. If it is an object, leave it as in the nominative: uzmi moj kofer, daj mi taj ključ.

Feminine

Daj mi tu kartu (accusative), ključ od tvoje sobe (genitive), sve je u ovoj torbi (locative), šta je s tvojom kartom? (instrumental). Notice that the feminine genitive ove / te / moje looks exactly like the feminine nominative plural — the noun beside it tells you which one you are looking at.

Watch the two -om forms. Ovom, tom, njegovom are the masculine and neuter dative-locative (u ovom koferu, tom čoveku) and also the feminine instrumental (ovom karticom, s tom ženom). They are spelled the same; the noun ending and the preposition tell them apart. With moj the two are different: mom koferu but mojom karticom.

The words that follow the same pattern

• tvoj (your) is declined exactly like moj: tvog, tvom, tvojim; tvoju, tvoje, tvojoj, tvojom.
• onaj (that over there) is declined exactly like ovaj: onog, onom, onim; onu, one, onoj, onom.
• njen (her) and njihov (their) are declined exactly like njegov: njenog, njenom, njenim; njihovu, njihove, njihovoj, njihovom.

You will also hear longer forms — ovoga, toga, ovome, tome, mojega, mojemu. They are correct and common in speech and writing, especially when the word stands on its own without a noun (Nema toga). In front of a noun the short forms in this lesson are the ones to produce.

Word order

The demonstrative or possessive stands first, any adjective comes after it, and the noun last — and every word in the chain carries the same case: u ovoj velikoj torbi, bez mog novog pasoša, s tim starim koferom. Nothing goes in front of ovaj or moj except a preposition.

Everything here is singular. These words have plural forms in the oblique cases too (ovih, mojim), and lesson 12 showed you how they look beside plural adjectives, but you will practise producing them later. For now: one thing, one person, one form from the table.