Prepositional government of nouns

You already know that many verbs come with a fixed preposition: bojati se takes a genitive, razmišljati o takes a locative. Nouns do the same. When you say what someone has a talent for, is afraid of, or feels towards something, the noun chooses its own preposition, and that preposition chooses the case of the word after it.

The trap is that English and Serbian rarely match. English says a sense of humour, Serbian says smisao za humor. English says love for animals, Serbian says ljubav prema životinjama. So learn each noun together with its preposition, as one unit: not strah, but strah od + genitive.

The five patterns

The noun itself can stand in any case the sentence needs; only the complement after the preposition is fixed. Nemam smisla za matematiku (genitive smisla after nemam) still has za + matematiku.

Same idea, different noun, different preposition

• interesovanje za umetnost (interest in art) but znanje o umetnosti (knowledge about art)
• strah od ispita (fear of the exam) but odnos prema ispitima (attitude towards exams)
• ljubav prema muzici (love for music) but talenat za muziku (talent for music)

Do not translate the English preposition. Of, for, in and towards tell you nothing: afraid of is od, but a sense of is za, and interest in is za too. Always ask: which preposition does THIS noun take?

Watch za: after talent and interest it takes the accusative (talenat za muziku). A few nouns of need and longing take za + instrumental instead (potreba za odmorom, želja za putovanjem). If you mean ability or interest, it is the accusative.

Prema + dative is the Serbian way to say feelings or behaviour towards someone: poštovanje prema roditeljima, never poštovanje za roditelje.