Predicate agreement with quantified subjects

You already know what a number does to the noun after it: dva studenta, pet studenata, mnogo ljudi, dvoje dece. This lesson is about what the number does to the verb. When the subject of a sentence is "two students" or "five students", Serbian has to decide which form of biti and which ending of the past participle to use — and the answer is not simply "plural".

Two groups of subjects

• dva / dve, tri, četiri + noun: the verb is plural — su in the past, a third-person plural verb in the present.
• pet and above (šest, deset, dvadeset, sto...), collective numbers (dvoje, troje, petoro) and quantity words (mnogo, puno, malo, nekoliko, koliko): the whole group is treated as one neutral "it" — neuter singular: je + participle in -lo, and a third-person singular verb in the present.

Two, three, four: plural, with a special ending

After dva, tri, četiri the verb is plural (su), but the participle does not take the usual masculine -li. It copies the ending the noun itself has after dva: dva studenta → su došla, dva sela → su ostala. With a feminine noun the participle ends in -le, just like the noun: tri žene → su došle.

Dva studenta su došla na predavanje. — Two students came to the lecture. Četiri porodice su se preselile u grad. — Four families moved to the city.

In everyday speech you will also hear dva studenta su došli, with the ordinary masculine plural. It is widely used and understood, but the form with -a (došla) is the standard one and the one this lesson drills.

Five and above: neuter singular

From pet upwards, the noun stands in the genitive plural and the verb stops agreeing with it altogether. The number is treated as a single amount, so the verb takes the neutral form: singular je and a participle in -lo. It does not matter whether the people are men or women.

Pet studenata je došlo na predavanje. — Five students came to the lecture. Compare it with dva studenta su došla: same noun, same verb, different agreement.

The classic mistake is to think "five people = plural" and say pet studenata su došli. Stop at the number: if it is pet or higher, write je ... -lo. If it is dva, tri or četiri, write su ... -a / -e. In a compound number the LAST word decides, exactly as it did for the noun: dvadeset dva studenta su došla, but dvadeset pet studenata je došlo.

Collective numbers and quantity words

The collective numbers you met in B1 — dvoje, troje, četvoro, petoro — behave like pet: the noun is in the genitive plural and the verb is neuter singular, even for dvoje. The same goes for quantity words: mnogo, puno, malo, nekoliko and the question word koliko.

• Dvoje dece se rodilo u selu prošle godine. — Two children were born in the village last year.
• Mnogo ljudi je glasalo na izborima. — Many people voted in the elections.
• Koliko je ljudi glasalo? — How many people voted?

Predicate adjectives follow the same pattern

An adjective after biti ("was empty", "were unemployed") takes exactly the ending the participle takes: -a or -e after two to four, -o after five and above and after quantity words.

Tri sela su bila napuštena, a deset sela je bilo gotovo prazno. — Three villages were abandoned, and ten villages were almost empty.

Why the present tense hides most of it

In the present tense there is no participle, so the endings -a, -e, -lo never appear. What is left is only the number of the verb: plural after dva, tri, četiri, singular after pet and quantity words. So the split is still there — tri porodice žive, but dvadeset porodica živi — it is simply smaller. The past tense and predicate adjectives are where the difference is fully visible, which is why most of this lesson is in the past.

Tri porodice žive u zgradi, a u selu živi dvadeset porodica. — Three families live in the building, and twenty families live in the village.

With pet and quantity words you may also hear a plural verb in the present (pet studenata rade), especially when the speaker thinks of the people one by one. The singular (pet studenata radi) is the standard form: use it.