Result clauses

You already know how to give a reason with jer and zato što: Plakala je jer je bila tužna. This lesson turns the arrow around. Now you state the cause first and then say what it led to — the result. English does this with so and so ... that: I was tired, so I went to bed. I was so tired that I fell asleep on the bus. Serbian has two matching patterns.

Pattern 1: tako da — 'so', 'and as a result'

tako da joins two whole statements: the first is what happened, the second is its consequence. It is one fixed unit — tako and da stand side by side, after a comma — and it means simply so / and so.

• Bio sam umoran, tako da sam rano legao. — I was tired, so I went to bed early.
• Nisam imao novca, tako da nisam išao u bioskop. — I had no money, so I didn't go to the cinema.

Pattern 2: a degree word ... da — 'so ... that'

When the result comes from how much or how strongly something happened, Serbian puts a degree word in the first clause and opens the second clause with plain da. The two work as a pair: the degree word says 'this much', and da says 'this is what it caused'. There are three degree words, and which one you use depends on what it goes with.

toliko never changes. With a verb it simply means 'so much': Toliko sam se smejala da su me bolela usta. With a noun it means 'so much / so many' and the noun goes into the genitive, as after any quantity word: Imali smo toliko posla da nismo stigli da ručamo. Before an adjective toliko and tako are both correct: toliko srećan = tako srećan. But takav never stands before an adjective.

takav agrees like an adjective

takav means 'such, of that kind'. It is an adjective-like word, so it agrees with its noun in gender, number and case, exactly like ovaj or dobar.

• Bila je takva gužva da nismo mogli da uđemo. — There was such a crowd that we couldn't get in. (gužva is feminine → takva)
• Bio je to takav šok da sam zaćutao. — It was such a shock that I fell silent. (šok is masculine → takav)

In other cases it takes the usual endings: Doživeo sam takvu sramotu da... (feminine accusative takvu).

The da-clause is an ordinary clause

The result clause after da uses whatever tense the facts need — past, present or future — exactly as a normal sentence would. There is no special verb form. Clitics come straight after da, just as after any conjunction: ...da sam zaboravio, ...da me je bilo sramota.

Do not mix up the two patterns. tako da (side by side) = 'so, as a result' and joins two complete facts. tako + adjective ... da = 'so + adjective ... that'. Compare: Bio sam umoran, tako da sam legao. (tired → so I lay down) and Bio sam tako umoran da sam zaspao u autobusu. (so tired that I fell asleep).

Do not confuse the result da with the purpose da from the previous lessons. Purpose looks forward to a goal, and its verb is in the present: Došao sam da te vidim. (I came in order to see you.) Result states what actually happened, in whatever tense it happened: Bio sam toliko srećan da sam te zagrlio. (I was so happy that I hugged you.) If you can put a degree word — tako, toliko, takav — in front, it is result.