The se-passive and impersonal se

When a Serb explains how things are done — at a table, at a wedding, in an office — he almost never says who does them. English says you take your shoes off or shoes are taken off. Serbian says Cipele se skidaju na vratima — literally shoes take-themselves-off at the door. The verb is in the third person, the little word se stands beside it, and nobody is named as the doer.

This is the everyday, spoken passive. In lesson 26 you met the passive with biti plus the passive participle (Most je izgrađen). That one sounds formal and written, and it describes a finished result. The se-passive is neutral: it is what people say, what signs and recipes say, and it describes how something happens or is normally done (Most se gradi — the bridge is being built).

1. The thing as the subject: the verb agrees with it

Take the thing that is affected — the ticket, the shoes, the coffee — and make it the subject. Put the verb in the third person and add se. The verb agrees with the thing: one thing, singular verb; several things, plural verb.

2. No subject at all: the impersonal se

Sometimes there is no thing to be the subject — you are just saying what people generally do: here one doesn't smoke, people worked on Saturdays too. Then Serbian uses se with the verb in the third person singular, and nothing else. In the past tense the participle is neuter singular, ending in -lo.

3. With a modal verb

With moći, morati and smeti the modal takes the third-person ending and the main verb stays in the infinitive. The modal agrees with the thing, exactly like any other verb here; with no thing, it is third person singular.

4. Where se stands

se is a clitic, so it follows the rule you know: second place in the clause, right after the first stressed word or phrase, never first. When other clitics come along, they line up in a fixed order: li first, then the forms of biti and hteti (su, će), then se — with one exception, je, which would come after se but is simply dropped.

In the past, singular: write Most se gradio, never Most se je gradio and never Most je se gradio. When se and je meet, je disappears. The plural keeps its su, and su comes before se: Pokloni su se otvarali.

5. One form, three meanings

The same shape — verb plus se — can mean three things. Ask who does the action.

Do not put the verb in the plural just because people do it. With no subject the verb is always third person singular: Ovde se ne puši, not Ovde se ne puše. The plural appears only when a plural thing is the subject: Cipele se skidaju.