Temporal subordinate clauses

A story is two or more events that happen in some order, and the listener needs to know that order. English does it with when, while, until, before and after. Serbian uses three small words for the same job, and the choice between them depends on how the two events sit in time: does one happen at a point inside the other, do they run side by side, or does one simply come first? This lesson gives you the three words and the aspect each one prefers — which is where the aspect choice you learnt in lesson 29 pays off.

kad — a point in time

kad (also written kada) means when. It introduces a clause that names a moment or a period, and the main clause says what happened then. With a perfective verb it pins down a single moment — the door opened, the bell rang, grandfather arrived. With an imperfective verb it names a longer time you were inside — when I was little, when we lived in the village — or something that used to happen again and again — whenever it thundered.

The last row is worth a second look. English says when I grow up, when you come back — a present tense pointing at the future. Serbian does exactly the same with kad + the perfective present, and the main clause is in the future: Kad se vratiš, ispričaću ti sve. You already met this shape in lesson 27, where kad stood in for ako whenever the condition was certain to happen.

dok — a stretch of time

dok means while: two things going on at the same time, one of them a background that the other sits inside. Because a background is something in progress, the verb after dok is imperfective — while mother was cooking, while grandfather was telling stories. The main clause can be either aspect: something else that was also in progress (we were playing), or a single event that happened during the stretch (it snowed).

Now the twist, and the heart of this lesson. Put dok in front of a negated perfective verb and the meaning changes to until: Sedeli smo pored reke dok se nije smračilo — literally we sat by the river while it had not got dark, which is how Serbian says until it got dark. The ne is not a real negation here: nobody is saying that it did not get dark. It marks the end of the stretch. So the stretch of sitting lasted exactly as long as the dark had not yet fallen.

When you want to say until, reach for dok and then NEGATE a perfective verb — dok nije došao, dok se nije smračilo, dok nas baka nije pozvala. Beginners leave the ne out because English until has no not in it, and what comes out means while he was arriving. Keep the ne; it is part of the construction. And translate the other way carefully too: dok nije došao is until he came, never while he did not come.

pre nego što and posle toga — one thing, then another

To say that one event came before another, use pre nego što followed by a whole clause: Pre nego što smo se preselili u grad, imali smo psa. The three words are fixed and you never drop one of them; the clause after them has its own subject and verb, in any tense the story needs. With a plain noun rather than a clause you use just pre + genitive (pre škole, pre ručka), which you know from earlier lessons.

For after, the everyday tool is not a conjunction at all but the little phrase posle toga — after that — which stands in the second main clause and points back at the first: Prvo smo išli na reku, a posle toga smo jeli sladoled. You name the first event, then the second with posle toga. It is the natural way to keep a story moving: first this, after that this, after that this.

Word order and the clitics

The time clause may come first or second. When it comes first, a comma separates it from the main clause: Kad je deda otišao, plakala sam. When it comes second, there is no comma: Plakala sam kad je deda otišao. Either order is natural; putting the time clause first is the usual way to set the scene.

Inside the time clause, the clitics (sam, je, smo, se, mi, ti and the rest) obey the second-position rule you know from A1: they come right after the first stressed word of that clause. With kad and dok that word is the conjunction itself — Kad sam bio mali, Dok je mama kuvala. With pre nego što the whole three-word chunk counts as the opener and the clitics follow što — Pre nego što sam pošao u školu.

• kad + perfective = at the moment when; kad + imperfective = during the time when, whenever; kad + perfective present = when (future).
• dok + imperfective = while; dok + ne + perfective = until.
• pre nego što + clause = before; posle toga = after that, in the next main clause.
• Time clause first: comma. Clitics right after kad, dok or što.