An Unspecified Amount as an Object
A partitive genitive names some of a substance or an unspecified number of items. It can appear as a direct object without a preposition.
How It Works
The partitive use is common with food, drink and other quantities: popiti vode, kupiti jabuka. The noun is genitive singular for a substance or genitive plural for an unspecified set of countable things.
Accusative and genitive can both be grammatical, with different ways of presenting the object. Do not reduce the contrast to “whole object versus exactly one piece”: kupiti kruh can be a general purchase of bread, while kupiti kruha highlights an unspecified amount.
Compare čaša vode or mnogo jabuka. These also contain genitive, but the quantity expression supplies an overt head. A bare partitive object has no such word and is licensed directly in the verb construction.
Examples (3)
- Kupila sam kruha za večeru.
I bought some bread for dinner.
- Popio je vode nakon trčanja.
He drank some water after running.
- Donesi jabuka ako ideš na tržnicu.
Bring some apples if you are going to the market.
How It Connects
Learn This First
Partitive genitive objects contrast an unspecified quantity with an accusative object.
Related Patterns
Practice An Unspecified Amount as an Object in Bubblegum
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