Nominalizacija i formalni registar
Overview
Formal Serbian often packages an action as a deverbal noun while a light verb carries tense and agreement (извршити проверу, спровести истрагу). Fixed secondary prepositions can then connect the nominalization to the rest of the sentence. These choices can raise the register, but noun-heavy phrasing can hide the agent and action, so use it selectively.
Two mechanisms to keep separate throughout this lesson: verb-noun periphrasis, where a light verb is paired with a deverbal noun instead of a single plain verb, and the fixed prepositions a nominalization needs to attach to the rest of a sentence (приликом, поводом, путем, услед, у циљу, с обзиром на). Both raise the register on their own; a single formal sentence usually stacks both together.
Verb-noun periphrasis: light verbs that carry a deverbal noun
Formal and administrative Serbian regularly swaps a single verb for a semantically light verb plus a deverbal noun: проверити → извршити проверу, истражити → спровести истрагу, анализирати → извршити анализу. The single verb and the periphrasis are usually interchangeable in plain meaning, but not in register - извршити проверу reads like a report or the minutes of a meeting, проверити reads like ordinary speech. Not every such pairing marks register, though: донети одлуку (← одлучити) is a fixed collocation that is just as natural in everyday speech (Донео сам одлуку - I've made a decision) as in an official decree, and одлучити is equally at home in a formal text.
Which light verbs a deverbal noun accepts is decided by the noun, not predictable from meaning alone - a noun may take more than one (проверу can be извршити or спровести), but never just any verb - exactly the kind of lexical partnership the lesson on phraseology and collocations studies under the name collocation. Донети одлуку is the standard pairing; *направити одлуку or *урадити одлуку are not, even though направити and урадити are perfectly ordinary, correct verbs elsewhere. A few periphrases, like водити рачуна о нечему (to be mindful of something), have no plain verb from the same root to compare against - near-synonyms such as пазити на or бринути о exist, but none is its one-verb counterpart, so the periphrasis is simply the normal way to say it.
Fixed prepositions that attach a nominalization to the sentence
A deverbal noun needs a preposition to link it back into the sentence the way a да-clause or a conjunction would in plain speech, and formal Serbian has a whole class of these secondary prepositions; the six most frequent, each with one fixed case, are: приликом + genitive ("on the occasion of / during"), поводом + genitive ("regarding, on the occasion of"), путем + genitive ("by means of, via"), услед + genitive ("owing to"), у циљу + genitive ("with the aim of"), and с обзиром на + accusative ("considering, given"). Learn the preposition together with its case as one inseparable unit, the same way the lesson on да-constructions vs. the infinitive treats да + present as a pair that doesn't split.
С обзиром на is the one exception to the genitive pattern here - it governs the accusative - and it is also the one of these six most often followed directly by a whole clause rather than a noun phrase. When a clause follows, the normative form is с обзиром на то да ("considering that…"): the то fills the noun-phrase slot that на still requires even when the real content is a clause. The shortened с обзиром да is very common in speech and the press, but normative handbooks treat it as non-standard, so careful formal writing avoids it.
Nominalization chains and their limits
Because a deverbal noun can itself take a genitive complement, nominalizations stack: поводом обележавања годишњице оснивања (on the occasion of marking the founding anniversary) nests three genitives - обележавања, годишњице, оснивања - each depending on the one before it. This kind of chain is the clearest fingerprint of an administrative or academic register, and it is exactly what critics of "office style" complain about in every language that has it - more than one language's own style guides carry a long-standing, unflattering name for the identical habit.
Two or three nested genitives read as merely formal; four or more usually reads as bad style even in a genuinely formal document, and gets rewritten with a relative or да-clause the moment it stops being parseable at a glance. The same impulse to avoid naming a personal subject also drives the impersonal требало би/ваљало би from the modality lesson, though a modal verb at least stays finite; a nominalization drops the verb altogether, so the whole question the lesson on clitic placement in complex clauses asks - where does the clitic go? - never even arises here: there is no finite verb, no auxiliary and no subject left to carry one.
Tables
| Light-verb periphrasis | Plain verb | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| doneti odluku | odlučiti | make a decision |
| izvršiti proveru | proveriti | carry out a check |
| sprovesti istragu | istražiti | conduct an investigation |
| izvršiti analizu | analizirati | carry out an analysis |
| voditi računa (o nečemu) | - (no plain verb from the same root) | be mindful (of something) |
Examples
Compared with…
English runs a strikingly similar system for the same reason - bureaucratic and legal English also prefers "make a decision" over "decide", "conduct an investigation" over "investigate", "carry out an analysis" over "analyze" - so the core mechanism, a semantically light verb plus a nominalized noun, needs no new explanation for an English speaker. What doesn't transfer is the case layer: English expresses the same relations with prepositions and prepositional phrases - "during", "regarding", "via", "due to", "with the aim of", "considering" - and a noun after them carries no case ending, so the meanings map across fairly directly while the grammar does not: each Serbian preposition fixes a case (genitive for приликом/поводом/путем/услед/у циљу, accusative for с обзиром на) that a learner has to learn together with it - something English never marks on a noun.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- Learn each fixed preposition together with its case as one unit - приликом/поводом/путем/услед/у циљу all take the genitive, and с обзиром на is the deliberate exception with the accusative.
- Treat a light-verb-plus-noun pairing (донети одлуку, извршити проверу) as a fixed collocation to memorize whole, not a free choice between synonymous verbs - the lesson on phraseology and collocations makes this the general rule, not just a formal-register quirk.
- Услед and због both mean "because of" and both take the genitive, but услед is the more formal, administrative of the two - reach for it in writing, not in conversation.
- When a nominalization chain grows past two or three nested genitives, that's usually a sign to rewrite with a relative or да-clause, even inside a formal document - readability still counts.
- Legal, academic and bureaucratic writing pushes nominalization chains considerably further than this lesson's everyday-formal standard - the B2 lesson on register and style already flagged the same specialized extreme for the passive.
- A handful of periphrases, like водити рачуна о нечему, have no plain verb from the same root - near-synonyms like пазити на exist, but nothing is their one-verb counterpart to compare them against; they are simply the normal way to say it, formal register or not.
- С обзиром на can also govern a noun phrase directly with no clause at all (с обзиром на ситуацију) - the то да pattern is needed only when what follows is a full clause, not whenever с обзиром на appears.