Номинализација и формални регистар
Overview
register-style-b2 already named nominalization as one of formal register's tools, alongside Ви and the passive, and word-formation-b2 supplied the underlying -ање/-ење machinery for building a deverbal noun in the first place. This lesson goes further than either: formal Serbian isn't just "use more nouns", it's a full strategy - a semantically light verb (донети, извршити, спровести, водити) carries the grammar while a deverbal noun carries the real content, and a small closed set of fixed prepositions decides how that nominalization attaches to the rest of the sentence.
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 the deverbal noun word-formation-b2 already taught you to build: одлучити → донети одлуку, 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 - донети одлуку reads like a report or the minutes of a meeting, одлучити reads like ordinary speech.
Which light verb goes with which deverbal noun is fixed per noun, not predictable from meaning alone - exactly the kind of lexical partnership phraseology-collocations-c1 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 single-verb equivalent at all - the periphrasis is simply the only 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 small set of these, each with one fixed case: 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 da-constructions-vs-infinitive-c1 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, standard Serbian needs с обзиром на то да ("considering that…"), never a bare *с обзиром да: the то fills the noun-phrase slot that на still requires even when the real content is a clause.
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 modality-c1's impersonal требало би/ваљало би, though a modal verb at least stays finite; a nominalization drops the verb altogether, so clitic-placement-complex-clauses-c1's whole question - 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 |
|---|---|---|
| донети одлуку | одлучити | make a decision |
| извршити проверу | проверити | carry out a check |
| спровести истрагу | истражити | conduct an investigation |
| извршити анализу | анализирати | carry out an analysis |
| водити рачуна (о нечему) | - (нема одговарајућег глагола) | 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 fixed-preposition layer: English marks the same relations with ordinary prepositions that never shift case (English has none), so приликом/поводом/услед/у циљу collapse into a much smaller, less differentiated set of English connectors ("during", "regarding", "due to", "in order to") - a learner has to actively split them back apart case by case in Serbian rather than mapping one English preposition onto one Serbian one.
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 - phraseology-collocations-c1 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 - register-style-b2 already flagged the same specialized extreme for the passive.
- A handful of periphrases, like водити рачуна о нечему, have no single-verb equivalent at all - there is nothing plainer 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.
Summary
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