„Ово је…“: the predicative that never agrees
Ten minutes on the topic's second form question: when a demonstrative introduces or identifies someone or something - "this is…", "that is…" - Serbian always defaults to the neuter singular ово/то/оно, no matter the gender of whatever follows. Build sentences at a checkout naming a receipt and the cashier herself, then choose and translate your way through the rest, keeping this completely apart from the attributive agreement the previous lesson drilled.
The part of the grammar page this lesson drills — read it here, then use it.
Neutral ово/то/оно as predicative subjects
When a demonstrative introduces or identifies something - "this is…", "that is…" - Serbian defaults to the neuter singular ово/то/оно regardless of the gender of whatever follows: Ово је Марко. (This is Marko.), То је моја сестра. (That's my sister - feminine сестра, yet то stays neuter), Оно је наше село. (That over there is our village.) This is different from the attributive use in the previous section, where the demonstrative must agree with the noun it modifies.
| Use | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| atributivno (slaže se sa imenicom) | Ovaj čovek je visok. | This man is tall. |
| predikativno (uvek srednji rod) | Ovo je čovek. | This is a man. |