5.6 – Impersonal Expressions with Sickness/Injuries
There are two expressions that have a somewhat strange structure which we will discuss here. These expressions involve the verb téct ‘to flow’, and specifically the form teče ‘it flows’ (e.g. řeka teče ‘a river flows’). it is used to talk about a runny nose or bleeding.
|
Teče mu z nosu He has a runny nose. |
Teče mu krev. He is bleeding |
|
Teče jí z nosu. She has a runny nose. |
Teče jí krev. She is bleeding. |
|
Tečou mu slzy. He is crying (lit. tears are flowing). or Pláče (from plakat – to cry) |
Teče mi z očí. My eyes are watery (it is flowing to me from eyes) |
In each of these instances, the dative forms (see 4.9 – líbit se – liking something to see a very similar construction) are used to talk about who has a runny nose, is bleeding, etc. This is why we see the form mu ‘to him’ or jí ‘to her’ in the examples above.
The table below gives the dative forms of personal pronouns next to the nominative forms that we already know:
|
nominative form |
dative form |
|
já |
mi, mně |
|
ty |
ti, tobě |
|
on |
mu, jemu |
|
ona |
jí |
|
my |
nám |
|
vy |
vám |
|
oni (ony, ona) |
jim |
Images used in this document come from these sources.