Potaknuli

Potaknuli is a form of the Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian verb potaknuti, meaning to spur, prompt, induce, or provoke a response. It is the masculine plural past participle form used in perfect tenses with the auxiliary biti, and it agrees with the subject in gender and number. For example, in the sentence Odbor je potaknuo raspravu, the subject is masculine singular, and the form potaknuo is used; with a plural subject, the form would shift accordingly (e.g., Građani su potaknuli promjene).

Etymology and usage notes: The verb potaknuti is formed with the prefix po- added to taknuti, a root related to touching or nudging in older usage. Semantically, potaknuti covers a range from gentle prompting to stronger incitement, depending on context and tone. The choice of form potaknuli versus other participle forms mirrors the subject’s gender and number.

Grammatical behavior: Potaknuli serves as a past participle that can function as part of the compound perfect tense or as a standalone participial adjective in certain constructions. In practice, it appears in sentences describing actions that caused a reaction or stimulated activity, such as policy changes, discussions, or public responses. Its nuance is largely neutral to positive, though it can carry negative overtones when describing incitement to harmful or unlawful behavior.

See also: potaknuti, poticanje, encouragement and stimulation in Slavic languages, related verbs in the same semantic field. Examples of related usage illustrate how prompting actions and reactions are described across the South Slavic dialects.