dogodilo

Dogodilo is a neuter singular past passive participle form of the verb dogoditi, used in several South Slavic languages, including Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, and Montenegrin. It is most commonly found in the impersonal construction dogodilo se, meaning “it happened,” and is used to report events or occurrences without naming a subject.

Grammatically, dogodilo is the neuter participle of dogoditi and is associated with the impersonal pronoun se in fixed expressions. In contexts with a definite subject, other gender and number forms of the participle may appear, such as dogodio se (masc) or dogodila se (fem), depending on the gender of the referent. The base verb dogoditi means “to happen” or “to occur” and is used for both planned and unplanned events.

Usage examples include: Što se dogodilo? (“What happened?”), Dogodilo se danas poslijepodne. (“It happened this afternoon.”), and Nije mi jasno što se dogodilo. (“I don’t understand what happened.”) In everyday language, the phrase dogodilo se is the standard impersonal construction for noting that something occurred, with the emphasis on the event rather than on who caused it.

Origin and related forms: Dogodilo is formed from the verb dogoditi; the construction is common in news reporting, storytelling, and conversational speech when describing events. Related terms include the verb dogoditi and the noun događaj (event).