pojavili

Pojavili is a verb form used in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin to indicate that something appeared or emerged. It is the masculine plural past tense form of the verb pojaviti (to appear) or of the reflexive pojavaiti se (to appear, to turn up). In standard narrative, it is used with the auxiliary biti (to be) in compound past constructions, as in Pojavili su se novi dokazi, meaning new evidence has appeared.

Morphology and usage notes: Pojaviti (non-reflexive) expresses the act of becoming visible or coming into existence, while pojaviti se (reflexive) emphasizes the action of arriving or presenting itself. The form pojavili corresponds to masculine plural subjects. Feminine plural uses pojavile, neuter singular uses pojavilo, and feminine singular uses pojavila. In sentences, the choice of form aligns with the subject in number and gender, followed by the auxiliary su or je in the past tense.

Etymology: The word derives from the root jav-, linked to the verb javiti (to announce or reveal) with the prefix po-, a common pattern in South Slavic languages to form perfective meanings related to appearance or emergence.

Contexts: Pojavili appears in neutral, informational writing such as news reports, historical accounts, and descriptive texts to signal that new elements have become visible or accessible. It is often used with concrete nouns (dokazi, rezultati, osobe) and with abstract phenomena (novi podaci, spoznaje).

Related terms: pojaviti, pojaviti se, pojava (appearance, event), javiti (to reveal or announce), pojavnost (resemblance or manifestation in some contexts).

See also: birthplace of related linguistic forms, usage notes on past tense formation in Serbo-Croatian, and dictionaries detailing verb conjugations.