Editing Instrumental case (section)

===Serbo-Croatian===

[[Image:Serbian Car bicycle.svg|thumb|400px|Use of instrumental case without or with "sa".]]

Instrumental in the [[Serbo-Croatian]] language group is usually used to denote a noun with which the action is done, e.g. "Idem ''autom''" - "I'm going by means of a car", "Jedem ''vilicom/viljuškom''" - "I eat with a fork", "Prenosi se ''zrakom/vazduhom''" - "It's transferred through air", "Prožeta je ''bijesom''" - "She's consumed by anger". The instrumental preposition "s(a)", meaning "with", is supposed to be dropped in this usage, but it is often kept in casual speech when talking about objects in use, such as a pen, a hammer, etc.

Instrumental can also denote company, in which case "s(a)" is mandatory, e.g. "Pričali smo ''sa svima''" - "We talked with everyone", "Došao je ''s roditeljima''" - "He came with his parents", "Šetala se ''sa psom''" - "She was taking a walk with her dog". Dropping "s(a)" in this case would either make the sentences incorrect, or change their meaning entirely because dative, locative and instrumental share the same form in the plural, so the examples "Pričali smo ''svima''" i "Došao je ''roditeljima''" would come to mean "We told everyone" and "He came to his parents".

Instrumental is also used with certain spatial prepositions like "među" (between), "nad" (above), "pod" (underneath), "pred" (in front of) and "za" (after). Note the difference between these prepositions and similar ones used for genitive with an -i suffix: "između", "iznad", "ispod", "ispred" and "iza".

Instrumental is used without proposition to denote travelling through an area: "Putujem ''zemljom''" - "I'm travelling the country", "Hodam ''plažom''" - "I'm walking along a beach", etc.

It can also be used to show how long or when in a larger scope of time something happened: "Nema ih ''godinama''" - "They haven't come in years", "''S vremenom'' će proći" - "It will pass in time", "Jednom ''tjednom''" - "Once a week", etc.