Slovene Linguistic Studies. Volume 12, 2019

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  • Publication
    Translating from Bulgarian – Bulgarian Gerundial Clauses in Slovene Literary Translations
    (2019) Grošelj, Robert
    The aim of the article is to analyse translation equivalents of Bulgarian gerundial clauses in Slovene translations of five Bulgarian literary works. (1) The analysed works include 477 gerundial clauses with different adverbial meanings, resulting from their semantic-syntactic inexplicitness or extensiveness – gerundial clauses represent co-occurring dependent predicative structures with a general adverbial meaning, more explicitly determined by the relation between the semantic content of the superordinate and the dependent gerundial structure. Bulgarian gerundial clauses most frequently indicate time, manner, time-manner, cause, time-cause and result. (2) Their most frequent translation equivalents are the so-called morpho-syntactic expansions which are morpho-syntactically more explicit than the corresponding translation units, cf. coordinate (32,3%), subordinate (24,1%) and special finite clauses (8%), which include detached and modified clause structures (with the gerundial clause transformed into the main finite clause or the gerund transformed into the predicate of the main clause). They are followed by non-finite or verbless clauses (19,5%), morpho-syntactically more reduced word/ phrase translation equivalents (11,9%) and omissions (4,2%). The prevalent translation structures are conjunctive coordinate finite clauses (27,9%), gerundial clauses (18%), temporal subordinate finite clauses (12,4%), prepositional phrases (10,3%) and detached finite clauses (6,7%). (3) The syntactic-semantic relation is expressed in the least explicit way by Slovene gerundial or verbless clauses, conjunctive coordinate and special finite clauses (approx. 55%), making them similar to Bulgarian gerundial clauses; more explicit syntactic-semantic properties characterise adversative, consecutive and causal coordinate clauses and word/ phrase translation equivalents. The original syntactic function – adjunct or predicative modifier – is maintained in most subordinate finite, gerundial or verbless clauses and word/phrase translation equivalents, while coordinate and special finite clauses diverge from the syntactic function of Bulgarian gerundial clauses. (4) The semantics of the source-text gerundial clauses is best preserved in subordinate/ coordinate causal finite clauses, object and predicative modifying clauses with a causal or modal meaning, subordinate finite clauses indicating condition, result, manner and concession, in modal adverbs, modal or temporal adverbial phrases and a qualitative adjective phrase; a similar semantic overlapping exists in the case of Slovene gerundial clauses which correspond to Bulgarian gerundial clauses with the following adverbial meanings: manner, cause, time, time- -manner, result, time-cause, time-condition, purpose-result and manner-cause. Semantic deviations from the source-text structures are more frequent in the case of adversative and consecutive coordination, comparative, final, temporal and relative subordinate clauses, prepositional phrases and verbless clauses. Conjunctive coordination and special finite clauses are, on the other hand, semantically extensive – they correspond to heterogeneous source-text meanings.
  • Publication
    Comitative Constructions in Slovenian: A Comparison with Other South Slavic Languages and Russian
    (2019) Uhlik, Mladen; Žele, Andreja
    The paper focuses on Slovenian comitative constructions with two human participants who are involved in the same situation: the first participant, most frequently expressed by a nominative noun phrase, acts as a nucleus of the comitative construction, whereas the other accompanying participant is expressed by means of a prepositional phrase. All Slovenian examples of comitative constructions are presented in parallel with their possible equivalents in Russian and Shtokavian. Comitative constructions typically found in Slovenian are those that act as subjects, the subject emphasizing the predicative relation. The predicative relation suggests mutual dependence of participants and predicates, which is why the choice of the form of the predicate often determines the number of referential participants. The first part presents two comitative constructions. The first one includes two participants, which are often detached, and a singular predicate (Slovenian Anton je gledal film z Ano ‘Anton watched a movie with Ana’). The second one consists of two contiguous participants that act as a complete noun phrase (Slovenian Midva z Ano gledava film ‘Ana and I are watching a movie’) demanding a non-singular predicate. Differences between Slavic languages show up in the second comitative construction: Slovenian, for example, only allows constructions with personal pronouns in dual (midva z Ano), in which the pronoun has to include the other participant in the instrumental case. This is how Slovenian differs from Shtokavian, in which contiguous constructions with an inclusive accompanying participant and a plural predicate are not possible (*mi s tobom pišemo). The inclusiveness of participants in Slovenian comitative constructions is also related to the dual form of the predicate, especially in those cases in which the first participant remains unexpressed (Z Ano piševa pismo ‘Ana and I are writing a letter’). The dual form of the predicate is linked to the difference between Slovenian and Shtokavian, which lacks dual. The unexpressed pronoun vidva (‘you two’) denoting the addressee in the Slovenian sentence S profesorjem se lepo imejta / Lepo se imejta s profesorjem (‘You and professor have a nice time’) may receive an inclusive interpretation that includes the accompanying participant. In its Shtokavian counterpart with a plural predicate L(ij)epo se provedite s profesorom (‘Have a nice time with the professor’), however, the unexpressed pronoun vi (‘you’), is by no means in an inclusive relation to the professor. Profesor in the Shtokavian example assumes the role of the circumstance and is thus not part of the comitative construction. The comparison with Shtokavian shows that it is precisely the Slovenian dual (the dual form of the predicate with a dual personal pronoun) that enables and also announces the inclusive comitative construction. It should be emphasized that contiguous comitative constructions with the first participant expressed by a proper noun and a non-singular predicate (Russian Павел с Евой пришли ‘Pavel and Eva came’) are not characteristic of South Slavic languages. In these languages, a union of two proper noun agents is expressed through coordination and conjunction (Slovenian Pavel in Eva sta prišla, Shtokavian Pavel i Eva su došli). In contrast to Russian, the use of inclusive contiguous comitative construction in Slovenian and Shtokavian is rather unusual. The second part discusses differences between predicates that necessarily imply a common action and predicates that can only express a common action contextually. It was established that reciprocity in the first type of predicates is more frequently expressed with reflexive verbs in Slovenian and Shtokavian than in Russian (Slovenian prepirati se, Shtokavian svađati se vs. Russian спортить ‘argue’). It is also noteworthy that Russian fundamentally differs from South Slavic languages in that a comitative construction is also used to express common possession (Russian твоя/ваша с Машей книга ‘your and Masha’s book’). Different possibilities of translating this possessive construction into Slovenian are provided.
  • Publication
    Multi-Word Lexical Units in General Monolingual Explanatory Dictionaries of Slavic Languages
    (2019) Perdih, Andrej; Ledinek, Nina
    In the article, the typology and the macro- and microstructure positioning of multi- word lexical units in general monolingual explanatory dictionaries of five Slavic languages (Slovenian, Croatian, Slovak, Polish and Russian) are analysed. The research showed that MLUs in these dictionaries are most commonly treated on the microstructural level (with the exception of the newest general monolingual explanatory dictionary of Polish language), where typologically comparable or similar MLUs are treated in various microstructural sections, most commonly among dictionary examples and in various types of MLU sections. The differences in the treatment of MLUs can arise also from the specifics of the medium in which a dictionary was first published. The dictionaries built primarily for web and other digital environments are based on structured machine readable databases, therefore the MLUs are regarded as equivalent to single-word lexical units in the sense that they require as systematic and comprehensive a dictionary description as single-word lexical units. Consequently, the same types of data are normally afforded to these units. At the same time, such a shift in the treatment of MLUs can also be attributed to the development of lexicology, lexicography and meta-lexicography. In the newest dictionaries, the treatment of MLUs is influenced also by the research on user perspective and the possibility to incorporate a dictionary into language portals, while the comprehensive treatment of MLUs is motivated also by the potential of the dictionary data for the linguistic research, and the development of language technologies and natural language processing. With regard to the findings about the typology and positioning of MLUs in these dictionaries, the article also focuses on the treatment of MLUs in eSSKJ: The Dictionary of the Slovenian Standard Language, 3rd edition, the new monolingual general explanatory dictionary of the Slovenian language. In this dictionary, MLUs are treated in a similar way to single-word lexical units and are given relative autonomy in the dictionary structure.
  • Publication
    Remarks on Slovene Clitic Sequences
    (2019) Rath, Alexander
    Clitic sequencing in Slovene is mainly the ordering of clitic forms of the personal pronouns, which are usually bound to the second topological position in the Slovene sentence. This ordering corresponds to the type of sequence described by Wackernagel (1892) for the Indo-European languages in general. The first normative description of the inner syntax of Slovene clitic sequences was published by Škrabec (1895). His description was borrowed by Breznik (1916) and became part of the tradition of Slovene grammars that was continued by Toporišič in the second half of the twentieth century with his Slovene Grammar (Slovenska slovnica). Although Slovenska slovnica by Toporišič is regarded as a normative work, the interpretation that clitic combinations not listed in the work were, therefore, forbidden is at least questionable because Toporišič does not make this claim. In an examination of publicly available contemporary text corpora, we found a number of clitic combinations that are not covered by the grammar. Besides other combinations not mentioned in the grammar, we found mainly doubled accusatives, which occur for various reasons. For example, some tri-valent verbs take two accusatives instead of one accusative and one genitive, which is also a matter of historical change as with the verb učiti se ‘to learn.’ Interesting sequencing also occurs in sentences containing a finite and an infinite verb describing a complex event, e.g. ‘I see her carrying her daughter’ -> ‘I see her carrying her.’ Regarding this topic, linguistic variation is of great importance as the measure of acceptance might depend on dialectal and historical factors as well as on the degree of interactivity (spoken vs. written language, etc.) and genre. The examples listed in this article were presented to academic teachers of Slovene studies asking them for their opinion regarding the register of each sentence. Their comments and some additional analysis for every example are listed in this paper. As expected, there was no uniform opinion among them, which is another argument for additional research on Slovene sociolinguistics as well as on the clitic sequence in particular.
  • Publication
    Sequence of Events and its Influence on Verbal Aspect Usage in Slovene
    (2019) Krvina, Domen
    The sequence of events forces actions into restricting each other (the borders of the closed interval limiting the duration of an action are represented by the preceding and following action: (d n – 1[dn]dn + 1)), which leads to a holistic, panoramic view of them, expressed by PF. The share of PF taking at least three places in the sequence of actions is high enough (low 70% in the present-state corpora material and low 60% in the corpora material from the 16th to the beginning of the 20th century), reaching even higher when taking at least two places beside IPF (85% and 77%, respectively). The prevalence of PF is thus undisputed, while IPF denoting duration occurs mainly in the last action in a sequence, taking place in the half-open interval. Such state in the Slovene language from the 16th century onwards agrees well with the findings of some foreign researchers: although in the sequence of events in Slovene PF prevails, the use of IPF is not out of the question (Dickey 2000: 203 , 210, Petrukhina 2019: 42–43). The sequence of events appears mainly in the narrative of the past – in the past tense and as a historical present. Particularly in the present, the repetition, habituality of the action is also common, quite often in the form of instructions and recipes.
  • Publication
    Word Order in Slovene Dialectal Discourse
    (2019) Zuljan Kumar, Danila
    There has been little discussion of word order in Slovene to date, even though the first extensive study of clitics and their position in a sentence in Slovene by Matija Murko was published already in 1891–1892. The majority of articles in Slovenian linguistics on word order in the past were based on an analysis of word order in literary texts. Only in the past fifteen years have there been discussions of word order in spoken discourse. This paper discusses on the differences in fixed word order between Slovene dialectal discourse and Standard Slovene written discourse and word order characteristics of the Slovenian dialectal discourse focusing on only selected sentence elements that are subject to fixed word order rules. The analysis of texts from all Slovene dialect groups has shown that three groups of word order features can be distinguished in a study of word order in Slovene dialectal discourse. The first group of features, such as, for example, the initial position of clitics in an utterance, is characteristic of texts from all dialect groups, and is therefore a general word order feature of Slovene dialectal discourse. The second group includes word order characteristics that are found only in the texts of certain dialect groups, for example the separated position of the particle ne and the verb in Littoral dialects and the position of the past participle of the verb biti ‘to be’ at the end of the utterance in Pannonian dialects; these characteristics can be considered as specific features of particular Slovene dialectal discourses. The third group of characteristics is made up of those that can be found in all texts but nevertheless differ in the frequency of their use, for example, the position of the adjective premodifier in agreement with the noun and noun/ prepositional phrase modifiers in a noun phrase as well as the position of the verb (past participle or infinitive) at the end of the utterance. The frequency of use in these cases is the criterion that shows whether the word order characteristic is well established and can thus be understood as an established word order variant in the dialect or rather a dialectal word order rule, or is sporadic and as such the result of a basic pattern in spoken language, i.e. short planning time, which does not allow for the deliberate structuring of utterances.
  • Publication
    Black Liver, White Lungs: On the History and Location of the Model
    (2019) Saenko, Mihail
    It is demonstrated that the black X 'liver' – the white X 'lungs' model originated in the Persian language and was then brought to the Turkish and Azerbaijani languages, from which it spread over a large territory affecting many idioms of the Caucasus, the Balkans and the Carpathians. At the same time there are areas in Europe where such a model developed independently. To this group belong some of the Romance and Sorbian speech varieties and, most likely, Slovak and Slovenian dialects.
  • Publication
    Genitive plural endings in the Tersko dialect of Slovene
    (2019) Ježovnik, Janoš
    Nouns belonging to the non-mobile root-stressed accentual paradigm of a-declension with roots containing no final consonant clusters or containing consonant clusters of the type ṣ + obstruent usually exhibit the genitive plural ending -Ø, while nouns of the same paradigm with roots containing a final consonant cluster usually exhibit the ending -aj; doublet realizations are also possible. Nouns of the mobile or end-stressed accentual paradigms usually exhibit the genitive plural ending -í ː. The predominant genitive plural ending of nouns of the masculine o-declension is -e/-ẹ́ ː, the first with nouns belonging to the non-mobile root-stressed accentual paradigm and the second with those belonging to the end-stressed accentual paradigm (rarely also those nouns which historically, i.e. prior to dialectal accentual changes, belonged to the mobile accentual paradigm). The ending -í ː appears in nouns reflecting the Psl. accentual paradigms c and b with a (post-)Psl. long root vowel, and in most nouns synchronically belonging to the end-stressed accentual paradigm. Due to the decline of this grammatical category, nouns belonging to the neuter o-declension exhibit a mixed state, most evident in nouns with the suffix -iṣc̣e (e.g. gen. pl. koṣìː ṣc̣-Ø : kopìː ṣc̣-e : rabìː ṣc̣-aj). Nouns with roots containing no final consonant clusters or containing a consonant cluster of the type ṣ + obstruent usually exhibit the ending -Ø, however not without exceptions. Nouns of the i-declension with rare few exceptions exhibit the ending -í ː, also in nouns belonging to the (otherwise) non-mobile root-stressed accentual paradigm. Only in the accentual paradigm exhibiting circumflex root-stress in all forms, comprised of Friulian feminine loan-words with word-final consonants, do we find the unstressed ending -i̥. The ending -úː, originally the ending of genitive dual, was found in four nouns, denoting paired realia: gen. pl. (fem.) noú ː, rokú ː, (masc.) roú ː, and (neut.) oc̣ú ː, and with the noun (fem.) óː ra (rod. mn. orú ː); the motivation for the generalization of the pluralized (originally dual) form in the latter example is not clear. The ending -aj appears especially with nouns of the a-declension, and only as a secondary ending with nouns of other declensions; it appears predominantly with roots containing final consonant clusters. The ending was formed by dialectal vocalization of an epenthetic schwa in word-final consonant clusters of the type consonant + j, which arose as a result of the dropping of Psl. weak yers (e. g. gen. pl. Psl. *bűrjь, *grâbĺь > Csln. *bûrəj, *grâbəĺ > Ter. bùːraj, ràːbaj). It then spread to roots of nouns with root-final consonant cluster without a final j and after that onto other types of roots.
  • Publication
    A corpus-based study of 16th-century Slovene clitics and clitic-like elements
    (2019) Jelovšek, Alenka; Erjavec, Tomaž
    This paper undertakes a corpus-based linguistic investigation of the spelling variation in 16th century Slovene both from the diachronic and synchronic points of view. The investigation is based on a manually annotated sample (approx. 14,000 word tokens) from Primož Trubar’s Ta pervi deil tiga Noviga teſtamenta, 1557, and Hiſhna poſtilla, 1595, and Jurij Juričič’s Poſtilla, 1578, and it concentrates on clitics and clitic-like elements. Statistical analysis, based on comparison of the spelling conventions of the early modern period to those of contemporary Slovene using normalised forms of the originals, where we observe cases where one orthographic word is nowadays written as two or more words (1–n mapping) or vice-versa (n–1 mapping), shows that the overall percentage of split and joined word tokens is 5.7%, with JPo 1578 having the highest percentage, and TPo 1595 the lowest, less than half of that of JPo 1578. Of these, the vast majority is for cases where a word is now split. The most predominant among the bound words are non-syllable prepositions v ‘in(to)’, k ‘to’, and z ‘with’, followed by negative proclitic ne ‘not’, enclitic particle li ‘whether, if’ and in rare instances conditional particle bi, reflexive particle se, na ‘on’, ob ‘at, by’, pri ‘at, beside’ and za ‘for, behind’ (the absolute numbers of specific clitics partially correlate with the prevalence of bound variants in comparison with the freestanding variants of those clitics, with the most frequent being predominantly bound while the least frequent are predominantly freestanding). Individual instances of two accented words written together can be attributed to German influence (figino_drevo, der Pfeigenbaum ‘fig tree’). The cases where one modernised word correlates to two original words are, with the exception of superlative adjective/adverb prefix naj-/nar- ‘the most’ that is orthographically bound with its root in about 25% of instances, sporadic or can be identified as errors in the original books. Of interest are also cases when beginnings of words that are homonymous with non- or one syllable prepositions are separated from the remainder of the word with an apostrophe (eg. s’_nameinja ‘signs’, s’_derſhati ‘to endure’, do_bruta ‘goodness’, sa_doſti ‘enough’). The normalisation also enables the identification of the orthographical variants of the most commonly bound clitics, i. e. non-syllable prepositions k, z and v. K and its allomorph /h/ have 5 attested spelling variants, of which one is limited to hosts starting with a v-. For z with a voiced allomorph /z/ and voiceless allomorph /s/ three variant spellings were discovered that only partially correspond with a voiceless/voiced distinction of the initial sound of the host word, and the cases of merging with the host that begins with s-/z- were identified. Additional positional spellings probably represent other allomorphs: for palatalized /ž/ in front of a palatal ń and <ſa>, >ſo/so> for syllabified /za/, /zo/. The preposition v shows the highest degree of orthographical variation of all analysed words as it has 10 different spellings: general bound and and freestanding ; , and in front of a vowel; and attested only in front of a v-, as well as and merged with the initial v- of the host. The analysis of spelling variation in non-syllable prepositions showed that even a relatively limited hand-corrected annotated sample enabled identification of majority of spelling variants identified in previous works, while with the use of noSketch Engine tool further information about their relative frequency and distribution was obtained. As the hand-corrected corpus is expanded such research will yield even more relevant information for the study of the 16th century Slovene literary language that will significantly supplement existing findings (based on traditionally collected examples) with the help of a large amount of statistically relevant data.
  • Publication
    Covers and Front Matter
    (2019)
  • Publication
    Slovene Linguistic Studies, Volume 12
    (2019) Lundberg, Grant H; Ahačič, Kozma