Konjugacijski tipovi u hrvatskom jeziku

Croatian conjugational properties

0.1

Croatian verbs change their form in conjugation according to tense, mode, number, person, gender or other language-specific factors. They change their canonical (infinitive) form in eight simple flective categories: present, two simple past forms (aorist and imperfect), imperative, two gerunds (past and non-past), two verbal adjectives (active and passive). Five flective verbal categories have six different endings each: present, aorist and imperfect depending on the number (sg, pl) and person (1^st, 2^nd ,3^rd); two verbal adjectives depending on the number and gender (m,f,n). The imperative has three forms: 2^nd person singular, 1^st and 2^nd persons plural. Three verbal morphological categories – two gerunds (past and non-past) and the infinitive – have in principle only one form each, but the past gerund has two variants depending on the shape of the ending: -v(ši), while the infinitive loses the final vowel in -ti when followed by auxiliary enclitics ću,ćeš … As complex flective categories are formed by adding auxiliaries (biti,htjeti) to some of the mentioned simple forms, they are not included in the scope of this paper. It should be mentioned that not all verbs have all flective categories, as some of those categories are restricted to verbs of the imperfective or perfective aspect only (e.g.Ćavar and Wilder 1999).[1] In addition to all the flectemes, further complexity is caused by the fact that various verbs in the same simple flective categories behave differently.

Croatian verbs have the structure which includes different slots – for more than 94% of Croatian verbs, there are three obligatory slots in the canonical form: root (lat. radix), thematic suffix and flecteme, i.e. flective morpheme.[2] Their structure is represented in(1), where P stands for prefix(es), S for suffix(es), ST for thematic suffix, and examples of those verbs are listed in(2). The thematic suffix consists of a vowel such asa,i (infinitive and present)ie, u[3] (infinitive),e (present) hence verbs that have those three slots are called thematic verbs (e.g.Babić 1991,Ćavar and Wilder 1999). Thematic verbs have at least three syllables in the infinitive excluding prefixes, while some have even more: cijukati ‘to make a sound like a mouse’ has four syllables, cipelariti ‘to hit someone who is on the floor with one’s feet’ has five, toplificirati ‘to install heating’ has six, loans like kategorizirati ‘to categorize’ have seven, racionalizirati ‘to rationalize’ has eight syllables, operacionalizirati ‘to operationalize’ has as many as ten. Of course, prefixes may make the verbs even longer.

Less than 6% of Croatian verbs have only two obligatory slots as in(3), the root and the flecteme. This is caused by the lack of an (overt) thematic suffix, at least not in the canonical form. Verbs without an overt verbal suffix (i.e. with zero suffix: Ø) have a two-syllabic infinitive excluding prefixes, e.g. piti ‘to drink’,čuti ‘to hear’,umrijeti ‘to die’,gristi ‘to bite’. They are called athematic verbs (Cro. atematski) or zero verbs (Cro. nulti glagoli).

Due to the lack of a thematic suffix (a,i,ie), these athematic verbs undergo many often quite unique phonological form changes in flection. Therefore they are also sometimes called irregular verbs (Cro. nepravilni glagoli), as is the case in other languages. One class of athematic verbs even changes the form of the infinitive flecteme from -ti to -ći, e.g. ići ‘to go’, naći ‘to find’. Other names for this type of verbs arestrong verbs (Ger. Starke Verben), unproductive verbs (Cro. neplodni glagoli).

Athematic verbs without prefixes have only two syllables in the infinitive, hence they are recognizable and perceptually different from thematic ones. It could be argued that, phonologically speaking, all verbs could first be split into two groups: one without an overt verbal suffix and the other with overt verbal suffixes. Some thematic verbs with prefixes are still recognised by their phonological features (endings -ći, -CCti, -ijeti, -eti if not preceded by j, -uti if not preceded by n, seeJelaska 2005 for more details). However, when it comes to prefixed athematic verbs whose root vowels are identical to the thematic vowel in thematic classes, their canonical form cannot be distinguished from that of thematic verbs, e.g. thematic vidjeti ‘to see’ (1^st pres. vidim) vs. athematic probdjeti ‘to spend the night awake’ (1^st pres. probdijem) or zadjeti ‘to put into something’ (1^st zadjenem); unless their prefixes are recognised as such.

However, athematic verbs are not the only ones that change their endings, i.e. thematic vowels, and even last consonants of the root; this also happens to some thematic classes of verbs, e.g. present form of micati : mičem ‘to move’, plakati : plačem ‘to cry’, kupovati : kupujem ‘to buy’. The fact that its verbs undergo different phonological changes in flection due to their phonological and morphological shape makes, among other things, Croatian morphologically very complex.

The structure of the paper

0.2

This paper argues for a new conjugational categorization, presented inBošnjak Botica (2011) andJelaska and Bošnjak Botica (2012). Looking into the classification criteria of Croatian verbs, it analyses phonological differences in Croatian conjugation, defining forms in relation to their morphological structure. This paper investigates phonological differences in main conjugational categories as the basis for hierarchical categorization. The analysis is based on the data from 24,400 Croatian verbs (collection by the Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics). In the first part of the paper, a brief history of Croatian conjugational categorizations will be presented, starting from the first grammar, written at the beginning of the 17^th century (Kašić 1604), up to contemporary typologies. In the second part, the typology of Croatian verb types will be presented with the findings on the role of frequency, size and spreadity.

Traditional approaches

1.1

Traditional linguistic approaches have categorized verbs into a various number of conjugational or flective types.

The contemporary Croatian categorizations into conjugational classes

1.2

From the last two decades of the 20^th century onward, several approaches to Croatian conjugation emerged (more about this inBabić 1980, Jelaska2003,2005,Bošnjak Botica 2011,Marković 2012). Although their authors did not always categorize according to the strict theoretical framework, those innovative approaches could be observed through three different frameworks. Conjugational typologies by S. Babić (1980,1986),Babić et al. (1991),D. Raguž (1997) andJ. Silić (1991),Silić and Pranjković (2005) could be placed within the structuralist linguistic framework. Typology byZ. Babić (1991) was created within the generative linguistic framework and typologies by Z. Jelaska and T. Bošnjak Botica (Jelaska2003,2005,8,Jelaska and Bošnjak Botica 2012) under the cognitive linguistic framework, especially the last two. It must be mentioned that the athematic type will not be described in detail in this paper due to space limitations, and alsobecause it would make the picture much more complicated than it already is.

Classes within types

1.3.

As could be seen inTable 6.1 in the Appendix, the number, distribution and order of subtypes, called classes (Cro. razredi), is different in various contemporary classifications into conjugational classes. Detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this paper. E. Barić et al. (1978, 1997) introduced classes in the three odd-numbered types (I, III, V);Babić (1986), Babić et al. (2001) andRaguž (1997) had classes (Cro. razredi) in types (Cro. vrste)[8] I (athematic) and IV; whileJ. Silić (1991),Silić and Pranjković (2005) have between 2 and 18 classes in all but type I.

Z. Jelaska (2003,2005) proposes classes only within the athematic type, which floats between its own group (2003) and the last place in the third group (2005). In2003, the principle of ordering was pedagogical – as the first three subtypes have the same sounds at the end as the first three types, it is easier to be aware of the phonological similarity, which is homonymic, if the classes have the same digit (1 vs. 0.1, 2 vs. 0.2, 3 vs. 0.3).

The ordering principle inJelaska (2005) is recognizability of the type – verbs like naći ‘to find’ were the highest on the scale as they are at once recognizable as athematic (irregular verbs) due to the -ći ending. They are followed by verbs which end in -Kti like rasti ‘to grow’, jesti ‘to eat’, -uti not preceded by -n- like čuti ‘to hear’ or -ijeti likeumrijeti ‘to die’, which does not appear in the thematic class. The last three classes are phonologically not recognizable from the thematic types if athematic verbs have prefixes (e.g. popiti – popijem ‘to drink up’ vs. poriti – porim ‘to rip’). As mentioned before, classes inT. Bošnjak Botica (2011) were organised semantically and lexically as well, not just formally.

It should be said as well that the way the groups or types were introduced was also changing. The groups or types (the names for the categories themselves included some synonyms) were sometimes introduced by vowels (a,i,e), at other times by endings (infinitive, e.g. -ati,-ivati,-nuti, or present -am,-im or-am,-aš, ...), sometimes by suffixes (e.g. -a-,-iv-a-); sometimes by examples (e.g. gledati), and at other times by numbers (e.g. 1, 2, ... or I, II, ...). Numbering the group is easier, or quicker to produce, than labelling it with its representative verbs, although the representative verbs are easier in reception. For the sake of intelligibility, it is more practical to use endings such as -nuti than plain suffixes such as -u-,-nu- or -n+u.

The size of groups and types

2.1.

The size of Croatian verbs, organized into three groups: A, I, E, is presented in (11), where the percentage of each type and group is calculated for 24,538 verbs. The number of verbs is somewhat bigger than the number of collected verbs (24,440) as 98 verbs belong to two types. The prototypical (the first) group (Jelaska and Bošnjak Botica 2012) has only one member: the first verb type, verbs ati: am and it gathers 39% of all verbs. The second group, which is less prototypical as it has three members: the second, the third and the fourth verb type, is the second largest group and it gathers 32% of verbs. The third group, the least prototypical one, includes 29% of all verbs. Not only does it have six members, its last member is the athematic conjugational type with classes of verbs that have a phonologically non-overt thematic suffix and therefore a phonologically much more non-transparent form.

InTable 1, the size of types and groups are given, listed according to their size. As could be seen, the order of the groups is in line with the size of the group. Within the second group, the order of types matches the order by size. In the third group, the order of types does not match the ordering by size as other features play a more important role.

It is interesting to compare these new data with the data comprised of 16,000 verbs inZ. Jelaska (2005), which make two-thirds of data analysed here. The relationship between the groups develops in an expected manner: Group I (a) is bigger (3%), Group II (i) as well (2%), which therefore makes Group III (e) smaller (5%). In addition, while athematic verbs constitute 29% of the 100 most frequent verbs, in the larger data 5%, while in the largest data they constitute 6% (5,7%) due to some very rare or archaic verbs.

Productivity may also play a role in the final size of groups and classes. In general, classes that are unproductive tend to shrink in size. One can ask why a particular class is productive and some other is not or has become unproductive in some period. According toBybee and Moder (1983), the answer has to do with the fact that this class had a certain coherent defining phonological feature while the others did not. In Croatian, the more transparent class (gledati) is the most productive, while phonologically more opaque classes are less productive or unproductive.

Spreadity

2.2.

Size of a verb group may play different roles, but, according to the categorization into verb types, spreadity should be accounted for as it plays a role in changing the types’ size, yet does not play a role in changing flection. Spreadity is derivation by prefixes that changes the verb adding Aktionsart but does not change the type of flection, not even phonological features of the ending, while derivation by suffixes may change the type of flection, and it changes phonological features of the ending (the term proširenost ‘spreadity’ was introduced and used inJelaska and Kolaković 2009). It should be said that it may sometimes affect the stress pattern and distribution between conjugational categories sensitive to the aspect of the verb, but both of these issues are beyond the scope of this paper. As prefixed verbs belong to the same conjugational category as their non-prefixed counterpart, both groups will be split in the next tables.

Table 2 presents the numbers of prefixed and non-prefixed verbs within each type.Table 3 presents the same relationship in percentages. Verbs without prefixes were not further analysed into verbs derived by suffixes and non-derived verbs, although this issue will be briefly revisited in the following chapter.

The first group has more non-prefixed members than the other two groups, which makes it much larger than when all verbs are included. The first conjugational type (type I) has more than twice the number of non-prefixed members than the second type (3,240 vs. 1,498). The rest of the types range from a few hundred members (viknuti 577, putovati 421, pisati 375) or around one hundred (zero 122, vidjeti 116) to less than a hundred (trčati 66, smijati se 31) or even just a few verbs (davati 4), as could be seen inTable 2. If size is the result of a much smaller group of unspreaded verbs that have a large percentage of prefixed verbs within the whole group, then size is not as important in the perception of the type.

Table 3 shows that the relationship between the three groups is more similar when only prefixed types are compared (a 35%, i 34%, e 31%) than when non-prefixed ones are compared (a 50%, i 26%, e 24%).

Table 4 lists the types ordered from the most spreaded ones, i.e. the ones whose size depends mostly on the spreaded verbs, to the least spreaded types. As could be seen from the table, the highest percentage (more than 90%) of spreaded verbs, i.e. verbs derived by prefixes, have types VI, X (91%) and VIII (93%). Type VII has 84%, types II-V from 71% to 79%. Type I has the lowest (66%), except for type IX (61%), which is almost whole derived by the perfective suffix -n- and thematic-u-, e.g. kucnuti ‘to knock once’ (< kucati ‘to knock’), viknuti ‘to shout once’ (< vikati ‘shout’),krenuti ‘to start moving’(<kretati ‘to move’), which consists of 11 basic verbs (56 with prefixes) not derived from verbs and therefore imperfective.[12] The first group has the second highest percentage of non-spreaded (non-prefixed) verbs, more than one third (34%).

The first group is followed by verbs of the type trčati 29%, then closely follows pisati 28%, vidjeti 23%, moliti 21%, putovati 16%, smijati se 9%, zero 9%, davati 7%. Hence, the irregular verbs and verbs like smijati se consist of more than 90% of verbs derived by prefixes. Type putovati consists of more than 80%, types moliti, vidjeti, pisati and trčati of more than 70%, while verbs like gledati and viknuti of more than 60% of verbs derived by prefixes. InTable 4 the percentage of verbs with prefixes within each type is presented as average spreadity (number of verbs with prefixes divided by total number of verbs in the type).

As could be seen fromTable 4, the derived verbs cover between 61% and 93% of all members within the type. The most derived type is davati (type VIII), closely followed by the athematic (zero) group (type X), and smijati (type VI); they all consist of more than 90% of derived members. On the other hand, with the exclusion of type IX (which is mostly made by means of the suffix -nu-, hence derived verb type, and therefore has the biggest percentage of non-prefixed verbs), the 1^st group has the largest proportion of non-derived verbs (34%), i.e. one-third.

The size and frequency

2.3.

The frequency of individual verbs matters, as does the frequency of type. Milestones inTable 5 are set at the first 100, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 6,000 words (Moguš, Bratanić and Tadić 1999) – up to this number mere frequency could play an important role – after that, the knowledge of morphemes and word-formation rules as well as semantic field-dependent vocabulary play a more important role.Table 5 shows numbers rounded up to three decimal places. In the 100 most frequent words, there are only 4 conjugational types: athematic (irregular verbs), represented by ići: 47%, type I gledati: 33%, II moliti: 13% and III vidjeti: 7%. The relationship later changes and more types appear.

WhileTable 5 presented percentages in decimal numbers of verbs up to 6,000 most frequent Croatian words,Table 6.2 in the Appendix shows the percentages of conjugational types rounded to the nearest whole number in 100, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 4,000, 6,000, compared to the percentage in the largest verbal data (24,538) for ease of comparison. As could be seen from this table, davati is always the smallest and its share in the 6,000 most frequent verbs is 1%. In the larger data, its percentage is almost zero (0.27%). Irregular verbs start as the largest group, but then switch to the second and third place, and eventually end up in the fifth position in the lag. Type moliti starts as the third type, switches to the second, then to the first, but in the largest dataset settles as the second type again. Type gledati starts as the second, switches to the third, then second, and ends up in the first place. These two types together from 44% to 59% in all the frequency-based data, while both constitute from 13% to 36%. The other types constitute from 1% to 6%.