Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.5
Comitative Coordination in Croatian Glagolitic Texts
Milan Mihaljević
; Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Zagreb
Abstract
This paper discusses comitative constructions in Croatian Glagolitic texts, which have not been previously identified in literature. These constructions feature a comitative group as the subject, while the predicate appears in the plural even when the landmark is singular. The examples are divided into three groups: (1) those in which the landmark and the associate appear directly next to each other; (2) those in which the landmark and the associate are not adjacent but are in the same clause, with the plural predicate in a subsequent clause; and (3) those in which the associate is not in the same clause as the landmark, but is instead in the clause with the plural predicate. For all three types of constructions, there are also examples where the predicate is in the singular, i.e., agrees only with the landmark. Due to the relatively large number of examples (more than 40) and the fact that different copies of the texts do not align in other elements of the construction, the author concludes that these are likely not spontaneous scribal errors, but rather a systematic, albeit marginal, phenomenon in Old Čakavian. Having established that existing explanations for agreement variation in comitative constructions in other Slavic languages cannot adequately account for all the examples from Croatian Glagolitic texts, the author proposes an explanation based on the hypothesis that lexicalized subjects in pro-drop languages do not occupy the syntactic subject position (Spec,TP), but rather the topic position, while the deep syntactic subject position (Spec,vP) contains a null pronoun pro, which may have a split antecedent—i.e., it may be coreferential with either the landmark alone or with both the landmark and the associate. Plural agreement is only possible when both the landmark and the associate precede the predicate. When the associate follows the predicate, the predicate can only be in the singular.
Keywords
comitative coordination; Croatian Glagolitic texts; agreement
Hrčak ID:
344799
URI
Publication date:
31.1.2026.
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