Filologija, No. 33, 1999.
Original scientific paper
Views about the plural genitive of nouns from members of the Illyrian movement to followers of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić
Josip Vončina
; Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Zagreb
Abstract
The norm of the Croatian literary language has been established for the first time in the Croatian National Revival period by Vjekoslav Babukić, the author of “Osnova slovnice slavjanske narĕčja ilirskoga” (The essential grammar of the Illyrian variant of the Slavic language), which was published in the periodical Danica in 1836. According to this grammar, the plural genitive ending of nouns should be -ah, or -ih, in addition to masculine doublets in -ov. Fran Kurelac, a distinguished member of the Rijeka Philological School who had appeared on the Croatian philological scene for the first time in 1852, expressed his disagreement with the members of the Croatian Revival in 1862. He claimed that the -ah ending had spread from Zagreb to a large part of Croatia, and that it was used in the Croatian parliament between 1848 and 1861 by members of the Illyrian Movement, whom Kurelac referred to as ahavci on account of their use of the -ah form. In 1859 Vatroslav Jagić became a staunch supporter of the use of -ah. Five years later, Jagić, who later became one of the most important Croatian Slavists with his contributions to the periodical Književnik in 1864, radically changed his attitude as a result of his support for Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, his endorsement of the Vienna Literary Agreement, and in opposition to Veber's views. He even erased the letter h in Šulek's article "Obrana ahavaca" (In defense of those who use the plural genitive -ah ending). The first author to deal with the issue in a systematic way was Prof. Ljudevit Jonke in his work "Borbe oko književnog oblika imeničkoga genitiva množine u XIX. stoljeću" (Controversies concerning the standard form of the plural genitive of nouns in the 19th century, 1957). Over three decades later, Branka Tafra claimed that the letter h contained in the plural genitive ending -ah is only an orthographic sign indicating the length of the preceding vowel. She tried to corroborate her thesis with rhymes. In his 1854 grammar, Vjekoslav Babukić gave the following examples: žena (nom.sing.) and ženah (gen.pl.), and muka (nom.sing.) and mukah (gen.pl.), which is not a reliable criterion. The rhymes in which the consonant h coincides with the phonemic zero have existed in Croatian poetry since its beginnings: “broji x mojih” in 14th century Glagolitic texts and “Zrinjskih x Lisinski” in Matoš's poetry at the turn of the 20th century. Critical editions of Illyrian writers and their followers prepared by Barac, Ježić, Ravlić, and Jelčić contain the -ah genitive ending. Philologists followed the same tradition, consistently transmitting the letter h in genitive (Vince) or referring to it as a sound (Jonke), or a phoneme (Moguš).
Keywords
Croatian language; 19th century; plural genitive ending of nouns
Hrčak ID:
157419
URI
Publication date:
26.6.2000.
Visits: 1.548 *