Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.47.2.2
The Instrumental Case in Croatian Grammars Until the End of the Nineteenth Century with an Emphasis on Comitative and Instrumental Meanings
Marijana Horvat
orcid.org/0000-0003-1798-1098
; Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje
Ljiljana Šarić
orcid.org/0000-0003-4373-9182
; University of Oslo, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, Faculty of Humanities
Abstract
This analysis examines the comitative and instrument as semantic roles and how their language expressions were treated in accounts of the instrumental case in a selection of Croatian grammars, starting from the first grammar, Kašić’s Institutiones linguae Illyricae (Handbook of the Illyrian Language, 1604), until the end of the nineteenth century and Maretić’s grammar Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga književnog jezika (Grammar and Stylistics of Standard Croatian or Serbian, 1899) and the victory of the Croatian Vukovians, which influenced changes in the previous language norm. The main question discussed is whether grammatical descriptions indicate an overlap of the comitative and instrument meanings, or whether these meanings are clearly distinguished in the grammars examined. As argued in the theoretical part, the coincidence and intertwining of the two meanings observed in a number of different languages can be explained by assuming the existence of a broader conceptual domain that encompasses the meanings of both accompaniment and means. Previous research also indicates the importance of language contact, and for this reason we also consider the potential influence of descriptions of other languages on the accounts in the grammars studied. We also provide an overview of the accounts of the instrumental case beyond the two semantic roles. These accounts, among other things, implicitly or explicitly indicate vague borders between various meaning domains of the instrumental, including the border between accompaniment and means.
Keywords
comitative; instrumental; Croatian pre-standard grammars; Illyrian grammars; grammars by the Zagreb philological school; grammars by the Croatian Vukovians
Hrčak ID:
268110
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2021.
Visits: 2.121 *