Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.47.1.1
Instrumental, Comitative, and Caritive in the Kukljica Dialect
Mislav Benić
; Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje, Zagreb
Abstract
This paper describes the use of the non-prepositional instrumental case, the preposition is (with) and the preposition b(r)ez (without) in the Central Čakavian dialect of the village of Kukljica, on the Island of Ugljan.
The non-prepositional instrumental is relatively frequent in the dialects of Kukljica and many neighbouring Čakavian areas. This is at odds with the mainstream opinion that the non-prepositional instrumental is almost non-existent in Čakavian generally, and especially in North and Central Čakavian. The non-prepositional instrumental performs similar semantic and syntactic functions in the Kukljica dialect as it does in Standard Croatian. Yet, the Kukljica dialect does not use the so-called predicative instrumental; the nominative or accusative is used instead. Unlike Standard Croatian, the Kukljica dialect has the comitative instrumental, which can function, among other things, as a nominal part of the predicate, accompanying the copula.
The preposition is has the variant sa (used only with the instrumental). The variant sa is obligatory immediately before autonymous phrases, and in certain other similar cases, but it is rare otherwise, and characteristic of less conservative speakers. Is has a comitative and instrumental meanings, i. e. the two meanings also typical of the prepositional instrumental.
The comitative use (in a wider sense) of the preposition is is similar to the corresponding use of Standard Croatian s. Amongst the syntactic constructions involving comitative is, only a type of coordinating formally comitative construction is peculiar. The use of this construction is considerably more limited than it is in Russian. In the comitative non-prepositional instrumental, however, unlike the comitative construction with the preposition is, the satellite is almost always inanimate and it functions neither as the complement nor as a member of coordinating formally comitative construction. There are some other limitations in the use of the comitative non-prepositional instrumental.
Instrumental is is obligatory with indeclinable noun phrases and with personal pronouns. It is also almost always used with demonstrative pronouns, such as this, that. Instrumental is is uncommon with non-expanded declinable noun phrases. I have noted a number of examples, mostly denoting the instrument. A somewhat similar distribution of the preposition s and non-prepositional instrumental with the identical semantic role between nouns and pronouns in the Montenegrin village of Zavala is discussed in Sobolev 2006: 62 as the result of an analogy in pronouns with animate nouns. Judging by the dialects in which is/s(a) occurs more regularly with pronouns than with animate nouns (Kukljica, Preko, Banjaluka), a simple analogy with animate nouns will not be the optimal explanation of this phenomenon. This paper offers a complex solution, in which the structural peculiarities of personal pronouns have the most important role.
The preposition b(r)ez is formally unusual in that it possesses its own stress, which could perhaps be explained by its contrastive meaning. It is semantically peculiar in that it can be regarded as a negated preposition is, especially in its comitative sense. Regardless of that, the semantic and syntactic relationships of the prepositions b(r)ez and is are considerably asymmetric. It is interesting, from a typological point of view, that the preposition b(r)ez is more possessive than the preposition is.
Keywords
instrumental; comitative; preposition s; preposition bez; Kukljica; Čakavian
Hrčak ID:
260272
URI
Publication date:
20.10.2021.
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