EXPRESSING PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES IN CROATIAN AND POLISH – DATIVE ARGUMENT STRUCTURES

Abstract

The paper analyses dative constructions that express psychological states in Polish and Croatian. The research is conducted within the framework of comparative and cognitive linguistics, using, among others, the prototype theory. Special attention is paid to the specific properties of the dative case.
The analysis of the corpora has revealed that dative constructions can appear with a transitive verb (e.g. przebaczać, wybaczać, darować, zapominać, zarzucaćkomu; opraštati, otpuštati, zaboravljati, zamjeravati, predbacivati, prigovarati komu), an intransitive verb (e.g. wierzyć, ufać, podobać się komu; vjerovati, sviđati se, dopadati se, goditi, prijati komu), a predicate nominal (e.g. być komu wstrętny, obojętnydrogi; biti komu važan, smiješan, nepodnošljiv) an impersonal predicate nominal (e.g. jest komuśniemiło, nieprzyjemnie, niezręcznie; nekome je užasno, teško, neugodno) and a prepositional dative with a verb (e.g. czuć; osjećati (czuć miłość ku komuś; osjećati ljubav, mržnju, strah prema komu).
In each of the abovementioned groups we analysed the semantic roles of the dative case and defined the meaning of the nouns. We found that the dative case can have the semantic value of an end-point, a referent point or an experiencer, depending on the predicate and noun components.