“ZAVRŠENA VELIKA KONZUM NAGRADNA IGRA” – ON THE STATUS OF PREMODIFYING NOUNS IN CROATIAN

Abstract

Various new structures are emerging in Croatian as the result of the influence of English. This paper focuses on one such innovation – e.g. Konzum nagradna igra – and the possibility of its grammatical description. In this structure the proper name Konzum is placed in the position of an attributive adjective. The problem here is how to analyse this structure because the traditional descriptive grammar does not offer any adequate models. Two different approaches are suggested as possible solutions in literature. These include expanding the definition of apposition and changing the word category noun → adjective.
In this paper we analyse the frequency with which structures of this type appear on the basis of analysis of magazines and websites, we test their acceptability with the help of a questionnaire and test the applicability of the two proposed approaches to the analysis of such structures. Our research has revealed that these structures are present in language and are acceptable and that the analysis based on the change of word category covers more cases that the expansion of the definition of apposition.