VERB PHRASES IN BOSNIAN AND THE SYNTACTIC PROCESS OF ELLIPSIS: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BOSNIAN AND ENGLISH

Abstract

In this paper, by applying the comparative method, we attempted to point out the similarities and differences in the verb domain between the Bosnian and the English language. With respect to this, the possible argument structure of the verb phrase (VP) in the Bosnian language was analysed, as well as the behaviour of structural elements in the syntactic process of ellipsis. It was concluded that the VP ellipsis in the Bosnian language occurs very high up in the sentence structure, after the elements with strong features check those features. Also, the analysis carried out showed that in the Bosnian language auxiliary and modal verbs are not base generated in the same position, and that modal verbs, unlike in English, are generated lower than the enclitic forms of auxiliary verbs and can be elided. While VP ellipsis in Bosnian necessarily includes lexical verbs, with modal verbs being optionally elided, auxiliary verbs in their enclitic form remain outside the elided place. However, a special type of TP ellipsis in the Bosnian language also eliminates the enclitic form of the auxiliary verb, and only the subject with the feature of non-contrastive focus is realized phonetically in the sentence structure.