THE MEANINGS AND FORMS OF THE CROATIAN SUFFIX -AR-A

A CORPUS STUDY

Abstract

This paper presents current trends in the use of the Croatian suffix -ar-a, including its forms -onjar-a, -enjar-a, -uskar-a and others featured in the examples sourced from the hrWaC corpus (jointly referred to as AR-A). The goals of the paper were threefold: (i) to establish which of the suffixal meanings are currently the most widespread and possibly productive; (ii) to establish how the short vs. expanded forms of the suffix distribute between two global categories of word-formation meaning, viz. mutational and modificational (broadly evaluative); (iii) to submit preliminary hypotheses about the motivation and mechanisms behind the development of at least some of the expanded forms. Leaning on the relevant insights from the contemporary word-formation
scholarship, especially evaluative morphology, our analysis has shown that the semantic and formal profile of -AR-A suffixations departs from the  established description. We have also found that some of the characteristic properties of evaluative morphology may have triggered the emergence of some of -AR-A’s expanded forms by reanalysis.