Word Order and Negation in the Croatian Church Slavonic Language

Abstract

Three major problems are brought out considering the relation of word order and negation, which is universal and inherent linguistic phenomen, in the first Croatian literature language, Croatian Church Slavonic. The first one addresses placing of the basic negative words (ne, ni, bez) within wider syntactic unit. In Croatian Church Slavonic, as in majority of the Indoeuropean languages, they are placed left from the negated syntactic unit. That unit need not be a finite verb; it can also be a non-finite verb, enclitic pronoun or other, non-negative particle. Placing of the basic negative words is connected to the difference or, better to say, with the determining of the difference between constituent negation (nonpredicate negation) and sentential negation (predicate negation). In languages in which the same negative expression can negate predicate and nonpredicate units, word order is one of the rare formal criteria (though not of absolute value!) for distinguishing these two possiblities of the scope that the negation applies to. Finally, it depends on word order whether the one of the most characteristic syntactic phenomena of the Slavic languages, negative concord, will be applied or not. Croatian Church Slavonic is one of non-strict negative concord languages. The implementation of non-strict negative concord depends on the position of the of negative pronoun or negative adverb. If they are preverbal, negative concord is facultative i. e. it may or may not be applied. On the other hand, if a negative prounoun or adverb are post-verbal, negative concord is obligatory.

Keywords

• word order
• negation
• Croatian Church Slavonic language
• position of negative expressions
• scope of negation
• negative concord