Južnoslovenski Filolog (Jan 2022)
Use of genitive without prepositions in the spoken language of youth from Vranje
Abstract
The paper presents the results of the research into the use of genitive without prepositions in the spoken language of young people from Vranje. The aim of this paper is to determine which case forms, due to the presence of analytism and exposure to the standard language, are used by the youth from Vranje to express the semantics of standard genitive without prepositions. The speech of forty preschool and primary school children from Vranje was analyzed. The corpus material used for this paper consists of transcripts of spontaneous conversations that the author conducted with the participants. The analysis includes all examples in which the semantic values of genitive without prepositions are realized by various morphosyntactic structures, in adnominal and adverbial positions. Genitive without prepositions can be used in five different positions: with the noun (1), with the adjective (2), with the quantifier (3), with the demonstrative particle (4), and with the verb (5). This approach allowed us to understand the competitive relationship between analytical and synthetic case forms and their respective positions. The rich semantic potential of the genitive without prepositions, which is expressed by different case structures, was observed in the speech of young people from Vranje. A notable type of expression that is worth mentioning is the prepositionless general case and an analytical structure containing a general case and preposition. Nevertheless, the stability of the abovementioned case structures is affected by the use of genitive without prepositions in nearly all semantic categories, as a result of the influence of the standard language. Within the system of morphosyntactic forms used to express genitive meanings, genitive without prepositions is used as a competitive form to the general case form (‘centar Beograd’), the analytical construction (‘najviši vrh na Balkansko poluostrvo’) and prepositional case construction with prepositions od and iz (‘od moje bake brat’, ‘nastavnik iz istorije’). Moreover, it has a strong foothold in frequently used phrases, terms used in school, administration, names of institutions, holidays, TV shows (‘Hram Svetog Save’, ‘Dani Vranja’, ‘Zvezde granda’, ‘čas razrednog starešine’), as well as in temporal structures used as idiomatic adverbial phrases (‘sledeće godine, prošle nedelje, svakog vikenda’). As for the position of the genitive without prepositions, the analysis has shown that its position significantly affects the genitive structure. Namely, genitive without prepositions is more easily used in the adnominal position, with the noun and quantifier. On the other hand, the adjective, the demonstrative particle, and the verb that requires a complement in the form of an object, as well as the verb (not) to have used in the sense of ‘to exist’, completely or partially prevent the use of genitive without prepositions. The research findings indicate that it is possible to restructure the analytical declension system of the vernacular of Vranje in the direction of synthetic forms, under the influence of the language standard.
Keywords
