Fluminensia: Journal for Philological Research (Jan 2016)
COMPLEMENT CLAUSES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS IN CROATIAN
Abstract
The paper discusses the complement clauses of psychological verbs in Croatian. Subordinate clauses which appear with some psychological verbs can be interpreted in different ways: either as causative clauses (Šojat 2008) or as clausal realizations of the genitive, dative or instrumental complements or of prepositional complements (Mrazović and Vukadinović 2009). The aim of this paper is to define subordinate clauses which appear with certain psychological verbs either as complements or adjuncts, and also to explore the possibility of interpreting the conjunctions which introduce subordinate clauses used with psychological verbs as causative ones. If the aforementioned subordinate clauses are analysed as causative ones, in accordance with the functional criterion for the classification of sentences, which is common in Croatian grammatical tradition, they should not be considered to be complements, but adjuncts. In Croatian grammars causative clauses are described as being in the same relation with the main clause as adverbials of cause are with their predicates (Težak and Babić 1994: 230, Barić et al. 1997: 495, Katičić 2002: 264, Silić and Pranjković 2005: 341). Since an adverbial of cause can be used with any verb regardless of its valency features and the semantic group it belongs to, it cannot be considered to be a complement. Therefore, the causative clause cannot be considered to be a complement either. Whereas in this paper subordinate clauses which appear with certain psychological verbs are considered to be complements, we come to the conclusion that they are not causative clauses. However, they are considered to be neither clausal realisations in the class of case nor prepositional complements, but sentential complements. The definition of sentential complements is based on the methodology of the Valency base of Croatian verbs. Subordinate clauses used with certain psychological verbs are in this paper considered to be complements which appear either in the position of the genitive, dative or instrumental complements, or in the position of prepositional complements. For example, the analysis of sentences Tog trenutka ponosio sam se što živim na području općine. and Radujem se što ćemo ponovno živjeti zajedno. has revealed that subordinate clauses što živi na području općine and što ćemo ponovno živjeti zajedno are complements. We consider them to be sentential complements which are realized in the position of the obligatory case complement. In these sentences the meaning of the verb radovati se is ‘to feel joyful in expectation of someone/something’ (or ‘to look forward to someone/something’). When used in this sense, the verb has obligatory nominative and dative complements. The verb ponositi se has the meaning ‘to feel pride provoked by someone/something’ (or ‘to be proud of someone/something’) with two obligatory complements: the nominative and the instrumental. Analysis has also shown that conjunctions which introduce subordinate clauses used with psychological verbs, such as što, kako, da etc., generally cannot substitute conjunctions which denote causativity and which can be used with most of the verbs, such as jer, zato što, zbog toga što etc.: *Inače dosta sjedim što moram učiti. *On češće putuje što je većina njegovih koncerata u inozemstvu.
