Verbs of Negative Transfer in Croatian: Syntactic Frames and Semantic Unity

Abstract

This paper examines the syntactic and semantic features of a verb class of Croatian ditransitive verbs termed verbs of negative transfer. With verbs of negative transfer, the transfer of an item is performed in the opposite direction of the transfer observable with typical ditransitive verbs such as give, get, obtain etc. Special concern is given to the interconnection of semantic and syntactic features within this verb class. As demonstrated in the paper, the syntactic expression of arguments is sensitive to one semantic feature of these verbs: the feature whether a given verb has malefactive meaning or not. The paper convincingly shows that a major strategy for expressing the semantic role of a maleficiary is the dative case. This use of the dative is usually called the malefactive dative and has not yet been thoroughly researched for Croatian. Accordingly, a great deal of attention has been devoted to the description of the malefactive dative. Furthermore, some similarities of this dative meaning have been related to some already known features of other dative meanings in Croatian.

Keywords

• ditransitive verbs
• verbs of negative transfer
• malefactive dative
• Croatian language
• verb frames