Typology: analysis of Serbo-Croatian

Résumé du document

The basic word order in the Serbo-Croatian language is absolutely not rigid when words are marked in nominative and accusative cases, since it indicates the role of the words. However, in rare cases when it is unmarked, because of the inflectional type of this language, SVO (Subject, Verb, and Object) seems to be the more frequent order of this language in neutral contexts. It could be argued that the more a sentence is expressive and the more words are marked, the freer the word order is. It can be SVO, OVS, VSO and SOV. It depends on the emphasis people want to create when talking or writing. The emphasized word is usually placed at the beginning of the sentence and is followed by the verb. In narrative clauses, when inversion occurs, which means when the verb is placed before the subject, it has a stylistic or rhythmic purpose. These orders mainly occur when accusative and nominative markers can identify the nature of the words. This reordering is done because of the inflectional type of this language, in which words are marked most of the time, according to their genre, number, and grammatical category.

Extraits

[...] Are they Englishmen or Americans? Kaput je na stolici. Coat be-3-SG-IND-PST on chair The coat is on the chair. Neka je on ne čeka. let be-3-SG-IND-PST he no wait Don't let him wait for her. What can be noticed in this last example is the use of pro-drop, which shows another time the flexibility of this language. The place of clitics is always definite and cannot be changed. Indeed, they cannot be placed at the beginning of a sentence and their position is set according to the type of sentence in which they occur. [...]

[...] As-datif we-Acc it seem-3-SG-IND-PST As it seems to us. Then, the interrogative particle is placed before all the clitics of the sentence and after the verb or modal (12). The word order in questions is consequently Verb/Modal Interrogative Particle Subject - Complement. In a less detailed manner, it is VSO. Je li on student? Be-3-SG-IND-PST Interrogative particle he student ? Is he a student? Possessive and demonstrative pronouns are placed before the noun they are attached to (see and Vaš suprug je moj nastavnik. [...]

[...] These rules may organize internal phrase order. Indeed, it seems that Noun Phrases are mainly Noun-Genitive, since the genitive marker appear at the end of the words Preposition-Noun Noun-Relative and Adjective-Noun (17). Glavē Head-gen-Fem Her head Còvek kòjī je dòšao Man REL be-3-SG-IND-PST come-3-SG-IND-PAST The man who came. Strana jezika Foreign languages Verbal Phrase also shows some dominant order: They are most of the time Verb-Modal and Verb-Adverb (19). The negation is less determined, even if it is most of the time Negation-Verb Ali je ìstok tàko žîv But Aux-Modal east so alive But the east is so alive Ona je uvijek kasni. [...]

[...] If there are no markers, it would mean that there is a will to change the dominant order of words to create an effect. It is the case in and SOV order: (expressive sentence) Òna glàvē nè diže. She-Nom. head-Gen Neg rise-3SG-IND-PST She does not rise her head! OVS order: Ìz kuće svȁkōg ćȁsa ìzlaze slûge. From house every hour go out-3PL-IND-PST servants From the house, every hour, go out some servants. Déte ujélo prâse. Child mordre-3SG-IND-PAST-NEUT pig It is the pig that bit the child. [...]

[...] However, the fact this language is mainly ruled by inflexion authorizes this flexibility in order, since words functions are most of the time marked. This language also corresponds to the universal syntactic rules, which stipulates that a sentence is composed of a Subject which is a Noun Phrase and a Verb Phrase and that this Verb Phrase is composed of a Verb followed by a Noun Phrase. This would be an internal explanation of the Basic Word Order of Serbo-Croatian. [...]