Proper treatment of long vs. short form adjectives in Serbo-Croatian

Branimir Stankovićand

Boban Arsenijević

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Two forms of S-C adjectives

• S-C adjectives come in two forms, one which can be described as bare, and is usually referred to as the short form (SFA), and another which involves an additional suffix and a pronominal declension, and is referred to as the long form (LFA).

mlad(-i) sir (young cheese)visok(-i) starac (tall old man)

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The broad picture

• The ending argued to come from an anaphoric pronoun, grammaticalized into an affix.

• Different (nuances in the) semantic contribution across Slavic languages.

• Nowadays, the short form is disappearing, except from the nominative form used with (semi-)copular verbs.

• Here: the standard use, still alive in dialects.

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Short form adjectives

• SFA traditionally described as limited to non-specific environments (1).

(1) a. Dobio sam ogreban auto. gotten Aux.1Sg scratched.SF

car‘I got a scratched car.’ (non-specific!)

b. Taj auto je ogreban. that car is scratched ‘That car is scratched.’

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Long form adjectives

• In specific and definite environments, adjectives obligatorily take an ending to build the ‘long form’ (LFA) (2).

(2) Dobio sam ogreban-i auto.gotten Aux.1Sg scratched.LF car‘I got the scratched car.’

(minimally specific, a definite reading favored)

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*LFA in apposition/secondary predication

• Only SFAs may appear in apposition or as a depictive in S-C, two positions where adjectives are always non-restrictive and outside the intonational phrases of their modifyees.

(3) Jovan, svež(*-i) i vesel(*-i), otvori vrata.

J fresh and cheerfulopened door ‘Fresh and cheerful, Jovan opened the door.’

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Heaviness constraints on apposition/secondary predication

• Apposition and secondary predication in S-C are imposed phonological heaviness constraints (>2 words, intonational stress?).

(4) Jovan, svež ??( i veseo), otvori vrata. J fresh and cheerful opened

door ‘Fresh and cheerful, Jovan opened the door.’

(5) Jovan dođe svež ??( posle kratke dremke).

J camefresh after short nap ‘Jovan arrived, fresh after a short nap.’

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SFA in definite contexts heaviness constraints

• *Heavy SFAs in definite contexts (<2 words?).(6) a. taj njegov lak korak

that his light stepb. taj njegov veoma lak

korak that his very light step c.*taj njegov lak kao pero korak that his light as featherstep d.?taj njegov ovih dana lak korak that his these days light step

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The same marking for the entire sequence, e.g. Zlatić (1997)

• (Pg. 39) In a sequence of two or more adjectives, all adjectives must have the same (in)definiteness markers.

(65)… c. *dobr-i veseo čovekgood-DEF cheerful-INDEF man

d. *dobar vesel-i čovek good-INDEF cheerful-DEF man

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SFA in definite contexts

• A ‘rare exception’.(6) Dobio sam onaj mali ogreban

gotten Aux.1Sg that small.LF scratched.SF auto.car

‘I got that small scratched car.’ (?)• A corpus study reveals: a) a considerable

number of examples, b) certain regularities.10

SFA in definite contexts: regularities

• In all the excerpted cases, SFAs bear focus, new information, or both, differing in the information structure from the rest of the NP.

• Two classes cover a vast majority of cases:a) SFAs used as nonrestrictive modifiers with a

strong sense of the speaker’s personal attitude.

b) SFAs used as epithets for discourse-old and usually topical referents.

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Non-restrictive modifiers

• In (7), the speaker evaluates the ship. ‘Ovaj’ restricts over battle-ships, not over incredible battle-ships.

(7) Ovaj neverovatan bojni brod jepodthis incredible.SF war.LF ship is under mojom kontrolom.my control

‘This INCREDIBLE battle-ship is under my control.’

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(Pseudo-?)Epithets

• In (8), the speaker refers to a discourse-old individual by an expression that has not been accommodated as a salient description for this individual in the discourse so far.

(8) Misliš onaj SLADAK DEČKO? mean.2Sg that cute.SF boy ‘You mean that CUTE BOY?• Similar to epithets, yet different in one aspect.

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Pseudo-Epithets

• Epithets usually involve a property of the referent which is known to or expected by all the interlocutors.

• This is what enables epithets to act like definite descriptions, and to appear without demonstratives.

• Expressions with SFAs in this use normally bear new information, and require the presence of demonstratives.

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Real epithets take LFAs

(9) a. #Misliš onaj GLUP SKOT?mean.2Sg that stupid.SF animal

b. Misliš onaj GLUP-ISKOT?

mean.2Sg that stupid.LF animal‘You mean that STUPID ANIMAL?

c. Misliš onaj smešanSKOT?

mean.2Sg that silly.SF animal

‘You mean that ANIMAL, who’s also silly?’

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Pseudo-Epithets as non-restrictive modifies

• Bad without the demonstrative; well paraphrased by a non-restrictive relative (6a), and inadequately by a restrictive one (6b).

(8) Misliš #(onaj) SLADAK DEČKO? mean.2Sg that cute.SF boy ‘You mean that CUTE BOY?(10) a. …that one, who I consider a cute

boy? b. …the one who I consider a cute boy? 16

All SFAs in definite environments are non-restrictive modifiers

• All excerpted examples, including those not falling in the two classes above, are well paraphrased with non-restrictive relative clauses involving (semi-)copular predicates.

(11) a. onaj ljut muški znoj pun dlaka that spicy.SFA male sweat full

hears.Gen b. onaj muški znoj pun dlaka, koji je ljut c. /onaj muški znoj pun dlaka koji je ljut17

Sproat & Shih (1991)

• All adjectives are reduced relative clauses (similar arguments by Larson, Kayne, Cinque…)

• Then:1. All restrictive adjectives are reduced restrictive relative clauses.2. All non-restrictive adjectives are reduced non-restrictive relative clauses.

• LFAs fall in the former class, SFAs in the latter.

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Apposition, secondary predication

• Apposition and secondary predication also fall in the class of non-restrictive modifiers.

• Non-restrictive modification:1. apposition: heavy non-restrictive modifier2. secondary predication: heavy non-restrictive

modifier3. SFA: non-heavy non-restrictive modifier

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Two types of movement

• All S-C prenominal modifiers are reduced relative clauses.

• The restrictive ones are attracted by the deictic feature of the noun (Cheng & Sybesma 1999), with which they agree (the ending).

• The non-restrictive ones move up for phonological reasons (Zubizarreta 1998): they do not have enough phonological material to form prosodic phrases.

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Restrictive modifiers - LFAs

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koji je mlad[uDEIC]koji je mlad[uDEIC]

[iDEIC]sir

FP

koji je mlad-i[uDEIC]

• LFAs are attracted by and agree with the [DEIC] feature of the NP.

mlad-i siryoung.LFA cheese

SFAs (=non-restrictive prenominal)

2222

koji[iDEIC] je mlad[uDEIC]koji[iDEIC] je mlad[uDEIC]

sir

• SFAs move for phonological reasons: after reduction, the remnant is too light to be a prosodic word.

mlad siryoung.SFA cheese

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Information structure

• Non-restrictive relative clauses have an independent information structure.

• When elided, the focal/new information part is preserved (and preposed).

• Modifiers coming from non-restrictive relative clauses have discourse functions of their own – they do not share those of the modified NPs.

• Only the heavy ones may bear an adequate intonation in isolation; the others prepose.

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Preposing

• Restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers prepose for different reasons.

• Restrictive modifiers are attracted by the deictic features of the DP, which they agree with.

• Non-restrcitive modifiers move for reasons of phonological deficiency, i.e. inability to form a prosodic phrase.

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