engleski

How fertile is the verbal prefix pre-

In this paper we focus on how fertile the verbal prefix pre- is in Croatian language. The analysis of the semantic contribution of this prefix to base verbs is carried out on the basis of a database of pre- prefixed verbs which is compiled on the basis of the dictionaries of the contemporary Croatian language and on the basis of a corpus analysis of the meanings of pre- prefixed verbs that can be found in the hrWaC corpus, which enables us to study the language used on Croatian websites (websites from the .hr domain). This enables us to create a semantic network that accommodates all the different meanings (senses) expressed by Croatian verbs with a pre- prefix. After this we try to determine in which senses this prefix is still fertile in Croatian (i.e. can be used to form new verbs). Here we will pay special attention to the “too intense action with negative results/consequences” sense (e.g. prepeći, prejesti s, pretjerati, etc.) and describe the word-formation process through which this sense is realised in the contemporary Croatian language. Our goal is to contribute to the description of the meaning and use of pre- in Croatian and thus also contribute to the description of the prefixal word-formation processes in the Croatian language.

prefix, semantics, pragmatics

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