engleski

Prepositional doubling: a typological and comparative analysis with special emphasis on South Slavic languages

Prepositions are considered to be a part of speech usually followed by a noun or a noun phrase. However, one can observe two typologically independent tendencies - one is synthetical, and the other is analytical. The first case introduces us with the formation of a new preposition by combining two separate adpositions, e.g. Serbian and Croatian ispred, a case of an appositional compound of two existing prepositions iz and pred (comparable with English underneath) or Russian из-под, из- за (where the ortography marks the original components). There is also a strong tendency of forming new prepositions by conversion of a noun or a noun phrase, such as Serbian and Croatian nakraj, navrh or među (the latter is a frozen locative form). On the other hand, languages tend to combine two prepositions together syntactically, and the result is usually a preposition combined with a prepositional phrase, such as English from underneath + noun or Dutch midden in + noun. There is a similar tendency in South Slavic languages, for instance sa po + noun phrase or za pod + noun phrase (occuring in Macedonian as well). The purpose of this paper is to analyse these two tendencies with special emphasis on South Slavic languages, especially Serbian and Croatian, to give a cognitive analysis why some prepositions tend to follow one another and the other ones do not and to present a comparative and historical point of view on these two strategies.

prepositions ; prepositional doubling ; adpositions ; South Slavic languages

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