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Causative Prepositional Phrases with Genitive Case in Croatian

Causality is primarily defined as a characteristic of transitive verbs with the bivalent argument structure as prototypical (subject / the causer – predicate – direct object) expressing that the subject / causator caused someone or something to do or be someone or something else, or what generally causes a change of state (Marko je udario Ivana. ‘Marko hit Ivan.’, ‘Snow covered roads.’). This argument structure is based on the semantic potential of verbs that have the characteristics of causality, what is in the Croatian language generally attributed to the factive verbs which denote the type of activity or effect (udariti ‘hit’, darovati ‘donate’, učiniti ‘make’, natjerati/prisilti ‘force’, nagovoriti ‘persuade’, gurnuti ‘push’), regardless of whether it is primarily a verb of movement, feeling, thinking, speaking etc. In the Croatian language, however, in addition to such basic structure of the causative verbs, indicators of causality are also prepositional phrases, eg. Ana je natjerala Petra u plač. 'Ana is forced Peter into tears.', Neplansko trošenje gurnulo ih je u dugove 'Unplanned spending has pushed them into debts'. Except prepositional phrases with accusative case (natjerati /koga/ u plač 'get /someone/ into tears, gurnuti/baciti /koga/ u dugove, ‘push / throw /someone/ in debts’, potaknuti /koga/ na razmišljanje 'encourage /someone/ thinking’, navesti /koga/ na krivi put 'send someone the wrong way’), which is part of three-valent argument structures, in Croatian are also very fruitful causative prepositional phrases with genitive case. In this presentation, the emphasis is placed on analysis of genitive prepositional phrases that often change prototypical argument structure of causative verb (subject / the causator – predicate – direct object) which implies that instead of the subject, the causator is genitive noun as a part of prepositional phrase, and, in such construction, the subject is actually under the action of the agent expressed by genitive noun in prepositional phrase. Eg. in construction patiti od nesanice ‘to suffer from insomnia’ – the insomnia is causator one's suffering, in construction kasniti zbog kiše ‘the delay due to rain’, the rain is the causator of one’s delay, in construction boriti se protiv korupcije ‘to fight against corruption’, the corruption is the causator of one’s struggle, in construction problijediti od straha ‘to pale with fear’, the fear is the causator of one’s paleness etc. Such argument structure is more periphrastic, direct object is excluded, and the source of causality flows from construction formed by verb and prepostional phrase with genitive case. In this structure, the verb is often intransitive (pobjeći od činjenice ‘to escape from the fact’, ostati bez zraka ‘remain without air’). Analysis of causative prepositional phrases with genitive case is based on data from the Croatian corpora hrWac (http://nlp.ffzg.hr/resources/corpora/hrwac/) – it will be determined: 1. the extent to which prepositional phrases with genitive case are causative, 2. their frequency compared to other uses of prepositional phrases with genitive case, 3. which verbs potentially carry such argument structure as periphrastic (eg. pobjeći od činjenice 'escape from the fact’, 'smetnuti s uma 'lose from sight') or prepositional phrases with genitive case are conditioned by valency of certain verb (eg. oboljeti od raka 'fall ill from cancer’, odustati od tužbe ‘give up from charges’, povući (se) iz politike 'withdraw from politics’, izići iz recesije ‘get out of the recession’, 4. which genitive prepositions are the most common indicators of causality in Croatian.

causality; genitive case; prepositional phrases; Croatian language

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