Naslov
Professional locative preposition drop in Croatian: playing in Zagreb vs. playing Zagreb

Autori
Slamnig, Viktor ; Stanojević, Mateusz-Milan

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
SCLC-2023 Book of abstracts / - Cambridge/Boston, MA, 2023, 47-48

Skup
THE EIGHTEENTH CONFERENCE OF THE SLAVIC COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION (SCLC-2023)

Mjesto i datum
Cambridge (MA), Sjedinjene Američke Države, 01.06.2023. - 03.06.2023

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Croatian, cognitive grammar, transitivity, play verbs, metonymy

Sažetak
The Croatian verb svirati ‘play music’ primarily appears in transitive constructions with nouns referring to instruments or music (svirati harfu/klasičnu glazbu/Bacha ‘play the harp/classical music/Bach’) and intransitive constructions with adverbials (e.g. svirati u Londonu ‘play in London’). Recently, phrases such as svirati Zagreb-ACC ‘play Zagreb’ have started appearing, where the accusative noun refers to the location of a single performance of a band. Comparable constructions appear with penjati se ‘climb’ and voziti ‘drive’. In this paper we explore what motivates such usage. To do this, we conducted a study of the three verbs in the hrWaC corpus. We then focused on svirati and explored its use through a questionnaire and a focus group. The corpus results show that the construction is relatively infrequent, and that it is mainly used by professional musicians, climbers or drivers. A questionnaire testing the naturalness of the svirati Zagreb construction among musicians and non-musicians (N = 259 ; 60.7% men ; 64.9% musicians) showed that the musicians rate the target sentences as significantly more natural than non-musicians, with small to medium effect sizes. No significant differences between the groups were found for other sentences with svirati. Musicians participating in a semi-structured focus group (N = 6) described the construction as sounding more professional and cooler, and fostering their identity as active musicians. Possible English influence was also noted. Even if the construction is ultimately an English calque, its interpretation should still be in line with the conceptual characteristics of Croatian grammar. Conceptually, the shift from an adverbial to a direct object means that a non-core circumstance is promoted to a core participant, resulting in a non-prototypical transitive construction (Hopper and Thompson 1980). The accusative noun (Zagreb-ACC) metonymically refers to a single complete episode of a performance, activating the performance scenario. The details of the scenario are available only to the initiated (i.e., to professionals). Interpreting the second participant metonymically is consistent with other conventional metonymies with svirati (e.g., svirati Bacha ‘play Bach’). More generally, the construction is a subtype of the locative preposition-drop construction (Levin 1993, 43-44), and we term it the professional locative preposition drop. It is similar to the locative alternation, which is available in Croatian. The professional locative preposition drop raises the affectedness of the second participant. The shift from circumstance to an affected core participant enables a metonymic interpretation because: (1) metonymy is precluded with an adverbial expression in the locative (svirati u Zagrebu-LOC does not refer to a single performance) ; (2) the shift in affectedness requires a different interpretation ; (3) metonymic interpretation is available with the second participant. An analogous explanation works, mutatis mutandis, with penjati se and voziti. References Hopper, Paul J., and Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. “Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse.” Language 56 (2): 251–99. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

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