Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary

CHAPTER 16

282 CHAPTER 16 148 Verbal nouns, continued Most verbs can form a noun which refers either to the process of the action or its result. This form, called the verbal noun, is made from many imperfective verbs, as well as a few perfective ones, by adding the suffix -nje (review [108, 116]). A smaller group of nouns can form a different sort of verbal noun, one with a more abstract meaning and which can refer only to the result of a verbal action and never its process. This noun is formed by dropping the -ti of the infinitive and adding the suffix -će. Verbs which can form such nouns are limited to types 6, 7, 11, and those verbs of type 15b which can take an alternative infinitive ending in -nuti. A related sort of formation is found in verbs of type 8 which include the root čest-: in this case one drops the entire sequence -vovati from the end of the infinitive to form the verbal noun. The vowel before the suffix -će is always long, and in all but the latter type also rising. VERBAL NOUN type infinitive verbal noun -će 6 discover òtkriti otkrìće discovery cover pòkriti pokrìće backing drink piti pìće drink shed + blood pròliti krv krvoprolìće bloodshed 7 breathe in nadàhnuti nadahnùće inspiration dawn svànuti svanùće daybreak sprain ugànuti uganùće sprain be revived uskrsnuti uskrsnùće resurrection 11 exempt from izùzeti izuzèće exception undertake podùzeti poduzèće firm, company undertake predùzeti preduzèće firm, company conceive zàčeti začèće conception 15b achieve dòstignuti dostignùće achievement disappear ìščeznuti iščeznùće disappearance depose svrgnuti svrgnùće dethronement raise up ùzdignuti uzdignùće ascension 8 participate ùčestvovati ùčešće participation commiserate sàučestvovati sàučešće condolences B,C poduzeti, / B,S preduzeti; C poduzeće / B,S preduzeće; B,S učestvovati / C sudjelovati; B,C,S saučešće / C sućut CHAPTER 16 283 149 Compound verbal tenses, review BCS has six compound tenses, each composed of an auxiliary and another verbal form. One of these tenses, the first future, uses a present tense form of hteti / htjeti as the auxiliary, combining it with the infinitive (review [95]). The other five use some form of biti as the auxiliary, combining it with the L-participle. The most widely used of these, the compound past, uses the basic present tense forms of biti (review [69, 104]), while the exact future uses the secondary present tense of biti (review [130, 144a]), and the conditional uses an archaic form of the aorist tense of biti (review [131]). Of these four tenses, all but the exact future have the choice to use clitic form auxiliaries or full form auxiliaries, although in the case of the conditional the two look the same on the printed page. Only clitic auxiliaries are given in the review paradigms below. The L-participle must agree in number and gender with the subject; only masculine singular forms are given in the review paradigms below. first future compound past conditional exact future 1sg. ìći ću ìšao sam ìšao bih budem ìšao 2sg. ìći ćeš ìšao si ìšao bi budeš ìšao 3sg. ìći će ìšao je ìšao bi bude ìšao 1pl. ìći ćemo ìšli smo ìšli bismo budemo ìšli 2pl. ìći ćete ìšli ste ìšli biste budete ìšli 3pl. ìći će ìšli su ìšli bi budu ìšli The two remaining tenses use a compound auxiliary. One, the past conditional, combines the L-participle of biti with the aorist forms of biti (review [131]), while the other, the pluperfect , uses a past tense form of biti as its auxiliary. This auxiliary, in turn, can take the form either of the compound past or the imperfect. Although in principle these two tenses are used in all situations where English would use the corresponding English tenses, in practice these BCS tenses are much more rarely encountered. In most situations, perfective verbs in the conditional or the compound past convey the same meaning. Croatian uses the compound tenses somewhat more frequently in the spoken language than Bosnian and Serbian, which prefer overall to phrase sentences so as to communicate the same meaning in other ways. Both the pluperfect...