The paper analyses dative constructions that express psychological states in Polish and Croatian. The research is conducted within the framework of comparative and cognitive linguistics, using, among others, the prototype theory. Special attention is paid to the specific properties of the dative case. The analysis of the corpora has revealed that dative constructions can appear with a transitive verb (e.g. przebaczać, wybaczać, darować, zapominać, zarzucaćkomu; opraštati, otpuštati, zaboravljati, zamjeravati, predbacivati, prigovarati komu), an intransitive verb (e.g. wierzyć, ufać, podobać się komu; vjerovati, sviđati se, dopadati se, goditi, prijati komu), a predicate nominal (e.g. być komu wstrętny, obojętnydrogi; biti komu važan, smiješan, nepodnošljiv) an impersonal predicate nominal (e.g. jest komuśniemiło, nieprzyjemnie, niezręcznie; nekome je užasno, teško, neugodno) and a prepositional dative with a verb (e.g. czuć; osjećati (czuć miłość ku komuś; osjećati ljubav, mržnju, strah prema komu). In each of the abovementioned groups we analysed the semantic roles of the dative case and defined the meaning of the nouns. We found that the dative case can have the semantic value of an endpoint, a referent point or an experiencer, depending on the predicate and noun components. The research demonstrates that the Polish constructions share many similarities with the Croatian ones. The similarities relate both to the type of predicate and to the semantic roles of the dative case which appears with the verb. Minor differences are related to the government of individual verbs and the usage frequency of particular constructions, e.g. rare usage of constructions with a predicate nominal in Polish. Considerable differences can be noticed in constructions with a prepositional dative with the verb czuć; osjećati (‘feel’), which were replaced by the other prepositional constructions in Polish. Finally, the conclusion which refers to the semantic network of the dative case is that the dative with psychological predicates stands at the periphery of the dative construal in both languages.

dative; psychological predicates; semantic roles; Croatian; Polish