Author:
Ivana Oraić Rabušić
Email:
ioraic@ihjj.hr
Summary
The paper discusses the complement clauses of psychological verbs in Croatian. Subordinate
clauses which appear with some psychological verbs can be interpreted in different ways: either as
causative clauses (Šojat 2008) or as clausal realizations of the genitive, dative or instrumental
complements or of prepositional complements (Mrazović and Vukadinović 2009). The aim of this
paper is to define subordinate clauses which appear with certain psychological verbs either as
complements or adjuncts, and also to explore the possibility of interpreting the conjunctions
which introduce subordinate clauses used with psychological verbs as causative ones.
If the aforementioned subordinate clauses are analysed as causative ones, in accordance with the
functional criterion for the classification of sentences, which is common in Croatian grammatical
tradition, they should not be considered to be complements, but adjuncts. In Croatian grammars
causative clauses are described as being in the same relation with the main clause as adverbials of
cause are with their predicates (Težak and Babić 1994: 230, Barić et al. 1997: 495, Katičić 2002:
264, Silić and Pranjković 2005: 341). Since an adverbial of cause can be used with any verb
regardless of its valency features and the semantic group it belongs to, it cannot be considered to
be a complement. Therefore, the causative clause cannot be considered to be a complement either.
Whereas in this paper subordinate clauses which appear with certain psychological verbs are
considered to be complements, we come to the conclusion that they are not causative clauses.
However, they are considered to be neither clausal realisations in the class of case nor
prepositional complements, but sentential complements.
The definition of sentential complements is based on the methodology of the Valency base of
Croatian verbs. Subordinate clauses used with certain psychological verbs are in this paper
considered to be complements which appear either in the position of the genitive, dative or
instrumental complements, or in the position of prepositional complements. For example, the
analysis of sentences Tog trenutka ponosio sam se što živim na području općine. and Radujem se što
ćemo ponovno živjeti zajedno. has revealed that subordinate clauses što živi na području općine and
što ćemo ponovno živjeti zajedno are complements. We consider them to be sentential complements
which are realized in the position of the obligatory case complement. In these sentences the
meaning of the verb radovati se is ‘to feel joyful in expectation of someone/something’ (or ‘to look
forward to someone/something’). When used in this sense, the verb has obligatory nominative
and dative complements. The verb ponositi se has the meaning ‘to feel pride provoked by someone/
something’ (or ‘to be proud of someone/something’) with two obligatory complements: the
nominative and the instrumental. Analysis has also shown that conjunctions which introduce
subordinate clauses used with psychological verbs, such as što, kako, da etc., generally cannot
substitute conjunctions which denote causativity and which can be used with most of the verbs,
such as jer, zato što, zbog toga što etc.:
*Inače dosta sjedim što moram učiti.
*On češće putuje što je većina njegovih koncerata u inozemstvu.
Key words
Croatian; psychological verbs; valency description; complements and
adjuncts; complement clauses; causative clauses
Visits:
1219
Downloads:
27