doiSerbia

Anthropocentric language theory and Serbian case systems

Topolinjska Zuzana (Varšava - Skoplje)

The author understands case as a relationship of syntactic dependence between a subordinated noun phrase and the governing syntactic construction (predicative expression and/or another noun phrase). The above definition construes case as a universal category characteristics of all the languages sharing the nomen vs verbum opposition. Particular cases are conceived as primarily semantically motivated. The two relevant semantic parameters are /+/ -human / (or /+/ -animated/) and /+/ -localized/, i. e. - in other words - the so-called hierarchy of animateness and the spatial location of the objects that the corresponding noun phrases refer to. N and D are being characterized as /+ hum/, A and I as /-hum/ and L as belonging to another semantic paradigm is defined simply as /+ loc/. Results of the analyses of morphological syncretism's and of syntactic exponents of the NPs-dependence found in Serbian case systems support the above tentative interpretation of the case as a (semantic and) syntactic category.