Граматичките категории на македонската глаголска именка

Abstract

The Macedonian verbal noun (VN) is a complex word category where the crossing of the grammatical categories of the two cardinal word groups (thenoun and the verb) is particularly manifest. Вeing a nominalized transform of a finite verbal form, the VN on text level functions as a noun. phrase which is secondary, because it refers not to particular objects of reality, but to parti cular events which are treated as entities. In Macedonian, however, the VN basically functions as a verbal form, as an integral part of the verbal paradigm, and its multifaceted development is an important specific trait of Macedonian. The arguments for treating the VN as a verbal category are: its uses in absolute, autonomous predicative position; the possibilities of accomodation to it by means typical of the finite verbal forms; the general derivational possibility from every verbal base; the systemic character of the transformation of negation; the aptness for сxpressing passive diathesis; the development of a transformational possibi lity for the category of reflexiveness, the particular functions of the category of definiteness and the manifestation of aspectual distinction, the wide use in structures of complementation to phasal verbs and in periphrasis with modal verbs and expressions; the wide use of the constructions of the type za + ИN. In this paper an attempt is made to show the complex means of the mani festation of the grammatical categories of definiteness, aspect and number in the Macedonian VN. The analysis shows that these grammatical categories should be investigated not only on the morphological level, but to be correla ted with the essential semantic-syntactic traits. That is the only way to show the displacements and changes which are taking place — Specifically the use of the category of definiteness to demarcate temporal vs. causal and conditio nal vs. modal meanings; the actualization of aspect in spite of its voidness at the formal level and the demarcation of iterative meaning with the category of number.