On the sense of the ellipsis of the verbal se

Abstract

The author points to the fact that in Serbian the morpheme se, which is normally required to occur (for either lexical or grammatical reasons) with the verbal predicate, happens sometimes to be deleted. She tries to bring to light the principles which underlay such a phenomenon. Her conclusions are the following: The abscence/presence of se within the second clause of an impersonally structured compound sentence depends on the deep subject identity/non-identity condition (cf. Ovim se pokušava da objasni zašto... [By means of this X is trying to explain why...'] / Ovim se traži da se objasni zašto... [By means of this X is asking Y to explain why...']). In dialogues by deleting se the speaker adds more decisiveness to his retort (cf. [the person A:] Da li se to sme? 'is this allowed'?' - [the person B:] Sme! 'it is'). In conjoined sentences the ellipsis of one instance of se is the grammatical mark of a high degree of cohesion between them (cf. Zaverenički su se pogledali i osmehnuli jedan drugom 'they looked to each other and smiled to each other in the way conspirators do it'), whereas the retaining of both se signalizes a rather loose cohesion (cf. Zaverenički su se pogledali i osmehnuli su se jedno drugom 'they looked to each other in the way conspirators do it, and they smiled to each other').