О неким српскохрватским граматичким феноменима условљеним емпатијом

Abstract

Following Kuno and Kaburaki, the author applies the term empathy to the exhibition of the speaker's attitude towards a person mentioned by him in his sentence. Her claim is that the non-consistent appearance of jedan V with indefinite NPS and the sporadic genitivization of the definite, singular and not modified 'possessor' term, which normally gets adjectivized, are both controlled by empathy factors. Although referentiality is a necessary condition for jedan to be used, it is, however, not a sufficient one; the next requirement concerns the speaker's closeness to the referee. Jedan, namely, must occur with an indefinite NP only if this NP refers to someone from whose angle the speaker is intending to describe the event he is speaking about; otherwise its occurrence is not required. Native speakers do not observe the adjectivization rule wanting that way to intimate not to be in close relations with the 'possessor', i.e. genitivization serves the purpose of signaling the lack of their empathy with him.