Валентность этнодиaлектных глаголных лексем в сфере обрядового питания сербского населения в Воеводине

Abstract

Bearing in mind that food is the most universal “language” of culture, we have selected verb lexemes relevant for ritual food culture from the material collected among the native Serbian population in Vojvodina, in an attempt to compile (one of the possible types of) an ethno-dialectal verb collocation dictionary (e.g. share (Serb. deliti) 1. ~ Easter eggs in a church, 2. ~ apples at a cemetery on St. Peter’s Day, 3. ~ leftover food from wedding rites with the women who helped prepare it). This paper points out the tendency of the verbs to collocate with certain complements. This inference is based on a register of the complementing elements (WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, TO WHOM, WITH WHAT) in the recorded ethno-dialectal verb phrases. These complementing elements, present in their own ethno-dialectal lexicalizations, are realized with certain verbs in different combinations and are essential for mapping the comprehensive meaning of an ethno-dialectal verb lexeme. This paper presents the most frequent model, the pattern WHAT+WHEN+WHERE (+WHO), and defines terms for the (in)exclusion of certain complements. Additionally, we have observed verbs which “attract” the largest number of complements, i.e. the multivalent verbs in ritual food culture (e.g. делити / поделити ‘to share, to divide’, донети / донашати, кувати / скувати ‘to cook’, месити / умесити ‘to stir’, оставити / остаљати ‘to leave over, to put aside’).