1. Proper treatment of long vs. short
form adjectives in Serbo-Croatian
Branimir Stankovid
and
Boban Arsenijevid
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2. Two forms of S-C adjectives
• S-C adjectives come in two forms, one which
can be described as bare, and is usually
referred to as the short form (SFA), and
another which involves an additional suffix
and a pronominal declension, and is referred
to as the long form (LFA).
mlad(-i) sir (young cheese)
visok(-i) starac (tall old man)
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3. The broad picture
• The ending argued to come from an anaphoric
pronoun, grammaticalized into an affix.
• Different (nuances in the) semantic
contribution across Slavic languages.
• Nowadays, the short form is disappearing,
except from the nominative form used with
(semi-)copular verbs.
• Here: the standard use, still alive in dialects.
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4. Short form adjectives
• SFA traditionally described as limited to non-
specific environments (1).
(1) a. Dobio sam ogreban auto.
gotten Aux.1Sg scratched.SF car
‘I got a scratched car.’ (non-specific!)
b. Taj auto je ogreban.
that car is scratched
‘That car is scratched.’
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5. Long form adjectives
• In specific and definite environments,
adjectives obligatorily take an ending to build
the ‘long form’ (LFA) (2).
(2) Dobio sam ogreban-i auto.
gotten Aux.1Sg scratched.LF car
‘I got the scratched car.’
(minimally specific, a definite reading favored)
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6. *LFA in apposition/secondary
predication
• Only SFAs may appear in apposition or as a
depictive in S-C, two positions where
adjectives are always non-restrictive and
outside the intonational phrases of their
modifyees.
(3) Jovan, svež(*-i) i vesel(*-i), otvori
vrata.
J fresh and cheerful opened door
‘Fresh and cheerful, Jovan opened the door.’
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7. Heaviness constraints on
apposition/secondary predication
• Apposition and secondary predication in S-C
are imposed phonological heaviness
constraints (>2 words, intonational stress?).
(4)Jovan, svež ??(i veseo), otvori vrata.
J fresh and cheerful opened door
‘Fresh and cheerful, Jovan opened the door.’
(5) Jovan dođe svež ??( posle kratke dremke).
J came fresh after short nap
‘Jovan arrived, fresh after a short nap.’
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8. SFA in definite contexts
heaviness constraints
• *Heavy SFAs in definite contexts (<2 words?).
(6) a. taj njegov lak korak
that his light step
b. taj njegov veoma lak korak
that his very light step
c.*taj njegov lak kao pero korak
that his light as feather step
d.?taj njegov ovih dana lak korak
that his these days light step
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9. The same marking for the entire
sequence, e.g. Zlatid (1997)
• (Pg. 39) In a sequence of two or more
adjectives, all adjectives must have the same
(in)definiteness markers.
(65)… c. *dobr-i veseo čovek
good-DEF cheerful-INDEF man
d. *dobar vesel-i čovek
good-INDEF cheerful-DEF man
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10. SFA in definite contexts
• A ‘rare exception’.
(6) Dobio sam onaj mali ogreban
gotten Aux.1Sg that small.LF scratched.SF
auto.
car
‘I got that small scratched car.’ (?)
• A corpus study reveals: a) a considerable
number of examples, b) certain regularities.
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11. SFA in definite contexts: regularities
• In all the excerpted cases, SFAs bear
focus, new information, or both, differing in
the information structure from the rest of the
NP.
• Two classes cover a vast majority of cases:
a) SFAs used as nonrestrictive modifiers with a
strong sense of the speaker’s personal
attitude.
b) SFAs used as epithets for discourse-old and
usually topical referents.
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12. Non-restrictive modifiers
• In (7), the speaker evaluates the ship. ‘Ovaj’
restricts over battle-ships, not over incredible
battle-ships.
(7) Ovaj neverovatan bojni brod je pod
this incredible.SF war.LF ship is under
mojom kontrolom.
my control
‘This INCREDIBLE battle-ship is under my
control.’
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13. (Pseudo-?)Epithets
• In (8), the speaker refers to a discourse-old
individual by an expression that has not been
accommodated as a salient description for this
individual in the discourse so far.
(8) Misliš onaj SLADAK DEČKO?
mean.2Sg that cute.SF boy
‘You mean that CUTE BOY?
• Similar to epithets, yet different in one aspect.
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14. Pseudo-Epithets
• Epithets usually involve a property of the
referent which is known to or expected by all
the interlocutors.
• This is what enables epithets to act like
definite descriptions, and to appear without
demonstratives.
• Expressions with SFAs in this use normally
bear new information, and require the
presence of demonstratives.
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15. Real epithets take LFAs
(9) a. #Misliš onaj GLUP SKOT?
mean.2Sg that stupid.SF animal
b. Misliš onaj GLUP-I SKOT?
mean.2Sg that stupid.LF animal
‘You mean that STUPID ANIMAL?
c. Misliš onaj smešan SKOT?
mean.2Sg that silly.SF animal
‘You mean that ANIMAL, who’s also silly?’
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16. Pseudo-Epithets as non-restrictive
modifies
• Bad without the demonstrative; well
paraphrased by a non-restrictive relative (6a),
and inadequately by a restrictive one (6b).
(8) Misliš #(onaj) SLADAK DEČKO?
mean.2Sg that cute.SF boy
‘You mean that CUTE BOY?
(10) a. …that one, who I consider a cute boy?
b. …the one who I consider a cute boy?
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17. All SFAs in definite environments are
non-restrictive modifiers
• All excerpted examples, including those not
falling in the two classes above, are well
paraphrased with non-restrictive relative
clauses involving (semi-)copular predicates.
(11)a.onaj ljut muški znoj pun dlaka
that spicy.SFA male sweat full hears.Gen
b. onaj muški znoj pun dlaka, koji je ljut
c. / onaj muški znoj pun dlaka koji je ljut
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18. Sproat & Shih (1991)
• All adjectives are reduced relative clauses
(similar arguments by Larson, Kayne, Cinque…)
• Then:
1. All restrictive adjectives are reduced
restrictive relative clauses.
2. All non-restrictive adjectives are reduced
non-restrictive relative clauses.
• LFAs fall in the former class, SFAs in the latter.
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19. Apposition, secondary predication
• Apposition and secondary predication also fall
in the class of non-restrictive modifiers.
• Non-restrictive modification:
1. apposition: heavy non-restrictive modifier
2. secondary predication: heavy non-restrictive
modifier
3. SFA: non-heavy non-restrictive modifier
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20. Two types of movement
• All S-C prenominal modifiers are reduced
relative clauses.
• The restrictive ones are attracted by the
deictic feature of the noun (Cheng & Sybesma
1999), with which they agree (the ending).
• The non-restrictive ones move up for
phonological reasons (Zubizarreta 1998): they
do not have enough phonological material to
form prosodic phrases.
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21. Restrictive modifiers - LFAs
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koji je mlad[uDEIC]koji je mlad[uDEIC]
[iDEIC]
sir
FP
koji je mlad-i[uDEIC]
• LFAs are attracted by and agree with the
[DEIC] feature of the NP.
mlad-i sir
young.LFA cheese

22. SFAs (=non-restrictive prenominal)
2222
koji[iDEIC] je mlad[uDEIC]koji[iDEIC] je mlad[uDEIC]
sir
• SFAs move for phonological reasons: after
reduction, the remnant is too light to be a
prosodic word.
mlad sir
young.SFA cheese

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24. Information structure
• Non-restrictive relative clauses have an
independent information structure.
• When elided, the focal/new information part
is preserved (and preposed).
• Modifiers coming from non-restrictive relative
clauses have discourse functions of their own
– they do not share those of the modified NPs.
• Only the heavy ones may bear an adequate
intonation in isolation; the others prepose.
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25. Preposing
• Restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers
prepose for different reasons.
• Restrictive modifiers are attracted by the
deictic features of the DP, which they agree
with.
• Non-restrcitive modifiers move for reasons of
phonological deficiency, i.e. inability to form a
prosodic phrase.
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