Morphosemantic features of the third verb type (jeti verbs) in Croatian

Abstract

In the paper Morphosemantic features of the third verb type (jeti verbs) in Croatian Tomislava Bošnjak Botica and Ivana Oraić Rabušić discuss which morphosemantic relations can be established within the third verb type (jeti verbs), or more specifically, which verb meanings can be realized using the pattern -je-+ti (+se) in Croatian. The third verb type is hierarchically organized around its prototypical meaning TO BECOME or TO BE. Verbs that belong to the third type can be divided into two groups or subtypes – (1) verbs with an adjectival root, and (2) verbs with a non-adjectival root. Only the deadjectival subtype is open and productive (although this productivity is very low). Jeti verbs were classified into eight semantic fields: appearance, colour, condition, sensation, emotions, position / motion, sound, meteorology. The paper demonstrates how morphological devices, i.e. inflection, can change the verb from unaccusative into causative form and vice versa by choosing a certain thematic suffix (-je- or -i-). In other words, this thematic suffix has a morphosyntactic value.