Past verb form of third person masculine singular in the vernaculars of Kosovsko Pomoravlje
Authors: Trajkovic Tatjana 
Published: February 2024

The paper provides an overview of the state of the past verb form of the
third person masculine singular in the vernaculars of the Kosovsko
Pomoravlje region. The languages of this area belong to the
Prizren-South-Moravian dialect of the Serbian language, and the category of
past verb form is one of its specificities. The main goal of this research
was to determine the state of the past verb form of the third person
masculine singular in the vernaculars of Kosovsko Pomoravlje. This paper
gives an overview of the forms represented in the vernaculars of Novo Brdo,
Kosovska Kamenica, Gnjilane and Vitina regions. It was established that the
forms that end with -ja (radija) are present in verbs with a vocal base,
while in verbs with a consonant base the suffix -a (isa) is used, provided
that -ja or -aja (isja, isaja) are occasionally also used. Given the
indications that this form is correlated with the third person plural
present, these forms were followed in the same vernaculars. Since the form
of the past verb form of the third person masculine singular is phonetically
linked to the reflex of the final l, other types of words with -l or its
different reflexes followed simultaneously. In addition to the unfixed
past verb form of the third person masculine singular in these vernaculars,
the present form of idev can be heard sporadically with ideju. Inconstancy
is also confirmed in the realization of the final l in other types of
words, because forms with -l and -a are used simultaneously: pepel - pepeja
and pepe. The conclusion is that in the vernaculars of Kosovsko Pomoravlje
its state is insufficiently finalized in terms of the development of forms
with final l, which refers to the past verb form of the third person
masculine singular and to other word types, with the fact that they are
accompanied by forms of the present tense third person plural. These
conclusions confirm the assumption that the categories of the past verb
form of the third person masculine singular and the present of the third
person plural can correlate, to which one should certainly add the
realization of -l with nouns, adjectives and adverbs. In order to establish
a complete picture of the spread of the abovementioned forms, the conditions
in other nearby and slightly more distant dialects were analyzed, as well as
the vernaculars of Presevo, Bujanovac, Vranje, Pcinja, Kumanovo, Skopska
Crna Gora, Letnica, Gatnje, Sirinic, Prizren, Podrima, Sretecka zupa and
Gora. It was concluded that the most stable state is shown in the
vernaculars of Presevo, Bujanovac, Vranje, Gornja Pcinja and Kumanovo. In
those of Prizren and Gatnje, stability is also observed due to the use of
-a, but not -ja in the corresponding forms. This state is accompanied by the
stability of the plural -v present, and this is again best recognized in
more Eastern spoken languages. Apart from that, it can be added that they
keep -l in other word types: nouns, adjectives and adverbs. The summarized
results of the entire research are presented in a table and on a map.