Use of genitive without prepositions in the spoken language of youth from Vranje
Authors: Stankovic Dragana 
Published: November 2022

The paper presents the results of the research into the use of genitive
without prepositions in the spoken language of young people from Vranje. The
aim of this paper is to determine which case forms, due to the presence of
analytism and exposure to the standard language, are used by the youth from
Vranje to express the semantics of standard genitive without prepositions.
The speech of forty preschool and primary school children from Vranje was
analyzed. The corpus material used for this paper consists of transcripts of
spontaneous conversations that the author conducted with the participants.
The analysis includes all examples in which the semantic values of genitive
without prepositions are realized by various morphosyntactic structures, in
adnominal and adverbial positions. Genitive without prepositions can be used
in five different positions: with the noun (1), with the adjective (2),
with the quantifier (3), with the demonstrative particle (4), and with the
verb (5). This approach allowed us to understand the competitive
relationship between analytical and synthetic case forms and their
respective positions. The rich semantic potential of the genitive without
prepositions, which is expressed by different case structures, was observed
in the speech of young people from Vranje. A notable type of expression that
is worth mentioning is the prepositionless general case and an analytical
structure containing a general case and preposition. Nevertheless, the
stability of the abovementioned case structures is affected by the use of
genitive without prepositions in nearly all semantic categories, as a result
of the influence of the standard language. Within the system of
morphosyntactic forms used to express genitive meanings, genitive without
prepositions is used as a competitive form to the general case form (?centar
Beograd?), the analytical construction (?najvisi vrh na Balkansko
poluostrvo?) and prepositional case construction with prepositions od and iz
(?od moje bake brat?, ?nastavnik iz istorije?). Moreover, it has a strong
foothold in frequently used phrases, terms used in school, administration,
names of institutions, holidays, TV shows (?Hram Svetog Save?, ?Dani
Vranja?, ?Zvezde granda?, ?cas razrednog staresine?), as well as in temporal
structures used as idiomatic adverbial phrases (?sledece godine, prosle
nedelje, svakog vikenda?). As for the position of the genitive without
prepositions, the analysis has shown that its position significantly
affects the genitive structure. Namely, genitive without prepositions is
more easily used in the adnominal position, with the noun and quantifier.
On the other hand, the adjective, the demonstrative particle, and the verb
that requires a complement in the form of an object, as well as the verb
(not) to have used in the sense of ?to exist?, completely or partially
prevent the use of genitive without prepositions. The research findings
indicate that it is possible to restructure the analytical declension system
of the vernacular of Vranje in the direction of synthetic forms, under the
influence of the language standard.