Verbs of Double Government in Serbo-Croatian

Other verbs which "govern" both Dative [Oat.] and Accusative [Acc.] include: pomoCi/ pomagati 'help'. slagati/lagati 'lie'. ponuditi/nuditi 'offer', sluZiti 'serve', suditi 'judge', smetati 'bother, interfere with.' This distribution poses an interesting problem both for the learner of Serbo-Croatian and for the linguist analyzing the language. Hence a considerable literature exists, both about some of the verbs separately, and about all of them, in the larger studies dealing with with the Dat. and/or the Acc. cases (Belie 1951, Stevanovic 1951, 1974, Vusovic 1934, Popovic 1964. Stanojcic 1967, Gortan-Premk 1971. etc.). In these studies the difference in cases that co-occur with these verbs is either attributed to the presumed different meanings of the verbs themselves, or to differences in style. Thus pomagati with the Oat. is said to mean 'help, lend assistance', while pomagati with the Acc. is said to mean 'help, give financial support.' For Stevanovic. lagati 'tell lies' takes the Dat. and lagati 'cheat' takes the Acc .. Commenting on the semantic difference in this verb, as associated with these two cases, Asim Peco asserts that lagati with the Dat. is synonymous with podvaljivati 'cheat', while lagati with the Acc. is synonymous with varati 'deceive'. The two last-named authors thus take up somewhat contrary positions. However correct intuitive judgments of this kind may be in some instances, they provide no rationale for a distribution of this kind. They do not tell us in any way what motivates the speaker to choose one case rather than another. Besides, podvaljivati and varati differ along the same parameter: the former "governs" the Oat .. and the latter the Acc.: thus the same question (why do they co-occur with these two cases) can be asked of these two verbs also. In traditional grammar, as is well known, examples of this kind are regarded as instances of "government". The verb, the principal member of the syntactic construction, determines the relevant category, the case. The problem with the notion of "government" is that it denies any semantic contribution to the message by the case used. [n instances in which a verb "governs" the Ace., or only one case. "government" appears to be a rule that works. [n cases, however. in which we find "double government" (or even "triple government") all that Serbo-Croatian grammars can say is that verbs such as those cited sometimes take one case, and sometimes take another. In this paper we would like to offer, as an alternative. a semantic solution to the problem. We intend to demonstrate that the motivation for the choice between the Oat. and the Ace., in association with one of the verbs mentioned above, is not arbitrary but a consequence of its grammatical meaning. The two cases are in semantic opposition to each other, a part of the larger grammatical system which provides information concerning the extent to which the participant referred to by the noun (in association with these cases) is in control of the event denoted by the verb. The meaning of the Oat. indicates a greater degree of control by the participant, the Ace. a lesser degree of control. This grammatical system