Serbo-Croatian Enclitics for English-Speaking Learners * (2004)

Certain Serbo-Croatian personal pronouns, particles, and verb forms are always unaccented and follow different word-order rules than other words in the sentence do. They cannot stand by themselves but always require a preceding accented word to lean or incline on: hence their name enclitics. There is not just one rule governing their use in sentences, but several rules which form a system. Violating any one of the rules can give an incorrect SC sentence, so that they all have to be mastered by the learner of SC. Unfortunately, every presentation of the rules so far in SC grammars and textbooks has been incomplete or even wrong. (1) This paper is an attempt to fill the gap. We can expect the enclitics to be more difficult for English-speaking students than, say, for French-speakers, because (unlike French, Spanish, and many other languages) English has nothing really corresponding to the unaccented enclitic forms with their special rules. English does have special unaccented forms of pronouns, verbs, and the particle not (written as contractions: I'd, he'll, didja, can't), but there are not separate rules for placing these forms in the sentence the way there are in SC. Another difference is that English contracted forms are used mainly in conversational style, while SC enclitics must be used in all styles, both spoken and written, conversational and formal. As far as possible, we will illustrate our rules by giving actual incorrect sentences produced by English-speaking learners of SC (identified by their initials, such as /AA/). The correct form of each sentence will always be given too. The rules for SC enclitics apply to simple sentences (not containing more than one subject and predicate) and to clauses that are joined together to make a complex or compound sentence. From now on, when we say we will mean simple sentences as well. 1. All clitics in a clause must come together; we say that they form an enclitic group. Here are some examples where this rule has not been followed: (1-1) *Onda se vratit cu na fakultet u Minesoti. /TL/ The mark * indicates an ungrammatical (incorrectly formed) sentence. The correct form is: Onda cu se vratiti na fakultet u Minesotu. 'Then I will go back to college in Minnesota.' (1-2) *... pa onda se oblaaio sam. /KA/ ... pa sam se zatim oblaaio. 'And then I used to get dressed.' (1-3) *... jer je znao da je mogao me pobjediti. /BB/ ... jer je znao da me je mogao pobijediti. 'For he knew that he could have defeated me.' (1-4) *da li ste rekli mu da idete sutra u Ljubljanu? /SF/ da li ste mu rekli da idete sutra u Ljubljanu? 'Did you tell him that you were going to Ljubljana tomorrow? 2. The enclitics in the enclitic group must be arranged in the proper order. If they are not, the result is grammatically unacceptable: (2-1) *Svida se mi pjevanje. /KA/ Svida mi se pjevanje. 'I like singing' (If the meaning is 'I like to sing (myself)', then this should be Volim pjevati.) (2-2) *Katkad sam uaio u biblioteci i kasnije se sam vraaao /KA/ kuci. ... a zatim sam se vracao kuci. 'I used to study in the library sometimes and afterwards I would go back home.' (2-3) *Bilo je mi jako zabavno. /BB/ Bilo mi je jako zabavno. 'It was lots of fun for me.' (2-4) *... znam da je mu zbog toga zivot sretniji. /MP/ ... znam da mu je zbog toga zivot sretniji. 'I know that his life is happier because of that.' (2-5) *Trazao te sam. /CC/ Trazio sam te. 'I was looking for you.' (2-6) *Vera je zahvalila Ani na pozivu i rekla je joj da je /DD/ dolazila. Vera je zahvalila Ani na pozivu i rekla joj je da dolazi. 'Vera thanked Ana for the invitation and told her that she was coming. …