A Short Reference Grammar of Slovene
Marc L. Greenberg
University of Kansas
Slovene (or Slovenian) is the language of ca. 2 million speakers in the Republic of Slovenia and neighboring areas of Italy, Austria, and Hungary, as well as of diaspora speakers in Australia and North and South America. Until 1990 it was one of the federal and republican languages of Yugoslavia and since Slovenia’s accession to the European Union in 2004 one of the official languages of the E.U. The westernmost language of the South Slavic group, Slovene is noted for its pitch-accent system, opposition of singular-plural-dual, distinction of infinitival and supine forms, as well as its remarkable diatopic variation (some 48 dialects). The present grammar sketches the main grammar points of the standard language, with an emphasis on contemporary usage in speech and writing and an attempt to provide exemplification with rich context.
Some attention is given to social and stylistic variation, including a sketch of the main phonological discrepancies between the spoken language of Ljubljana (the national capital), and the standard language, which is based on an idealized form of Ljubljana city speech from the 16th century and a selection of features from various dialects in the territory of the Republic. It goes beyond other grammars also in its exemplification and analysis of discourse markers as used both in contemporary writing and formal speech, primarily as attested in transcripts of parliamentary debate.
Contents
Preface and acknowledgments
1 Abbreviations and symbols used
1.1 Abbreviations
1.2 Symbols
2 Basic data
2.1 Historical Sketch
2.2 Relation of Slovene to other languages
2.3 Dialects
2.4 The standard language and its relation to spoken language
3 Phonology
3.1 Alphabet, phonemes, allophony
3.1.1 Vowel reduction
3.1.2 Consonant inventory
3.1.3 Vowel inventory
3.1.4 Word prosody
3.2 Phonological rules
4 Morphology
4.1 General remarks on Slovene morphology
4.2 Morphophonemic segmental alternations in inflection and derivation
4.3 Word-prosody patterns
4.4 Nominal morphology
4.4.1 Feminine paradigms
4.4.2 Masculine paradigms
4.4.3 Neuter paradigms
4.5 Pronominal morphology
4.5.1 Interrogative pronouns
4.5.2 Personal pronouns
4.6 Adjectival morphology
4.6.1 Comparatives and superlatives
4.6.2 Possessive adjectives
4.6.3 Interrogative and pronominal adjectives
4.6.4 Demonstratives pronouns
4.6.5 Possessive pronouns
4.7 Adverbs
4.8 Numeral morphology
4.8.1 Cardinals
4.8.2 Ordinals
4.9 Verbal morphology
4.9.1 Present-tense
4.9.2 Imperative/hortative
4.9.3 Infinitive and supine
4.9.4 L-participle
4.9.5 Participles
4.9.6 Conjugation classes
4.10 Negation
4.11. Conditionals
4.12 Aspect and asp ectual derivation
4.13 Motion verbs
5 Derivational Morphology
5.1 General remarks about derivational morphology
5.2 Nouns
5.3 Adjectives
5.4 Adverbs
5.5 Verbs
5.6 Diminutives and augmentatives
6 Syntax
6.1 Noun phrases
6.1.1 Structure
6.1.2 Meanings and uses of cases and prepositions with cases
6.1.3 Syntax of numerals
6.2 Clause structure
6.2.1 Infinitive and supine
6.2.2 Verbal noun
6.2.3 Subject, object, verb and pro-drop
6.2.3. Impersonal constructions
6.2.4 Clitics
6.2.5 Negation
6.2.6 Passive voice and se-constructions
6.3 Clause chaining
6.3.1 Coordination
6.3.2 Subordination
7 Discourse markers
7. Markers of affirmation, negation
7.2 Markers of focus
7.3 Markers of mood
7.3.1 Emphatic
7.3.2 Exasperative
7.3.3 Hortative
7.3.4 Optative, jussive
7.3.5 Potential
7.3.6 Presumptive
7.4 Markers of definition, explanation and inference
7.5 Question markers
7.6 Tags
7.7 Markers of affirmation, agreement
7.8 Markers of tense and aspect (durativity, iterativity)
7.9 Marker of limitation
7.10 Marker of evidentiality
7.11 Markers of summation, conclusion
7.12 Markers of reformulation and resumption
8 Texts with interlinear transcription and translation
8.1 Standard literary Slovene
8.2 Ljubljana city speech
9 Bibliography
9.1 Sources of material
9.2 References and suggested further reading
ISBN 978389586965 5 (Hardcover). LINCOM Studies in Slavic Linguistics 30. 160pp. 2008.
