Specifying Clauses in the Administrative-Legal Style of 19th-Century Serbian Language Cover Image

Спецификативне реченице у административно-правном стилу српскога језика XIX века
Specifying Clauses in the Administrative-Legal Style of 19th-Century Serbian Language

Author(s): Jelena M. Pavlović Jovanović
Subject(s): Syntax, Historical Linguistics, South Slavic Languages
Published by: Филозофски факултет, Универзитет у Приштини
Keywords: administrative-legal style; Serbian language; 19th century; specifying clauses.

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the status of specifying clauses in the administrative-legal style of the Serbian language dating back to the 19th century. The corpus includes texts from 19th-century constitutions (adopted in 1835, 1838, 1869, 1888, and 1901) and the Collection of Laws and Decrees adopted by the Principality/Kingdom of Serbia. To isolate the normative-legal and ideological layers of the texts, the analysis employs a combination of historical-linguistic, syntactic-semantic, and functional methods, as well as legal theory methodology. As a result of the recent development of the Serbian language, the specifying meaning is only found infrequently in the examined corpus. Clauses introduced by the conjunction с тим да occur in postpositions and encode information of secondary importance to administrative-legal norms. Furthermore, an online (available) search of the Legal Information System of the Republic of Serbia reveals that the specifying meaning is only marginal even in modern legal language.

  • Issue Year: 54/2024
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 51-63
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Serbian
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