Ima li mjesta za preobrazbu u denominalnoj tvorbi hrvatskih glagola?
Can denominal formation of Croatian verbs be treated as conversion?

Summary/Abstract: The formation of Croatian verbs has been described in various ways in Croatian linguistics. Unfortunately, many descriptions fall short of being truly illuminating since the data have not been held up to sufficient scrutiny. What is missing is their critical assessment in the light of issues and debates that have dominated theoretical morphology, viz. on the nature of derivational and inflectional categories and their differentiation (but see Markovi} 2012). The goal of the present paper is to foreground some of the vagueness and inconsistencies that this situation has engendered in the description of the formation of Croatian verbs from non–verbs. We will discuss arguments for an alternative interpretation of what has typically been analyzed as the derivation of denominal verbs by means of the suffixes –i–, –a–, –ov–a–. This will underscore the need to at least buttress the time–honored descriptions with proper arguments, if not modify them in the light of the arguments presented. This concerns primarily the status and function of those suffixes in the structure of denominal verbs given that a review of existing literature points to: (a) a lack of arguments for treating those suffixes as derivational, (b) the existence of alternative descriptions in anglophone linguistic references of analogical word formation processes in other Slavic languages, including Croatian, where the corresponding/given suffixes are not considered (primarily) derivational, (c) a lack of consideration of the above–mentioned theoretical issues which might have led to more substantiated if not fundamentally different analyses. Since the arguments to be presented clearly indicate a gradient nature of the three suffixes, making them neither uncontroversial means nor unquestionable symptoms of verb formation, we will argue that there is no room for any strict (binary) categorical judgements in the analysis of these verbs, including for a categorical ʻno’ as a response to the question in the title of this paper.

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