On the aspect of the two present tense paradigms of the verb biti ‘to be’ in Croatian
On the aspect of the two present tense paradigms of the verb biti ‘to be’ in Croatian

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the issue of the aspect of the two present paradigms of the verb biti ‘to be’ in the Croatian language. Standard Croatian lexicography and grammars, such as Daničić (1880–1882: lemma bȉti), Silić and Pranjković (2005: 88), explain the difference between the two present forms of this verb as one of verbal aspect (the present form jesam is considered imperfective, and budem perfective), while some grammars do not treat their aspect at all. Th e exceptions are Glasovi i oblici hrvatskoga književnog jezika (Babić et al. 1991: 688, 719), and the Serbo–Croatian grammar written in English by Brown and Alt (2004: 54), where budem is, accurately, described as a bi–aspectual form. Linguistic scholarship, however, addressed the aspect of budem several times (cf. Ivić 1955). Basing their conclusions on their exploration of the Croatian digital corpora – which had shown that budem can be used both in the contexts characteristic of perfective verbs and in some of those characteristic of imperfective verbs – the authors propose that the present form budem should be considered bi–aspectual. In accordance with this, they consider the traditional terms imperfective present and perfective present as inappropriate for these forms of biti and rather propose terms based on formal characteristics, whose accuracy cannot be questioned – the athematic present (jesam) and the thematic present (budem).

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