Open AccessOn basic meaning of the active perfect in Serbian and its typological classification
Author(s) -
Bogdan Stojanović
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
južnoslovenski filolog
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2406-0763
pISSN - 0350-185X
DOI - 10.2298/jfi1802109s
Subject(s) - serbian , present perfect , meaning (existential) , narrative , philosophy , linguistics , epistemology
This paper is an attempt to typologically classify the Serbian perfect, i.e. to determine to what extent the perfect in Serbian can still be considered a perfect. The basic meaning of the Serbian perfect is indeed the one of perfect; however, the perfect can be used in narrative as well. The aorist and the truncated perfect also express the perfect meaning; this meaning, however, is not their basic meaning; in fact, these two past forms are unspecified for temporal perspective. The perfect expresses the whole spectrum of perfect subtypes, whereas the aorist and the truncated perfect are more specialized forms, more limited in expressing perfect semantics. The perfect in Serbian was classified as the general expanded perfect, whereas the aorist and the truncated perfect were classified as the specialized expanded preterite, and the specialized expanded perfect, respectively.