Valency patterns of manner of speaking verbs in Croatian

2.1 Verbs of speaking in Croatian

In order to determine whether MoS constitute a distinct class of verbs, it is important to examine the valency patterns of verbs of speaking. While this research is not primarily focused on verbs of speaking, a description of the prototypical verbs of speaking (reći ‘say, tell’, govoriti ‘speak, talk’, pričati ‘talk’, kazati ‘say, tell’) in their transitive use, i.e., when they mean ‘to transfer ideas, information or a message through speech’, has been mostly conducted based on previous literature. Additionally, to confirm the use of certain prepositions, the Sketch Engine’s Word Sketch tool was utilized, resulting in observations that have not been described in the consulted literature. However, it has to be emphasized that further corpus research is necessary for a more comprehensive analysis of verbs of speaking.

Regarding the complements with the verbs of speaking, the theme, i.e., the message, can be expressed by the (2) clausal complement, (3) quotation, (4) accusative complement, and prepositional complements (5–7). The clausal complement can be introduced with the conjunctions da ‘that’ and kako ‘that’, which are interchangeable with the verbs of speaking, and neka ‘∼let’, which is used when the goal is to encourage the actant to perform an activity (see Katičić 2002, 365–6, Belaj and Tanacković Faletar 2020, 292). Embedded interrogative clauses are introduced by wh-words (e.g., što ‘what’, tko ‘who’, koliko ‘how many’, zašto ‘why’, gdje ‘where’) (see Raguž 1997, 420, Pranjković 2001, 66, Barić et al. 1995, 515–8, Belaj and Tanacković Faletar 2020, 290–1). As well as a clausal complement, verbs of speaking have quotation as a complement which emphasizes the content of the message (cf. Tuđman Vuković 2010, 205).

The theme can be expressed by the accusative complement, which usually denotes a narrative-related expression (istina ‘truth’, laž ‘lie’, riječ ‘word’, glupost ‘nonsense’ with the verbs reći ‘say, tell’, govoriti ‘speak, talk’, kazati ‘say, tell’; priča ‘story’, vic ‘joke’, bajka ‘fairytale’, glupost ‘nonsense with the verb pričati ‘talk’).

Also, the theme can be expressed by the prepositional complement o ‘about’ + locative, which implies knowledge of something (Tuđman Vuković 2010, 89), of condition or some event related to the entity that is expressed with the noun in the locative case (Pranjković 2001, 64). Pranjković (2007) stated that this prepositional complement cannot be used with the verbs kazati and reći ‘say, tell’ without contextualization of the topic (5a), which is expressed by additional accusative (5b) or clausal complement (5c).

The prepositional phrase za ‘for’ + accusative can also be used to express the theme, i.e. the topic of the conversation. Similarly, contextualization of the topic is necessary (6) or it has to be known from the context (7) (cf. Ivić 1972, as cited in Štrbac 2010).

Even though it is not described in the literature on Croatian verbs of speaking, as far as we know, it can be noticed that with the verbs govoriti ‘speak, talk’ (8) and pričati ‘talk’ (9) the prepositional complement protiv ‘against’ + genitive can be used. It seems that with the verbs reći ‘say, tell’ (10) and kazati ‘say, tell’ (11) this complement can be used if it is accompanied by a nominal in the accusative, mostly pronouns nešto ‘something’, ništa ‘nothing’, svašta ‘everything’, riječ ‘word’, etc.

Regarding the recipient, it is stated that it can be expressed by the dative complement with all verbs, but, according to Tuđman Vuković (2010), they differ regarding frequency. More precisely, the recipient in the dative is rarely expressed with the verbs govoriti ‘speak, talk’ and kazati ‘say, tell’ and more frequently with the verbs pričati ‘talk’ and reći ‘say, tell’.^[3]

The recipient expressed with the prepositional phrase na ‘at’ + accusative does not occur with the prototypical verbs of speaking, while it can occur with MoS, when it is used to emphasize the inequality of the participants (Tuđman Vuković 2010, 147).

MoS differ semantically from the verbs of speaking since they additionally express the intensity, volume, comprehensibility, quality of the voice, the speaker’s psychophysical state, and/or the impression that the speaker leaves on the hearer. Tuđman Vuković (2010, 159) concludes that focusing on the manner of pronunciation, whether it is loudness or comprehensibility, is a specificity that distinguishes these verbs from the prototypical verbs of speaking. We can add that they differ in that most often the emotional component is expressed. In this article, we will also investigate if they differ by their valency patterns, which is described in Sections 4 and 5.

2.2 Classification of MoS

When describing and classifying the MoS, the semantic components are taken into account, which primarily refer to the auditory characteristics of the voice and the effect it has on the recipient of the message or the participant who listens to that voice. These verbs contain emotional and judgmental components. A list of physical auditory and semantic–pragmatic categories can be found in the literature. Thus, pitch, volume, speed, and rhythm are classified as physical auditory characteristics, and semantic–pragmatic components are directionality, persistence, formality, speaker’s attitude, speaker’s intention, effect on the hearer (Vergaro et al. 2014, Sandford 2017).

Tuđman Vuković (2010) divided English verbs of speaking into five groups, and we classify three of them as MoS in this article:^[4]

1. Verbs of shouting and whispering – related to the volume of speaking. The emphasis is on the speaker’s voice. They are subdivided into: a. verbs of shouting and b. verbs of whispering. According to Tuđman Vuković (2010), there are two causes for loud speaking, the first of which are environmental reasons, i.e., the spatial distance between the speaker and the hearer, or noise, and the second is the psychosomatic state of the speaker, i.e., positive emotions (e.g., excitement or joy) and negative emotions (e.g., fear or anger) (shout, yell, holler). Verbs of whispering (whisper) are related to a quiet voice which signifies intimacy and friendship (Tuđman Vuković 2010, 169).

2. Verbs of stammering and mumbling – related to the manner of pronunciation. The emphasis is on the speaker’s voice. They are subdivided into: a. verbs of stammering, which imply that speech is intermittent; phonemes or syllables are repeated due to speech difficulties or excitement (stammer, stutter), and b. verbs of mumbling, which imply incomprehensible speech as a result of insufficient mouth opening (mumble, murmur, mutter) (Tuđman Vuković 2010, 152–3).

3. Verbs of babbling – related to the informal nature of speaking, long and boring speaking. The emphasis is on the content of the message, the speaker or the hearer. They are subdivided into: a. verbs of babbling (babble, blather) and verbs of chatting (chit-chat, gossip).

Tuđman Vuković (2010, 173–89) also describes verbs that are primarily not related to speaking, but due to metonymical (verbs of breathing, verbs of laughing, verbs of crying, verbs of spitting, and other verbs of physiological processes) and metaphorical (verbs of sounds made by animals, verbs of sound emission, verbs of movement and force) extensions can be used as verbs of speaking. She analyzed the semantics and valency patterns of verbs in English, while Croatian verbs are not in the author’s focus.^[5]

In Croatian, Katičić (2002), within the chapter on declarative clauses, divided verbs of speaking into several subclasses, among others, into a subclass of verbs of speaking that denote evaluation of the content (e.g., tresnuti ‘slap = blabber’, odbrusiti ‘snap’), verbs that denote voice (e.g., vikati ‘yell’, plakati ‘cry’, mucati ‘stutter’, gunđati ‘grumble’), verbs that denote making sounds (e.g., piskati ‘beep’, lajati ‘bark’), and verbs with extremely negative evaluation (e.g., srati ‘shit’, prditi ‘fart’, jebati ‘fuck’). However, he did not offer an analysis of MoS.

For Croatian, Mikelić Preradović (2020, 62) provided a list of 71 verbs that correspond to the class speak_manner described by Levin (1993), but their semantic and syntactic features have not been thoroughly investigated. Mikelić Preradović (2020, 62) states that the MoS are intransitive and have no complements. That is often the case because the emphasis is only on the manner the message is conveyed, i.e., the voice or impression that the speaker leaves on the hearer or recipient, so the recipient and the message itself are often neglected. However, sometimes a message, i.e., the theme, and the participant of the activity to which the message is addressed, i.e., the recipient, can be expressed.^[6]

2.3 Research questions

This research is the first thorough research of semantic differences between MoS and the prototypical verbs of speaking and among MoS themselves. It is also the first detailed analysis of valency patterns of MoS in Croatian, following the valency theory described in Section 2.4. Therefore, we have focused our research around the following questions:

RQ1: Is the semantic component of a manner, which MoS have, reflected in the syntactic structure, i.e., does it change the valency patterns of MoS in comparison to the prototypical verbs of speaking?

RQ2: Is it justified to separate MoS into a special class of verbs?

RQ3: When MoS are transferred from some other semantic class (e.g., verbs of sounds made by animals, verbs of breathing, psych-verbs), do their valency patterns match with valency patterns of prototypical verbs of speaking class or with their original semantic class? How does this relate to the hypothesis that the same semantic class of verbs shows the same syntactic behavior?

2.4 Theoretical framework

The description and analysis of MoS in this article rely on two different foundations. First, the description of Croatian MoS is inspired by previous studies of English MoS (e.g., Zwicky 1971, Levin 1993) and other European MoS described in English (Stoica 2020), presented in Section 2.

Second, the analysis of sentences in this article is in accordance with valency theory (Tesnière 1959/2015) and dependency grammars (Engel 2009, Helbig 1992, Ágel 2000), in which a verb is a precondition for the sentence structure (Ágel and Fischer 2010, 224). The verb is a central element of the sentence and appears in the environment of several dependents. Each dependent can be either a complement (in valency and dependency relation to the verb) or an adjunct (in dependency relation to the verb) (Tesnière 1959/2015). Only complements are selected by the verb and their form is mostly determined by the verb. The same type of complements appears with the same classes of verbs. Therefore, linguists working in the dependency theory aim to identify the classes of complements characteristic for a specific language (cf. Engel 2009, Schumacher et al. 2004, Šojat 2008, Samardžija 1986, for German and Croatian). Our analysis relies on the dependency descriptions suggested for Croatian (Samardžija 1986, Šojat 2008), especially on the analysis by means of ten classes of complements suggested in Birtić et al. (2018). The analysis is influenced by the aforementioned authors, but also in a great deal by Schumacher et al. (2004).

Complements of all Croatian verbs can be described as nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional, adverbial, predicative, infinitive, and clausal complements (Birtić et. al 2018, 6). Some of them can be both obligatory and optional (e.g., dative, instrumental, adverbial), and some are only obligatory (e.g., nominative, predicative). In this research, we operate with the clausal, accusative, dative, and prepositional complements. Although in Birtić et al. (2018), quotation is a subclass of clausal complement, in this article, we singled it out as a separate complement to show more clearly verb’s valency patterns. The realization of an accusative complement is often a noun, an indefinite (e.g., nešto ‘something’), or a negative pronoun (e.g., ništa ‘anything’) that refers to a result of speaking. Dative complements are reserved for recipients with MoS, as in many other languages, while prepositional complements can be a realization of both recipients and the topic of the conversation, i.e., theme. Clausal complements are a realization of the theme, i.e., the topic or the content of the conversation.

4.1 Verbs with emphasis on volume

Verbs with emphasis on volume, as already stated in Section 4, are divided into a subclass of verbs of loud speaking and a subclass of verbs of quiet speaking. The following subsections will describe their semantic and syntactic properties and conclude whether a semantic component such as volume affects the valency pattern of verbs.

4.2 Verbs of incomprehensible speaking

The verbs muml(j)ati _ipfv ‘mumble’, frfljati _ipfv ‘gibber’, and mrmljati _ipfv ‘mutter’ mean ʻspeak incomprehensibly, so that it is difficult to understand’, and they appear in the corpus with the adverbs nerazgovijetno ‘incomprehensibly, inarticulately’, nerazumno ‘ununderstandably’. The theme is expressed by the clausal complement (29), quotation (30), the accusative complement (31), and the prepositional complement o ‘about’ + locative (32). With this class of verbs, the recipient is rarely expressed (32) because the emphasis is on the speaker and/or the message, while the recipient is unimportant, as stated in Section 2.2 (cf. Tuđman Vuković 2010, 153). The speaker is often perceived as a participant focused on oneself, which can also be seen by the fact that the construction sebi u bradu ‘oneself in the chin = to oneself’ often accompanies these verbs (29–30).^[11]

The verbs frfljati _ipfv ‘gibber’, mrmljati _ipfv ‘mutter,’ and brundati _ipfv ‘mutter, growl’ occur with the prepositional phrase protiv ‘against’ + genitive (33), as well as the prepositional phrase na ‘at’ + accusative (34).

The verbs mucati _ipfv and zamuckivati _ipfv ‘stutter’ mean ʻspeak intermittently or speak repeating syllablesʼ, resulting in slurred speech. Sometimes the cause of such speech is stated (e.g., od bijesa ‘with anger’, od treme ‘with stage fright’, od uzbuđenja ‘with excitement’, od radosti ‘with joy’), if it is not seen as a speech disorder. The recipient is almost never expressed because the emphasis is on the manner of pronunciation.^[12] The theme, if it is expressed, can be expressed by the accusative complement (35), the prepositional complement o ‘about’ + locative (36), the clausal complement (37), and the quotation (38).

4.3 Verbs of meaningless speaking and complaining

Verbs of meaningless speaking and complaining are divided into a subclass of verbs of meaningless speaking and a subclass of verbs of complaining, as stated in Section 4. Both subclasses involve a negative evaluation of the speaker and/or message, but in the second subclass, the dissatisfaction is directed toward the recipient, which impacts the valency patterns. That is the reason for their separation into two subclasses.

4.4 Verbs with emphasis on an emotional component

When describing the activity using verbs of this class, the emphasis is placed on the psychophysical state of the speaker. With the verbs uzdisati _ipfv /uzdahnuti _pfv ‘sigh’, dahnuti _pfv /dahtati _ipfv ‘gasp’, disati _ipfv ‘breathe’, soptati _ipfv ‘chug’, the emphasis is on the flow of air that occurs when breathing and the cause is fatigue, excitement, or passion. As stated in Section 2.2, with these verbs, there is a metonymical extension from verbs of breathing to MoS. These verbs have the theme expressed as a quotation (49) or a clausal complement (50), and extremely rarely a prepositional complement o ‘about’ + locative (51).

With these verbs, the recipient is found in a few examples in the corpus and most often refers to God (52). The recipient can also be expressed with the prepositional complement k ‘to’ + dative (53), which puts the focus on the recipient who is far away and the message does not directly reach him.^[15]

Pain or grief is expressed with the verbs jaukati _ipfv /jauknuti _pfv ‘moan’, jecati _ipfv ‘sob’, plakati _ipfv ‘cry’, stenjati _ipfv ‘groan’, naricati _ipfv ‘bewail, lament’, kukati _ipfv ‘lament, whine’, and with the verbs kmečati _ipfv ‘squeal’ or tuliti _ipfv ‘howl’, which always have a negative connotation. In the corpus, the recipient in the dative is expressed with the verbs jecati _ipfv ‘sob’, plakati _ipfv ‘cry,’ and jaukati _ipfv /jauknuti _pfv ‘moan’ (54), while with other verbs it occurs seldom or does not occur at all. The theme is expressed as a quotation (54) or a clausal complement (55), while with the verbs jaukati _ipfv ‘moan’, naricati _ipfv ‘bewail, lament’, plakati _ipfv ‘cry’, kukati _ipfv ‘lament, complain’, kmečati _ipfv ‘squeal’, tuliti _ipfv ‘howl’, and zavijati _ipfv ‘howl’, the prepositional complement o ‘about’ + locative was found (56). The accusative complement was found with the verbs tuliti _ipfv ‘howl’ and stenjati _ipfv ‘groan’ (57), and the prepositional complement protiv ‘against’ + genitive with the verbs kukati _ipfv ‘lament, whine’, tuliti _ipfv ‘howl,’ and zavijati _ipfv ‘howl’ (58).

Certain verbs (e.g., naricati _ipfv ‘bewail, lament’, uzdisati _ipfv ‘sigh’, plakati _ipfv ‘cry’, kukati _ipfv ‘lament, whine’) can occur with the theme expressed by the prepositional phrase za ‘for’ + instrumental (59), which indicates the cause or goal of emotion and it is about a participant who is no longer present. The prepositional phrase nad ‘over’ + instrumental also can be used in these sentences (60). These prepositional complements do not come as a surprise since most of these verbs with their first meaning belong to the class of psych-verbs, which have that valency pattern (e.g., žaliti _ipfv ‘mourn’, patiti _ipfv ‘suffer’, čeznuti _ipfv ‘long’, tugovati _ipfv ‘grieve’; about valency patterns of psych-verbs in Croatian, see Belaj and Tanacković Faletar 2011, Birtić et al. 2018).

The emotional component is expressed with the lemmata whose first meaning belongs to the class of verbs of sound made by animals (see Brač and Matijević 2021). When verbs of sound made by animals have a human in the subject position, they are used as MoS and they describe both the attitude toward the speaker’s voice and the speaker’s attitude to the recipient of the message (cf. Levin et al. 1997, 37). With these verbs, negative emotions are most often expressed, i.e., anger or rage (e.g., frktati _ipfv ‘hiss’, graktati _ipfv /graknuti _pfv ‘caw’, kr(ij)eštati _ipfv ‘screech’, režati _ipfv ‘growl’, štektati _ipfv ‘crackle’, roktati _ipfv ‘snort, grunt’, siktati _ipfv /siknuti _pfv /prosiktati _pfv ‘hiss’, rikati _ipfv ‘roar’) or some dissatisfaction (e.g., cviliti _ipfv /cviljeti _ipfv ‘whine’, cijukati _ipfv ‘squeak’). With these verbs, the volume component and the effect it has on the hearer are also expressed; so the verbs graktati _ipfv /graknuti _pfv ‘caw’, kr(ij)eštati _ipfv ‘screech’, roktati _ipfv ‘snort, grunt’, and rikati _ipfv ‘roar’ express an increased volume and an unpleasant voice. The verbs siktati _ipfv /prosiktati _pfv ‘hiss’ express a reduced volume, while the verbs cviliti _ipfv /cviljeti _ipfv ‘whine’ and cijukati _ipfv ‘squeak’ denote a muffled and/or squeaky voice. Although the volume component is present, we have classified these verbs in this group because we believe that the emotional component is more prominent.

With the verbs that emphasize anger, the participant to whom the anger is directed, i.e., the recipient, is often expressed with the prepositional phrase na ‘at’ + accusative (61, 64), as well as with verbs of loud speaking, as described in Section 4.1.1. The theme can be expressed by the prepositional phrase protiv ‘against’ + genitive (62), and by the clausal complement (63), quotation (64), and the prepositional phrase o ‘about’ + locative (65).

There are fewer verbs that express the speaker’s happiness and voice that sound pleasant, e.g., cvrkutati _ipfv ‘tweet, chirp’, žvrgoljiti _ipfv ‘chirp’, gugutati _ipfv ‘coo’, gukati _ipfv ‘coo’.^{[17] , [18]} With these verbs, the recipient is expressed by the dative (66–67), and the theme most often by the clausal complement (66), the quotation (67), and the prepositional complement o ‘about’ + locative (68).

With the verbs cičati _ipfv /ciknuti _pfv ‘squeak’, cijukati _ipfv ‘squeak’ the emphasis is on a thin, squeaky voice, and they are used to express different emotions, more precisely excitement or surprise (69), joyfulness (70), but also pain, sadness, or dissatisfaction (71). The theme can be expressed by the quotation (69), the prepositional phrase o ‘about’ + locative (70), and the clausal complement (71).

5.1 Differences and similarities in valency patterns of MoS

As previously noted, the theme and the recipient can be expressed in different morphological ways. The theme can be realized as a clausal complement, quotation, accusative complement, and prepositional complements. We assume that the quotation and clausal complement may appear with all analyzed verbs, even though for some of them one of those two complements has not been attested in the corpus due to the verbs’ low frequency. By choosing quotations and clauses as verb complements, the emphasis is on the characterization of the speaker, the volume or comprehensibility of one’s speech, the emotions one expresses during the speech, or the impression one leaves on the hearer. It is important to stress that in the Croatian language the complementizer da ‘that’ cannot be dropped with any class of verbs, and thus not with a class of MoS.

Often the theme is expressed by the prepositional phrase o ‘about’ + locative, and less often by the accusative complement, which usually denotes a narrative-related expression (e.g. riječ ‘word’, prostota ‘curse’, priča ‘story’, legenda ‘legend’).

The theme can be expressed by the prepositional phrase protiv ‘against’ + genitive or na ‘at’ + accusative, which emphasize opposition to whom or what. Conformation for these prepositions with the verbs within the class of meaningless speaking has not been found in the corpus. The prepositional phrase na ‘at’ + accusative has not been attested in the corpus for the verbs of quiet speaking and the verbs with an emotional component.

Semantically opposite to the prepositional phrase protiv ‘against’ + genitive is a prepositional phrase za ‘for’ + accusative, which denotes the participant in whose favor someone wants to achieve something. It is conformed with the verbs of loud speaking.

With some verbs within the class of verbs with an emotional component, the prepositional phrases za ‘for’ + instrumental and nad ‘over’ + instrumental can be used to express the theme, a valency pattern overtaken from psych-verbs. These prepositional phrases denote a participant who is no longer present which causes sadness.

The recipient can be expressed by a dative complement, by which it is only emphasized that a message has been sent to them, but it does not necessarily mean that one suffers the speaker’s anger or the like. The recipient in the dative is commonly used with the verbs of loud and quiet speaking, with the verbs of complaining, and with the verbs with an emotional component. However, it is not confirmed in the corpus for some verbs, as they occur with the recipient rarely or not at all, such as verbs of incomprehensible speaking and the verbs of meaningless speaking. With these verbs, the recipient is not important since the speaker is focused on themselves and/or the message. This does not mean that the recipient cannot occur with these verbs, but it is not confirmed due to the poor representation of these verbs in the corpus.

With the verbs of loud speaking and those with an emphasis on a negative emotional component, the recipient can be expressed by the prepositional phrase na ‘at’ + accusative, which emphasizes that the negative emotions are directed at them and the speaker is in a superior position in relation to the recipient. Additionally, with the verbs of loud and (extremely rarely) quiet speaking, the recipient can also be expressed by the prepositional phrase za ‘after’ + instrumental, emphasizing that the speaker is behind the hearer and their voice follows them.

Interestingly, the prepositional phrase za + instrumental can have the role of both recipient and theme, of course, not in the same sentence. When it comes to the recipient, za ‘after’ + instrumental expresses the participant who is moving away, and when it comes to the theme, za ‘for’ + instrumental expresses the participant who is no longer there, i.e., both complements share the semantic characteristic of moving away, i.e., disappearing. An overview of attested complements expressing the theme and recipient is provided in Table 1.

MoS share with the prototypical verbs of speaking (presented in Section 2.1) the possibility to express the theme with a clausal complement, a quotation, an accusative complement, a prepositional complement o ‘about’ + locative, and some of them a prepositional complement protiv ‘against’ + genitive. The main difference between MoS and verbs of speaking is the use of the prepositional phrase za ‘for, about’ + accusative. Namely, with verbs of speaking, this phrase is used to denote the topic of conversation, as well as the prepositional phrase o ‘about’ + locative. However, with MoS, the component of desire or effort to achieve something in someone’s favor is included. When it comes to the use of the accusative complement and the prepositional complement o ‘about’ + locative with MoS, the contextualization of the topic is not necessary, similar to the verb govoriti ‘speak’ and different from the verbs reći and kazati ‘say, tell’. Regarding the recipient, the prepositional phrase na ‘at’ + accusative is not confirmed in the corpus with analyzed verbs of speaking which indicates that the usage of recipient phrase na ‘at’ + accusative is a unique trait of the MoS.

In summary, while prototypical verbs of speaking and MoS share some valency patterns, the presence of additional semantic component(s) results in differences in valency patterns, thus separation of MoS in a distinct class is justified.

5.2 Possibility of combining different complements

Apart from the fact that with MoS both the theme and the recipient can be expressed by different complements, it is also interesting that certain combinations of complements have not been attested in the corpus.

With the recipient in the dative, the theme can be expressed by various complements such as the accusative, the prepositional phrase o ‘about’ + locative, the clausal complement, and the quotation. However, with the recipient expressed by the prepositional complement na ‘at’ + accusative or za ‘after’ + instrumental, only the theme expressed by the clausal complement or quotation has been attested. The possibility of different complements with the recipient in the dative can be explained by the similarity to the valency pattern of prototypical verbs of speaking and the fact that the emphasis is on both the message and the recipient. On the other hand, when the recipient is expressed by the prepositional phrase na ‘at’ + accusative, the emphasis is primarily on the recipient and the theme is expressed by the quotation and clausal complement. It is noteworthy that when the theme is expressed by the prepositional phrase protiv ‘against’ + genitive, na ‘at’ + accusative, and za ‘for’ + accusative, corpus data indicate that it might not be possible to express the recipient. This can be attributed to the strong emphasis on the content, i.e., on the message in these cases.

Interestingly, the verbs that select for the prepositional phrase protiv ‘against’ + genitive to express the theme also select for the prepositional phrase na ‘at’ + accusative to express the recipient. This confirms that these verbs express negative emotions that are sometimes directed toward the recipient and sometimes toward the theme. However, these two phrases, protiv ‘against’ + genitive and na ‘at’ + accusative, have not been found in the corpus in the same sentence, despite the fact that they express different semantic roles, which would be theoretically possible. This is likely due to the fact that both phrases place emphasis on a particular participant (theme or recipient), making it difficult to emphasize both in a single sentence.

The possibilities of combining recipients and themes expressed by different phrases are shown in Table 2.