Prepositions in the Ekavian Čakavian Dialect in relation to prepositions in other language systems: Theoretical aspects and descriptive methodology

The paper firstly presents the theoretical basis for an analysis of prepositions as a type of word in terms of general linguisticics and standard language. A review of papers dealing with prepositions within general linguistics, the Croatian language and the Čakavian dialect is given. According to the given aims and tasks of the research, based firstly on a lack of systematic descriptions of prepositions in the chosen dialect area, and according to previously established methodology which includes dialectal parameters into analysis and description of the language features of local speeches on one hand, and general linguistics and standard theoretical findings in the description of the meaning of prepositions on the other, we have established a basic inventory of prepositions in the Ekavian and Ikavian Čakavian dialects, the distribution of prepositions with case in a sentence and a descriptive model for the meaning of prepositions in their syntactic environment. the paper also provides a comparison of prepositions in dialects with those in the standard language. This model shows that the presence of the linguistic principles of general linguistics can be confirmed in the dialectal corpus, as well as in any other inorganic or organic, abstract or concrete language system