Principles of Stanrdardness of thc Croatian Language

The author lists scveral major principles of standardncss valid for Croatian: I. Standard nonn dctcm1incs what is stylistically neutral in a language and, therefore. un· marked. 2. Stanrlard Croatian is based on the Ncoštokavian dialcct of Jckavian pronunciation. 3. The dialcctal base of Standard Croatian is nat binding far it in evcry detail. 4. Croatian linguistic standard grants priority to thosc sound forms of Ncoštokavian potential which are transparent in word-fonnation and morphological tenns. S. Stanrlarrl Croatian contains older fonns (such as the plural fonns for dative, locative and in~1rumental) as stylistic rescrves. 6. Linguistic charactcristics of organic Neoštokavian have the valictity in Standard Croatian of a careful and exacting. evcn cla.S\u27>ical. e xpression. 7. Thc lcxis of Standard Croatian contains, among othcrs, the clcments that do not belong to the Neoštokavian base. 8. The very principlcs of standarrlncss of the Croatian language imposc the task of detennin· ing the scope of applying both the phonological and morphological principles in Croatian orthography