Notes on Ante Starčević’s language

Jezik Ante Starčevića (1823–1896), izrazito važna hrvatskoga političara i pisca, još su suvremenici smatrali “osebujnim” (Mihovil Pavlinović). Međutim jezikoslovci do danas gotovo ništa relevantno o toj osebujnosti nisu rekli osim činjenice da je od 1850. Starčević dosljedno pisao ekavštinom. U ovome radu uočava se i raščlanjuje nekoliko odlika Starčevićeva jezika prema kojima je on Starčevićevim suvremenicima doista mogao biti “osebujan”. To su (1) irealna kondicionalna rečenica sa da + budem + gpr, (2) anteriorna temporalna rečenica s veznicima kon što i nakon što, (3) prijedložna skupina u supor (+ dat), (4), disjunktivno ali te (5) futur sa budem + inf.The language of Ante Starčević (1823–1896), an extremely important Croatian politician and writer, was considered as “peculiar” even by Starčević’s contemporaries (e.g. Mihovil Pavlinović). However, little has been said about this peculiarity by Croatian linguists except the fact that since 1850. Starčević consistently wrote Ecavian, literary Croatian in the second half of the 19th century being Jekavian. In the paper several features of Starčević’s language are recognized and analyzed which might have been “peculiar” to his contemporaries. These are (1) unreal conditional clause with the conjunction da + budem (perfect present of biti ‘to be’) + active participle, (2) anterior temporal clause with the conjunction kon što or nakon što ‘after which’, (3) prepositional phrase u supor ‘as opposed to, conversely’ (+ dative), (4) disjunctive use of the conjunction ali ‘but’, and (5) future tense formed by budem + infinitive