The Standard Serbian Language: Syntactic, Semantic and Pragmatic Explorations

Theoretical-linguistic bases and methodological frameworks for the study of Standard Serbian: standardization, normativization of Serbian and its description, Serbian language as a second and foreign language, Serbian in contrast with other, Slavic and non-Slavic languages. The focus of research, above all, addresses the general theoretical questions of linguistics as a science and the models such as the fuzzy linguistic, conceptual and cognitive methods in syntax and semantics. The pragmatic linguistic and semantic studies include the categories: temporal, conditional, causative, causal, modal, object, assertive, illocution. Attention is given to grammatical, lexical-semantic, syntactic and discursive features of the corpus comprising different functional styles and genres: literary, journalistic, scientific. The parameters of a more precise predicate typology are proposed, taking into account argument structure, semantic classes and subclasses of verbs, nouns and adjectives, their valence, complementization and various usage values. Specific dependent syndetic syntactic structures are explored, as well as cases and prepositions as a functional-semantic class of words. The research includes the investigation of phrasal, paradigmatic relations of lexemes, phenomena of complementization, determination, condensation. Some studies deal with important morpho-syntactic, derivational-semantic, lexical-phrasal and syntactic-semantic characteristics of the Serbian language.