The Dynamics of Structures of the Contemporary Serbian Language

Research of the dynamics of structures is juxtaposed to synchronic static research of contemporary Serbian. The inclusion of dynamics refers to the research into variations in contemporary Serbian from the perspective of processes of change that bring about and influence such variations. In the type of research described, changes do not, as a rule, impact on the system of Serbian as a whole, but only on some of its subsystems. Therefore, the starting research hypothesis is the often stated linguistic premise that language is a hierarchically ordered set of a plurality of systems, that is, that language represents a system of systems. The systems which make up the whole of the standard Serbian language are, in this project, considered to be functional styles. Thus the starting hypothesis is that each functional style represents a linguistic system. However, within each of these systems, there are also shared rules which make these styles as systems part of the standard language as a hyperordinate system. In this way, a dynamics of linguistic structures is established not only between individual systems, but also within the standard language as the hyperordinate system and its functional styles as cohyponymic systems. Innovative processes within the system of constituents and the standard language as the consolidating system represent the principal subject matter of this research project, both in terms of their causes and in terms of the consequences of these processes.