Distinction between prepositions zbog and radi in translation from German

Abstract

This article discusses the use of prepositions zbog and radi in the Bosnian language as translation equivalents of the German preposition wegen based on a selected literary corpus. It is often the case in everyday speech that the difference in the meaning between these two prepositions is not noticed and often not understood by the native speakers of the Bosnian language. However, this sometimes also happens in the literary language, i.e., in the translation of literature, to which this paper pays attention. The starting point for the contrastive analysis between the two languages is the use of the preposition wegen in the prepositional phrase functioning as an adverb phrase in German, when it shows several nuances of meaning. Namely, the primary meaning of the preposition wegen is causal, but it is also used with the meaning of goal or intention. Consequently, in the translation to the Bosnian language we follow the difference in the use of the preposition zbog with the meaning of cause and radi with the meaning of goal or intention. Keywords: prepositions, meaning of prepositions, genitive case, prepositional-case phrase, position of the preposition, contrastive analysis.