SISTEM GLAGOLSKIH PREDIKATA U „USTAVU REPUBLIKE SRBIJE“

Abstract

The conducted analysis examined the syntactic features of simple and complex verbal predicates in the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, the supreme legal act that has a prescriptive function. Since patient is the dominant instance in the mentioned document, the function of predicate occupies a central place in the analysis. By combining functional and structural criteria, the place of verbal predicates in the corpus that belongs to the administrative functional style is determined. Bearing in mind that this style is charac- terized primarily by nominal expression, the analysis seeks to examine how this character- istic is reflected in the use of verbal predicates. The research results showed the following: 1) Simple verbal predicates appear in the corpus as predicates of both independent and dependent clauses, with the dominant use of the present tense which gives the impres- sion of validity of prescribed norms. The use of simple verbal predicates consisting of transitive verbs with the particle se is frequent, with the purpose of achieving anonymous and impersonal character of the text through the neutralization of the subject. Existential type impersonal sentences are sporadically found in the corpus, with a logical subject in genitive and a negative impersonal form of the verb imati, which contributes to a clear formulation of legal definitions; 2) Both simple and complex verbal predicates often appear in the corpus in the form of the reflexive passive. The first part of such predicates contains verbs moći and smeti (which express deontic modality), as well as aspectual verbs počinjati, nastavljati, nastaviti and prestajati. Regarding modal verbs within complex predicates, adjectives dužan, slobodan, sprečen i ovlašćen are found in the text. Their presence shows that this way of constructing a complex verbal predicate is very productive. All copulative adjective expres- sions in the corpus are accompanied by full verbs in the form of da + present, which seeks to achieve a communicative exchange between the government and citizens. A decomposed predicate biti u mogućnosti is found as well, which functions as the modal part of a complex verbal predicate and represents another indicator of the tendency of using nominal expres- sions within the system of verbal predicates.