Tense, mood and aspect in the first grammar of Croatian (Kašić 1604)

Abstract

Summary This paper deals with the first Croatian grammar published in 1604 by the Jesuit Bartul Kašić (1575–1650). Within the framework of a multi-level approach of historical hermeneutics, the author investigates both the linguistic and the philosophical presuppositions of this grammar. After having established Kašić’s humanistic sources (Manutius, Giambullari, Linacre, Álvares, Gretser), the paper sketches the historical background of the grammatization process of Slavic languages in general. It then analyses the verbal categories of tense, mood and aspect within this humanistic tradition as well as the immanent semantics of Kašić’s work. The focal point of the paper is Aristotle’s definition of time that Thomas Linacre (1524) had reintroduced into the description of verbs and which was taken over by Kašić through the work of Giambullari (1552). This notion of time, however, served not only to portray verbal tenses in vernacular grammars but also those of Greek and Latin (Apollonius Dyscolus, Diomedes, Augustine, Priscian, etc.). As the author tries to demonstrate, Kašić’s work constitutes the genuine crystallising point of the so-called onto-semantic view of language and grammar. Furthermore, Kašić’s analysis of verbal moods is shown to follow the humanistic tradition and that of the grammatization of Slavic moods. Kašić’s attempt to relate the eminently important category of aspect in Slavic to ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Varronian’ aspects of Latin grammar may be regarded as pioneering in the history of Slavic linguistics.