Protistavna analiza samostalniskih in glagolskih manjsalnic v slovenscini in anglescini jasno kaže, da sta tvorba in raba manjsalnic v slovenscini vezani na oblikoslovne znacilnosti samostalnikov in glagolov ter posledicno njihove morfolosko-leksemske lastnosti, medtem ko ostaja težisce manjsalniske tvorbe in rabe v anglescini vezano na skladnjo oziroma skladenjsko-pomensko rabo dolocenega leksema. V vseh jezikih je manjsalnost ena osnovnih pomenotvornih prvin, ki jo lahko izražamo predvsem morfolosko, kot na primer v slovenscini, ali predvsem skladenjsko, kot na primer v anglescini. Kot pomenotvorna prvina samostalniska manjsalnost v slovenscini pomembno vpliva tudi na razvoj terminologije – v tem primeru se manjsalnica kot jezikovna metafora pomensko osamosvoji in postane strokovni termin; tega pojava anglescina prakticno ne pozna.

This paper is a model-theoretic investigation into the count/mass distinction in Slovene. It overviews and accounts for Slovene nouns, while also invalidating Chierchia (2004)’s theoretical prediction that no language marks mass morphologically. I provide analyses of countability in the nominal domain of Slovene on semantic and morphosyntactic levels. Section 1 introduces the background notions and assumptions and thus provides the syntacticand semantic-theoretic foundation upon which this paper rests. Section 2 overviews some cross-linguistic data from Greek, Lingala, Zuni and English that are problematic for the semantic theory of countability. Greek shows mass plurals (i.e. mass nouns that may pluralise) and Lingala, Zuni and English show mass/plural syncretism (i.e. nouns that are both plural and mass). This provides me with a cross-linguistic context within which the empirical evidence from Slovene may be mapped. Section 3 seeks to present the Slovene data: in the first part, count/mass distinction is presented paradigmatically, i.e. on the basis of Chierchia’s (1998a) ten-property system. The second part addresses some count/mass phenomena that fall outside of the aforementioned system and specific to Slovene: mass extension and plural/mass margin. Section 4 deals with theoretical accounts of the data presented in the previous section. This section also comes in two parts: the first gives a semantic (lexical-compositional) account, and second translates the latter into morphosyntactic structures (using the tools and assumptions from Distributed Morphology). Section 5 concludes the research by proposing that the count/mass distinction and various mass phenomena in Slovene may be accounted for phasally (Chomsky, 2001, et seq., Marantz, 2008). Acknowledgements · Thanks to George Tsoulas and Eytan Zweig, who have constantly shown interest, support and uncompromising critique I unknowingly but desperately needed in the making of this paper. I am also very thankful to Maria G. Janssens! Thanks to Gennaro Chierchia for providing me his latest manuscript. I would also like to thank the two anonymous Slovene Linguistic Studies reviewers for useful commentary and criticism. Many thanks to Tanja Pogacnik and Polona Burnik (Punad! ) for their informing my data.

Prispevek, predstavljen kot referat na 16. bienalnem simpoziju o južnoslovanskih jezikih, zagovarja objavo Pavlove rokopisne prekmurske slovnice Vend nyelvtan, dokoncane l. 1942. Ceprav je prvotni namen slovnice, tj. uveljavitev pokrajinskega knjižnega jezika, zastarel, rokopis ponuja informacije o posebnem ustroju prekmurscine in je s tem tudi dragocen vir za tipoloske, primerjalne in zgodovinske studije slovanskih jezikov.