The supine in Pannonian and Styrian dialect groups of Slovene language: an overview based on dialect descriptions

Abstract

The article analyses the supine, especially in relation to the infinitive, in Pannonian and Styrian dialect groups of Slovene language; a particular attention in this regard is paid to the contribution of the academician Zinka Zorko, a renowned dialectologist. Dialect descriptions show that the supine and the infinitive differ in the entire Pannonian dialect group, i.e. in the Prekmurje dialect (e.g. the infinitive ˈdẹlati ‘to work’, ˈpẹčti ‘to bake’ vs. the supine ˈdẹlat, ˈpẹčt in Cankova), the Slovenian Hills dialect (the difference has been partly lost in the microdialects of Ščavnica, Voličina and Sv. Trojica – due to the shortening of the infinitive), in the Prlekija and Haloze dialects, and in the eastern parts of the Styrian dialect group, i.e. on the eastern edge of the Central Styrian dialect (in Strmec pri Rogatec) and in a larger part of the Kozje-Bizeljsko dialect. Individual
phonetically different forms appear in the Upper Savinja dialect (in Zadrečka dolina), in some parts of the South Pohorje dialect (e.g. in Ruše, Hoče, Miklavž na Dravskem polju) and in the Kozjak subdialect (e.g. the infinitive ne sˈmeːi ̯š ˈpaːst ‘you cannot graze’ vs. the supine gˈrẹːm ˈpoːst ‘I am going to graze’ in Selnica ob Dravi). The supine has coincided with mostly shortened long infinitive (ending in -t) in the Central Savinja, in most parts of the Central Styrian (without the eastern edge) and South Pohorje dialects, and in the Lower Sava Valley dialect. With respect to the supine, in some descriptions, also syntactic features, especially the genitive object, and competing forms and syntactic structures are discussed. In the Pannonian dialect group, the attention has been drawn to the supine’s genitive object (e.g. gˈrẹm ˈriːpGEN loˈviːt ‘I am going to catch fish’ in the Prlekija microdialect of Gomila pri Kogu). The forms and syntactic structures competing with the supine clause or supine itself include the final dependent clause (Slovenian Hills dialect), the imperative mood after verbs of motion in the imperative (the Central Styrian dialect, Šmarje pri Jelšah), the present tense (rare, the Slovenian Hills dialect) and the future tense (the Prlekija dialect, Gomila pri Kogu). Zinka Zorko very often analysed morphological features in her dialect descriptions, sometimes paying attention also to the relationship between the infinitive and the supine. If we limit ourselves only to the dialects analyzed, Zinka Zorko must be commended for presenting the situation regarding the supine in the Pannonian dialect group, in the South Pohorje dialect and the Kozjak sub-dialect, to a lesser extent also in the Central Styrian dialect (Strmec pri Rogatec) and the Laško subdialect (Šentrupert nad Laškim). In the Pannonian dialect group, she drew attention to the syntactic peculiarity of the supine’s rection with the genitive case.