Dvostrukosti u predikatskoj kongruenciji zbirnih imenica
Duality in subject-verb agreement with collective nouns

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with duality in subject-verb agreement with collective nouns, from the perspective of cognitive rather than traditional grammar. Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian grammars all tend to treat collective nouns in terms of morphology but duality in number and gender agreement vis-à-vis collective nouns used as subjects in terms of syntax. The literature notes that collective nouns are often inconsistent both regarding subject-verb number agreement (e.g. Telad pase vs Telad pasu), and gender agreement with adjectives, whether they occur with subject complements (Telad je neposlušna and Telad su neposlušna) or past participles (Telad je pasla and Telad su pasla). There is rarely any more detailed analysis of the causes of this duality in subject-verb agreement for collective nouns used as subjects. Using a corpus of texts that comprises all five styles used in Bosnian, this paper explores the cognitive approach to subject-verb agreement for with collective nouns and its stress on the strong semantic motivation of differences in the collective noun subject-verb agreement. The criteria for the hierarchization of agreement and of animacy are confirmed, while those for the hierarchy of empathy are partly confirmed.

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