Conversion in Slovene and other Slavic languages is not merely a marginal phenomenon. It spreads mainly with the borrowing of new lexicon. In so far as the borrowed lexicon remains indeclinable even ...after it has been borrowed, it preserves or extends the syntactic possibilities and therefore the conversion possibilities in the recipient language as well. As a new lexicalization, conversion depends on the possibilities of a shift from one syntactic role to another – and in this regard, it can be complete or incomplete/partial. Examples of complete conversion are bomba film ‘a bomb movie’ (< Film je bomba < bomba < avto bomba – < The movie is the bomb ‘very successful’ < a bomb ‘surprise’ < a car bomb ‘an explosive’), vikend hiša ‘a weekend house’ (hiša kot vikend < Hiša je vikend ‘počitniška’ < hiša vikend < vikend ‘prost konec tedna’ – a house as a weekend house < The house is a weekend ‘vacation’ house < weekend house < weekend ‘the end of the week’), as opposed to vikendhiša ‘a weekendhouse’ (< hiša za vikend ‘a house for the weekend’), and veliko hiš ‘many houses’ (→ veliko govori ‘s/he has many stories to tell’), which are not formed by conversion. An example of incomplete conversion is zakon ‘the law’ (a full conversion would also render usage like *zakon film ‘a law film’, which is not (as yet) attested; the conversation has only gone as far as Film je zakon ‘zelo dober’ < zakon ‘pravilo’ < zakon ‘pravni predpis’ – The movie is the law ‘very good’ < a law ‘a rule’ < a law ‘a legal act’), as opposed to formations not created through conversion, which nevertheless might also feature a noun as the first part of the compound, e.g., golfigrišče ‘golfcourse’ (< igrišče za golf ‘a course for playing golf’, whereas the base *Igrišče je golf. ‘The course is golf.’ is nonsensical). The same holds true for the interjection in horukpoezija ‘oomphpoetry,’ which also was not formed by conversion. Conversion is therefore the final stage in the process of the formation of a new lexeme: degrammaticalization of a particular word form > lexicalization > conversion. What conversion, univerbation, and homonymy have in common in the case of existing vocabulary and its use, is the economy of language in the sense that a particular expression is semantically utilized to its maximum. The expression – syntax – meaning relationship within a given lexeme, along with conversion as a grammatical occurrence, can be presented most thoroughly in a dictionary
The paper focuses on Slovenian comitative constructions with two human participants who are involved in the same situation: the first participant, most frequently expressed by a nominative noun ...phrase, acts as a nucleus of the comitative construction, whereas the other accompanying participant is expressed by means of a prepositional phrase. All Slovenian examples of comitative constructions are presented in parallel with their possible equivalents in Russian and Shtokavian. Comitative constructions typically found in Slovenian are those that act as subjects, the subject emphasizing the predicative relation. The predicative relation suggests mutual dependence of participants and predicates, which is why the choice of the form of the predicate often determines the number of referential participants. The first part presents two comitative constructions. The first one includes two participants, which are often detached, and a singular predicate (Slovenian Anton je gledal film z Ano ‘Anton watched a movie with Ana’). The second one consists of two contiguous participants that act as a complete noun phrase (Slovenian Midva z Ano gledava film ‘Ana and I are watching a movie’) demanding a non-singular predicate. Differences between Slavic languages show up in the second comitative construction: Slovenian, for example, only allows constructions with personal pronouns in dual (midva z Ano), in which the pronoun has to include the other participant in the instrumental case. This is how Slovenian differs from Shtokavian, in which contiguous constructions with an inclusive accompanying participant and a plural predicate are not possible (*mi s tobom pišemo). The inclusiveness of participants in Slovenian comitative constructions is also related to the dual form of the predicate, especially in those cases in which the first participant remains unexpressed (Z Ano piševa pismo ‘Ana and I are writing a letter’). The dual form of the predicate is linked to the difference between Slovenian and Shtokavian, which lacks dual. The unexpressed pronoun vidva (‘you two’) denoting the addressee in the Slovenian sentence S profesorjem se lepo imejta / Lepo se imejta s profesorjem (‘You and professor have a nice time’) may receive an inclusive interpretation that includes the accompanying participant. In its Shtokavian counterpart with a plural predicate L(ij)epo se provedite s profesorom (‘Have a nice time with the professor’), however, the unexpressed pronoun vi (‘you’), is by no means in an inclusive relation to the professor. Profesor in the Shtokavian example assumes the role of the circumstance and is thus not part of the comitative construction. The comparison with Shtokavian shows that it is precisely the Slovenian dual (the dual form of the predicate with a dual personal pronoun) that enables and also announces the inclusive comitative construction. It should be emphasized that contiguous comitative constructions with the first participant expressed by a proper noun and a non-singular predicate (Russian Павел с Евой пришли ‘Pavel and Eva came’) are not characteristic of South Slavic languages. In these languages, a union of two proper noun agents is expressed through coordination and conjunction (Slovenian Pavel in Eva sta prišla, Shtokavian Pavel i Eva su došli). In contrast to Russian, the use of inclusive contiguous comitative construction in Slovenian and Shtokavian is rather unusual. The second part discusses differences between predicates that necessarily imply a common action and predicates that can only express a common action contextually. It was established that reciprocity in the first type of predicates is more frequently expressed with reflexive verbs in Slovenian and Shtokavian than in Russian (Slovenian prepirati se, Shtokavian svađati se vs. Russian спортить ‘argue’). It is also noteworthy that Russian fundamentally differs from South Slavic languages in that a comitative construction is also used to express common possession (Russian твоя/ваша с Машей книга ‘your and Masha’s book’). Different possibilities of translating this possessive construction into Slovenian are provided.
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