NARATIVNI PREZENT, POTENCIJAL I IMPERATIV U ROMANU MOJKOVAČKA BITKA ĆAMILA SIJARIĆA

Abstract

The paper analyses temporally transposed present, imperative and potential mood in the novel Mojkovačka bitka by Ćamil Sijarević. The primary goal is to determine their frequency, their syntactic and semantic properties and stylistic characteristics. Since this is a prose text written in a dialect, the paper will examine to what extent the use of the given forms corresponds to their real use in the local idiom that is the foundation of the author’s and characters’ speech. The analysis has shown that narrative present has the widest semantic range as it is used for past events and for habitual actions. The potential mood is equally frequent but is used only for repeated past actions. Imperative mood is detected in a small number of examples belonging exclusively to the speech of characters. The described circumstance do not completely correspond to the real state of the Bihor and the remaining speeches of Zeta-Sjenica dialect where imperative is the basic means of expressing habituality and is more frequent than narrative potential. Finally, the analysis has revealed that all three categories have a stylistic potential. This is expected since temporal transpositions have stylistic effects which are not obligatory when verb forms are used in their primary functions.