Propp Revisited: A Structural Analysis of Vuk Karadžić’s Collection Serbian Folk Fairy Tales

SummaryIn the mid-19th century Vuk Stefanović Karadžić collected folk tales in the broader South-Slavic region and published them in a collection titled Serbian Folk Tales. Folk fairy tales make the major part of the collection. In this paper, the authors determine the folk fairy tale structure according to the methodology proposed by Vladimir Propp in the Morphology of the Folktale. The aim of the paper is to investigate, whether these fairy tales can be fully described using Propp’s Morphology. Propp’s model of the meta-folk fairy tale was developed inductively based on a rich, comprehensive, yet limited, corpus of Russian folk fairy tales, which opens up space for further testing of the proposed model.The hypothesis was set that the analyzed folk fairy tales completely conform to the plot structure of the meta-folk fairy tale with a maximum of 31 functions as proposed by Propp. The hypothesis is grounded in: 1. the time when the folktales were collected (mid-19th century, the same time as the Russian collection analyzed by Propp) and 2. the similarity of the South Slavic peoples with the peoples of the Slavic East.However, after categorial and structural analyses of the corpus were performed, it was clear that the hypothesis could not be accepted in its entirety. In the analyzed folk fairy tales, no new functions were found as compared to the 31 functions identified by Propp, but some of these functions were altered as compared to those to be expected in folk tales. This alteration occurred not only regarding the changed order of functions, assimilation and cases of dual morphological meanings of functions, but also in terms of the fantastic category of the marvelous, which is the core feature of the fairy tale genre, whose nature was changed. The study identified the rationalization of some magical motifs, which partially mitigates the quality of the miraculous in the fairy tale and found out that, in some cases, the marvelous was mitigated and “shifted” towards the (merely) fantastic. This was achieved by introducing oniric elements. One of the important conclusions of our study of the fairy tale is that these fairy tales, although labeled as folk tales, feature significant authorial intervention.

Iz društva u leksikografiju i natrag: Rječnici kao ideološki manevri / From society to lexicography and back: Dictionaries as ideological maneuvers

The present paper proposes an epistemoloogical construct to study dictionaries in their socio-historical context. The construct is rooted in the communicative model of lexicography. It is being exemplified on the analysis of societal factors, dictionary components, and lexicographic strategies in South Slavic historical lexicography. Addittionaly, the construct is applied to the case study of the 1818 Serbian Dictionary by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, which contained strong ideological background.

Sociocognitive Metalexicographic Parameters Of The First Two Editions Of Srpski Rječnik By Vuk Stefanović Karadžić

The present paper approaches two nineteenth-century editions of Serbian Dictionary by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić from a sociocognitive metalexicographic perspective. Using a triangular communicative model of lexicographic work, the author analyzes sociohistorical factors, lexicographic strategies, and lexicographic elements of the aforementioned dictionary. A special attention is devoted to the diff erences between the two editions, which coincide in time with a broader shift from traditional philology toward linguistics.

Serbian dialectology in the past, present and future

Although the beginnings of Serbian dialectology are related to the work of Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, this linguistic discipline was academically established in the early 20th century, when Milan Resetar and Aleksandar Belic appeared on the scene simultaneously. Owing to their exchange of opinions, the conceptions in classifying Serbian dialects evolved over the 1905-1910 period more noticeably than in the whole of earlier or later research. The 20th century is considered to be the golden age of Serbian dialectology, the primary academic preoccupation of the two greatest Serbian linguists of the last century: Aleksandar Belic and Pavle Ivic. Though certain milestones were hit in the mentioned period (many blank spots were removed from the dialectal maps; dozens of monographic descriptions were published on individual speech types; valuable initial results were achieved in the domain of urban dialectology; valuable studies were completed in the domain of dialectal lexicography and onomasticon, many questions were answered in Serbian historical dialectology, etc.), as things turned out, serious and comprehensive tasks were transferred into the third millennium. In order to pass the final judgement on the relevant matters of the discipline, it is necessary to define the areals of some phonological features on the territory of Serbia and eastern Bosnia, details that earlier researchers have missed. The results of the study of the Serbian dialectal complex were predominantly published in the Serbian Dialectological Review (Srpski dijalektoloski zbornik), a respectable journal established in 1905 in the Serbian Royal Academy after the publication of Aleksandar Belic?s seminal Dialects of Eastern and Southern Serbia. The paper emphasises the unequal degree of study of the Serbian dialectal mosaic, in which as a rule the area of the western republics of the former state ?takes precedence,? where the Serbian speeches did not have a priority status. During the latest war operations, the extensive zones were temporarily left without Serbs, which imposed the duty onto dialectologists to establish the language credentials of the vast areas in their study of the refugees? speech. The most important tasks of Serbian dialectology were thematically and geographically encompassed in a comprehensive long-term project ?Dialectological Research of the Serbian Language Area,? a joint enterprise of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and its Institute of the Serbian Language. A relevant position within the project is occupied by the compilation of the Serbian Dialectological Atlas, a task facing serious, often hardly solvable problems. The historical events from the close of the last century destroyed the perspective of compiling the Serbo-Croatian Dialectological Atlas, and imposed upon us the task of additional inclusion of Serbian speeches from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia into the atlas of Serbian dialects. Particular problems arise from the impossibility of field work on the territory of Croatia, from where since the dissolution of the former state we have not inherited a single studied Serbian spot, and that considerable deficit is mostly relieved through the study of refugees? speech. Thirty-odd still unstudied spots from the mentioned area are an obstacle to the final editing and prepress of the First Lexical Volume of the Atlas. The paper stresses the unused student potential in the collection of oral linguistic heritage and appeals to the dialectologists that, in such tasks, they should assist the amateur enthusiasts in the collection and treatment of homeland oral linguistic tradition.

Učestalost deformiteta kičmenog stuba kod učenika starijih razreda osnovne škole

Istraživanje je sprovedeno na uzorku od 204 ispitanika - učenika oba pola osnovne škole „Vuk Stefanović Karadžić“ iz Banje Luke. Od ukupnog broja ispitanika mušku populaciju činilo je 119 ispitanika, a žensku populaciju činilo je 94 ispitanika. Svi ispitanici redovno pohađaju nastavu fizičkog vaspitanja. Za procjenu posturalnog statusa primijenjene su varijable za procjenu deformiteta kičmenog stuba u sagitalnoj i frontalnoj ravni (kifoza, lordoza i skolioza).Ove varijable su primijenjene iz razloga što pokrivaju najviše prisutne deformitete na lokomotornom aparatu kod populacije uzrasta odabranih ispitanika.Osnovni cilj istraživanja bio je da se utvrdi stvarno stanje prisustva i učestalosti deformiteta na kičmenom stubu kod učenika oba pola od VI do IX razreda osnovne škole „Vuk Stefanović Karadžić“ iz Banje Luke.Rezultati istraživanja ukazuju da je kod većeg broja ispitanika obuhvaćenih ovim istraživanjem utvrđeno loše držanje tijela i izražen jedan ili više deformiteta kičmenog stuba.