# Slovenian: frozen vocatives (?) in: Tine, oče



## dihydrogen monoxide

Regarding the vocative in Slovene, name Tine preserves the vocative.


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## trance0

Are you sure about that? So what would the original nominative look like, Tin?  Anyway, having thought about the vocative for a while, I came to conclusion it had to fall out of use somewhere between the year 1000(_Freising manuscripts_) and 1551(Trubar`s _Catechismus_), since, if I am not mistaken, vocative was no longer used in the Trubar`s books.


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## dihydrogen monoxide

I am sure about that, although there are many theories regarding the final e in Tine, but the most plausible one is remnant of vocative used by some dialects. Tin would be nominative. This information came from my professor.


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## TriglavNationalPark

*Oče* (father) is a classic example of a vocative form surviving in Slovenian and becoming the nominative form. The old nominative form, *otec*, is no longer used in standard Slovenian.


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## sokol

If "Tine" were a vocative (I wouldn't know ) it surely would have to be a frozen vocative, now used as nominative - like "oče" is, right?


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## TriglavNationalPark

sokol said:


> If "Tine" were a vocative (I wouldn't know ) it surely would have to be a frozen vocative, now used as nominative - like "oče" is, right?


 
Right, there is no separate vocative case in modern Slovenian. I wonder if other names ending in -e, such as "Lojze", fit into the pattern described by dihydrogen monoxide.

BTW, BCS uses *oče* as the vocative form of *otac*, and Czech uses *otče* as the vocative form of *otec*.


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## sokol

TriglavNationalPark said:


> Yes. I wonder if other names, such as "Lojze", fit into the pattern described by dihydrogen monoxide.


Yes, "Lojze" would be another candidate: it's "Alois" > short "Lois" in Austrian German, so a hypothetical "Lojz" > vocative "Lojze" > later used as nominative sounds quite likely.


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## trance0

Then we could say that all names like Lojze, Tine, Pavle(from Pavel) etc. are frozen vocatives. In the Freising manuscripts "otče" was vocative of "otec". This seems likely, so some of the old vocatives obviously became nominatives in Modern Slovene.


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## trance0

There`s another noun "sin" with ex vocative "sine". Both forms are still used in Modern Slovene.


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## sokol

I have found an ancient Slovenian textbook (Carl Josef Pečnik: Praktisches Lehrbuch der Slowenischen Sprache für den Selbstunterricht, Wien*) - without year, probably late 19th century) wich mentions vocative on p. 13f and says on p. 14 (my translation):

"From these [casus] vocative form is identical with nominative except for a very few specific vocative forms, like: Kriste - oh Christ!, brate - oh brother!, sine - oh son!, fante - oh boy!"

So it seems that a century or so ago vocative still was "more alive" in Slovenian than it is now, but with your example of "sin - sine" we have anyway one that still is used (and which one couldn't explain as a frozen vocative used for nominative).

*) The language described there is pretty much modern standard Slovene except for a few archaisms and also (probably) Carinthian Slovene localisms.


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## TriglavNationalPark

sokol said:


> So it seems that a century or so ago vocative still was "more alive" in Slovenian than it is now, but with your example of "sin - sine" we have anyway one that still is used (and which one couldn't explain as a frozen vocative used for nominative).


 
Well, I think *sine* is probably a frozen vocative form after all. Here's a sample sentence listed in SSKJ:



> Njegov *sine* je zelo pogumen.


 
This is nominative, not vocative case.


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## sokol

Yes, that's obviously nominative, Triglav: so then only frozen vocatives left in modern Slovenian it seems.


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## trance0

But it is possible that these few frozen vocatives were in use as actual vocatives at least sporadically until the 19th century and have only become nominatives in the late 19th or early 20th century.


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## Tagarela

Zdravo,

I'm wondering when all these vocatives start to melt! 

Now, seriously, so there aren't really vocatives in Slovenian any more? In any dialect? 

Slovo


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## TriglavNationalPark

Tagarela said:


> Zdravo,
> 
> I'm wondering when all these vocatives start to melt!
> 
> Now, seriously, so there aren't really vocatives in Slovenian any more? In any dialect?
> 
> Slovo


 
I believe the vocative case has been lost in all Slovenian dialects. In fact, many Slovenian speakers fail to use the vocative even when speaking in BCS, for example, since that case is fundamentally foreign to them.


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## dudasd

sokol said:


> Yes, "Lojze" would be another candidate: it's "Alois" > short "Lois" in Austrian German, so a hypothetical "Lojz" > vocative "Lojze" > later used as nominative sounds quite likely.


 
I am desperately ignorant about history of Slovenian, but couldn't names like "Lojze", "France", "Jože" etc. be just hypocoristics, not vocatives? I ask because -e endings in hypocoristics of male names are more than common in ikavian and ekavian areas (together with -a endings in ekavian areas, while ijekavian areas prefer -o endings).


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## sokol

dudasd said:


> I am desperately ignorant about history of Slovenian, but couldn't names like "Lojze", "France", "Jože" etc. be just hypocoristics, not vocatives? I ask because -e endings in hypocoristics of male names are more than common in ikavian and ekavian areas (together with -a endings in ekavian areas, while ijekavian areas prefer -o endings).


And I am, on the other hand, desparately ignorant about hypocoristics (if they exist) in Slovenian. 
I know they play a relatively important role in BCS grammar because there are some peculiarities concerning declension of hypocoristics - and the only thing that I think I know for sure is that no such difficulties in declension occur concerning those forms in Slovenian (well - it is _Tine, Tineta _and _oče, očeta_ in Slovenian but that's only a minor irregularity; and at least in the case of _oče_ it looks like the vocative origin of this form is attested).

So I wouldn't know if those could be hypocoristics. 



trance0 said:


> But it is possible that these few frozen vocatives were in use as actual vocatives at least sporadically until the 19th century and have only become nominatives in the late 19th or early 20th century.


If my source is accurate then yes.
But it is only a textbook, not written by a scientist but by someone who obviously was a native speaker of (most likely) Carinthian Slovene and who obviously had some knowledge about Latin grammar (probably Greek too), so someone with a classical education - not necessarily a scientific education too.

It is entirely possible that this Carl Josef Pečnik _wanted _to describe those few vocative forms as given (I have given all he mentioned) as forms still used in vocative sence: you know, people then were rather romantic about ancient forms in languages.
I can only assure you that the quotes he gave definitely were given in vocative case, so Pečnik claims that they were used as vocatives.


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