About intentional sentences in the Serbian language

Abstract

The paper discusses main structural models and submodels of the clauses with the general meaning of purpose, most commonly with the conjunctions da (with the present tense or potential) and kako (with the potential), as well as complex conjunctions ne bi li, and e/da. The analysis is done mostly on the corpus of contemporary Serbian writers, and various criteria are combined for the typology, in order to provide a complete overview of their status in the system of complex sentences. Intentional clauses with the potential are marked by a greater level of uncertainty as regards achieving the goal, while the intentional clauses with the conjunction da (followed by the present tense) are unmarked in that sense, since they refer to actions which are more certain, as they are not dependent upon the will of the subject, but upon the ?xpected/unexpected results of a previous event.