On the Syntax of Kožičić’s MISAL HRUACKI

Abstract

Šimun Kožičić Benja’s Misal hruacki (1531) holds a special place amongst the Croatian Glagolitic missals. Namely, recent studies have shown it to be the first comprehensive Croatian redaction of Bible readings according to the Vulgate, and to execute this redaction, Kožičić probably made use of some contemporary Latin missal of Venetian provenance. Since the syntax has largely remained outside the range of previous studies, it is thoroughly explored in this paper. While relying on Latin syntax, Kožičić ended up using forms and structures which to some degree deviate from the Croatian Church Slavonic language tradition. At the same time, he occasionally deviates from both Latin and Croatian Church Slavonic in favor of Old Croatian forms and constructions. Thus the analysis of the syntax also confirms the presence of planning in his conception of literary language, where the status of Croatian Church Slavonic and Old Croatian (Čakavian) elements is defined and to some extent standardized. While the analysis of the selected syntactic features, as expected, affirms the strong dependence of the Misal hruacki on its Latin template, it also shows that the impact of this template should not be overstated. Kožičić does not blindly copy Latin constructions in order to adhere to his source, but rather takes Latin as an incentive and a reliable model on which he can construct a literary language based on clear syntactic principles.