On the Signs Above the Letters on Croatian Words in Vran？i？'s Dictionary

Sa？etak In his five-language dictionary, Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europae linguarum, published in Venice (1595), Croatian polymath, inventor, and lexicographer Faust Vran？i？ (1551—1617), while recording Croatian words, occasionally used signs above the letters. He used three signs — acute, gravis, and circumflex — inherited from Greek grammars. This paper analyzes all Croatian words which are in Vran？i？’s dictionary marked by one of them. An attempt was made to understand the “meaning” of those signs, i.e. to discern whether in Vran？i？’s dictionary they are used consistently (invariably). This turning out to be the case, another issue appeared, concerning the possibility of a description of the accent system which had to be (or could have been) recorded by those signs. The analysis was conducted strictly within the corpus of the marked words, considering only their mutual relations, i.e. not examining the so called “comparative material” taken from some Croatian dialects (Putanec). The analysis, however, showed that such a description could not be done — even when the doubling of vowels and consonants in some Croatian words was taken into account — due to the unstable (variable) usage of the three signs. The Appendix contains a list of all marked words from Vran？i？’s dictionary, as well as the comparison with respective examples from Loderecker’s Dictionarium septem diversarum linguarum (1605)