Predrag Kovačević

About Me

I am a linguist and an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia.

Research

I’m a linguist and Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Novi Sad. I study the architecture of grammar: how words and sentences are built, how their structure shapes meaning, and why speakers with closely related grammars make different linguistic choices.

My work centers on syntax and its connections with morphology and semantics, primarily in Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian. I’m interested in how much grammatical structure fits inside a word, what happens to that structure when a verb becomes a noun, and what determines whether an embedded clause is finite or infinitival. I use these questions to investigate how languages organize events, participants, and the relationships between them.

I approach grammar through formal theory, corpus data, behavioral experiments, and quantitative modeling. Much of my research follows the tensions between what a theory predicts, what speakers find acceptable, and what they actually say. I also investigate the social life of syntax: how alternative ways of building a sentence become associated with identities, attitudes, and cultural values, and how those associations shape our judgments of language and its speakers.

Publications

Journal Articles

Milosavljević, S., Kovačević, P. & Simonović, M. (under review). Eliminating redundancy in internal argument selection: The division of labor between prefixes and ‘flavors of v’. Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences.
Kovačević, P., & Simonović, M. (in prep). The Typology of Nominalizations and the NP/DP Parameter: A Cross-Slavic Perspective. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics.
Milićev, T., & Kovačević, P. (in prep). The rise of finite complements in Early Modern Serbian.
Kovačević, P., Simonović, M., Podboj, M., Ivanović, S., & Grondelaers, S. (in prep). Social Meaning in Syntax: Finite vs. Non-Finite Complements in Serbo-Croatian.
Gehrke, B., Kovačević, P., & Simonović, M. (2026). The importance of having a degree: On the semantics of attributive short and long form adjectives in BCMS. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 30, 382-399. [Text]
Kovačević, P., & Grondelaers, S. (2026). When intuitions diverge from usage: Is Serbo-Croatian syntax socially indexical? Linguistic Variation. [Text]
Bojić, Lj., Kovačević, P., & Čabarkapa, M. (2025). GPT-4 Surpassing Human Performance in Linguistic Pragmatics?. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12. [Text]
Simonović, M., & Kovačević, P. (2025). Aspect of nje/će nominalizations in Pannonian Rusyn and its related and neighboring languages (in Pannonian Rusyn). Ruthenian Studies 8(8), 56-69. [Text]
Arsenijević, B., Kovačević, P., & Milićev, T. (2025). A concreteness effect in morphosyntactic variation: Evidence from the variation in the choice of clausal complements in Serbo‑Croatian. Psihologija (Online First). [Text]
Jakovljević, B., & Kovačević, P. (2024). The prosodic correlates of the grammaticalization scale: A case study of the Serbian lexical, modal, and auxiliary uses of hteti (‘want’). Teme: A Journal for Social Sciences, 48(2), 327–341. [Text]
Kovačević, P., Antonyuk, S., & Quaglia, S. (2024). The status of verbal theme vowels in contemporary linguistic theorizing: Some recent developments. An introduction. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 9(1), 1–40. [Text]
Kovačević, P., Milosavljević, S., & Simonović, M. (2024). Theme vowel minimal pairs show argument structure alternations. Journal of Linguistics 60(4), 859-888. [Text]
Ivanović, S., Kovačević, P., & Milićević, N. (2023). Clitic climbing with different kinds of da‑complements in Serbian and the status of probabilistic rules in grammar. Annual Review of the Faculty of Philosophy, Novi Sad, 48(3), 135–155. [Text]
Simonović, M., & Kovačević, P. (2022). Possessive, kind, and not so kind: The different uses of the adjectival –ov in Serbo‑Croatian. Annual Review of the Faculty of Philosophy, Novi Sad, 47(3), 87–109. [Text]
Kovačević, P. (2021). On the internal structure of Serbian –(n)je nominalizations. Acta Linguistica Academica, 68(4), 426–453. [Text]
Kovačević, P. (2021). Gaps in the aspectual paradigms of experiencer verbs in Serbian. Nasleđe, 49, 2–28. [Text]
Kovačević, P. (2020). A corpus‑based contrastive study of experiencer verbs in English and Serbian: Some implications for the structure of VP. Annual Review of the Faculty of Philosophy, Novi Sad, 45(5), 57–73. [Text]
Kovačević, P. (2020). Not all object experiencers are the same: The role of SE and the argument structure of Serbian psych verb anticausatives. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics, 22(2), 77–96. [Text]

Chapters

Kovačević, P., Simonović, M., & Đokić Petrović, M. (2026). Hypothesis-driven corpus querying at scale: A method and its application to -nje nominalizations in BCMS. In Proceedings of the Second International Conference South Slavic Languages in the Digital Environment JuDig 2026 (pp. 315–339). Belgrade: University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mining and Geology. [Text]
Babić, A., Simonović, M., & Kovačević, P. (2026). Deverbal nominalisations in the Timok speech: A preliminary corpus study. In Proceedings of the Second International Conference South Slavic Languages in the Digital Environment JuDig 2026 (pp. 501–521). Belgrade: University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mining and Geology. [Text]
Kovačević, P. (in press). What governs the choice between infinitives and finite complements in Serbo‑Croatian? Quantitative data from Northern Serbian. In D. Serés, S. Milosavljević, J. Simić, M. Simonović, J. Stojković, & J. Živojinović (Eds.), Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2023. Berlin: Language Science Press. [Text]
Simonović, M., Kovacević, P., & Milićev, T. (in press). When -nie met -nje: Slavonic‑Serbian loan deverbal nominals. In D. Serés, S. Milosavljević, J. Simić, M. Simonović, J. Stojković, & J. Živojinović (Eds.), Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2023. Berlin: Language Science Press. [Text]
Kovačević, P., Rešetar, S. H., Varga, M., & Erdeljić‑Gradaček, T. (2022). The use of it‑extraposition in MA theses written in English by British, American, Croatian, and Serbian students. In S. Gudurić, J. Dražić, & M. Stefanović (Eds.), Languages and cultures in space and time 10 (pp. 277–289). Novi Sad: Faculty of Philosophy. [Text]
Kovačević, P. (2022). Gradients of reflexivity: Psych verbs in causative alternations. In M. Janebová, J. Emonds, & L. Veselovská (Eds.), Proceedings of the Olomouc Linguistics Colloquium 2021: Language use and linguistic structure (pp. 141–161). Olomouc: Palacký University. [Text]
Kovačević, P. (2020). Layers of verbal structure in psych verb nominalizations in Serbian. In S. Gudurić, B. Radić Bojanić, & P. Mutavdžić (Eds.), Languages and cultures in space and time 9 (Vol. 1, pp. 431–442). Novi Sad: Faculty of Philosophy. [Text]
Varga, M., Kovačević, P., & Molnar, D. (2020). Establishing the criteria for building comparable corpora in research on academic writing in L1 and L2 English. In S. Gudurić, B. Radić Bojanić, & P. Mutavdžić (Eds.), Languages and cultures in space and time 9 (Vol. 1, pp. 145–155). Novi Sad: Faculty of Philosophy. [Text]
Marković, M., & Kovačević, P. (2019). Acoustic manifestations of information and contrastive focus in Serbian. In S. Gudurić & B. Radić Bojanić (Eds.), Languages and cultures in space and time 8 (Vol. 1, pp. 499–509). Novi Sad: Faculty of Philosophy. [Text]
Kovačević, P. (2019). Patterns of case and aspect with Serbian experiencer verbs: Some implications for the theory of causation. In V. Lopičić & B. Mišić Ilić (Eds.), Language, literature, theory (pp. 169–183). Niš: Faculty of Philosophy. [Text]

Theses, Dissertations, and Monographs

Kovačević, P. (in prep). Definiteness in the Adjectival Domain: A Degree-Based Approach to Long and Short Form Adjectives.. University of Novi Sad. [Link]
Kovačević, P. (2022). Syntax and Semantics of Psych Verbs in English and Serbian (Doctoral Dissertation). University of Novi Sad. [Link]
Kovačević, P. (2014). A (Very) Minimal Syntax: On the Relationship of DP, Scrambling, and Case (MA Thesis). University of Novi Sad. [Link]

Conference Presentations

Kovačević, P., Simonović, M., & Đokić Petrović, M. (2026). Hypothesis-driven corpus querying at scale: A method and its application to -nje nominalizations in BCMS. Second International Conference South Slavic Languages in the Digital Environment (JuDig 2026), University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mining and Geology, Belgrade, October 2026.
Babić, A., Simonović, M., & Kovačević, P. (2026). Deverbal nominalisations in the Timok speech: A preliminary corpus study. Second International Conference South Slavic Languages in the Digital Environment (JuDig 2026), University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mining and Geology, Belgrade, October 2026.
Kovačević, P., Mišmaš, P., Simonović, M., & Vinke, J. (2026). Between Latinate and native in some Germanic and some Slavic. 51° Incontro di Grammatica Generativa (IGG51), University of Udine, February 12–14, 2026.
Simonović, M., & Kovačević, P. (2025). Internal verbal structure of -nie/-tie nominalizations across Slavic: Quantitative insights from Ukrainian, Slovak, BCMS, and Pannonian Rusyn. Syntax, Phonology and Language Analysis (SinFonIJA) 18, University of Skopje, September 26-27, 2025 [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., Gehrke, B., & Simonović, M. (2025). The importance of having a degree: Attributive short and long form adjectives in BCMS. Syntax, Phonology and Language Analysis (SinFonIJA) 18, University of Skopje, September 26-27, 2025 [Slides/Handouts]
Gehrke, B., Kovačević, P., & Simonović, M. (2025). The importance of having a degree: On the semantics of attributive short and long form adjectives in BCMS. Sinn und Bedeutung 30, Goethe University Frankfurt, September 24–26, 2025. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., Grondelaers, S., & Simonović, M., Ivanović, S., Podboj, M. (2025). Social Meaning in Syntax: Finite vs. Non-Finite Complements in Serbo-Croatian. LiME Conference on Language Variation (LiCLA) 1, Meertens Institute, Amsterdam, September 17-18, 2025. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., Gehrke, B., & Simonović, M. (2025). The importance of having a degree: Missing short and long form adjectives in BCMS. Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW) 47, March 24-28, 2025. [Slides/Handouts]
Gehrke, B., Kovačević, P., & Simonović, M. (2025). The importance of having a degree: A semantic approach to short and long form adjectives in BCMS. 25th Szklarska Poreba Workshop, February 21-23, 2025. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2025). Implicit social meanings associated with the use of infinitival and finite clausal complements in Serbian and Croatian. Workshop on Language and Identity, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia. Presented January 30, 2025. [Slides/Handouts]
Simonović, M., & Kovačević, P. (2024). Severing affixes from categories and borrowed derivations [Paper presentation]. BCGL 17: Categories & Categorization. Presented December 12–13. [Slides/Handouts]
Stanković, B., & Kovačević, P. (2024). Dialectal discrimination at work: The case of infinitive and finite complements in Serbian [Paper presentation]. Language, Literature, Intersectionality, University of Niš, Niš. Presented April 21–22. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2023). What governs the choice between infinitives and finite complements in Serbo‑Croatian? Quantitative data from Northwestern Serbian [Paper presentation]. Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL) 16, University of Graz, Austria. Presented November 29–December 1. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2023). When -nie met -nje: Slavonic‑Serbian loan deverbal nominals [Paper presentation]. Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL) 16, University of Graz, Austria. Presented November 29–December 1. [Slides/Handouts]
Jakovljević, B., & Kovačević, P. (2023). Prosodic correlates of the grammaticalization scale: A case study of the Serbian lexical, modal and auxiliary uses of hteti (‘want’) [Paper presentation]. Language, Literature, Process (Workshop: The Process of Grammaticalization in Languages), University of Niš, Niš. Presented April 21–22. [Slides/Handouts]
Ivanović, S., Kovačević, P., & Milićević, N. (2022). Clitic climbing with different kinds of DA‑complements in Serbian [Paper presentation]. ELALT 6 (Workshop: Formal Approaches to Clausal Embedding), University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad. Presented October 29–30. [Slides/Handouts]
Simonović, M., & Kovačević, P. (2021). Possessive, kind, and not so kind: The different uses of the adjectival –ov in Serbo‑Croatian [Paper presentation]. SinFonIJA 14, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad. Presented September 22–24. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2021). Gradients of reflexivity: Psych verbs in causative alternations [Paper presentation]. Olinco 5, Palacký University Olomouc, Olomouc. Presented June 10–12. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., Milosavljević, S. & Simonović, M. (2021). The vowel minimal pairs show argument structure alternations [Paper presentation]. Theme vowels in V(P) Structure and Beyond, University of Graz. Presented April 22–23. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., Gradaček, T., Erdeljić, Rešetar, S. H., & Varga, M. (2020). The use of it‑extraposition in MA theses written in English by British, American, Croatian and Serbian students [Paper presentation]. Languages and Cultures in Time and Space 10 (JIKUVIP 10), University of Novi Sad. Presented November 14–15. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2020). On the internal structure of Serbian –nje nominalizations [Paper presentation]. SinFonIJA 13, Research Institute for Linguistics (Nyelvtudományi Intézet), Budapest. Presented September 24–26. [Slides/Handouts]

Kovačević, P. (2019). Psych‑verb participles in Serbian [Paper presentation]. NSLingColl 9, University of Novi Sad. Presented December 27. [Slides/Handouts]
Varga, M., Kovačević, P., & Molnar, D. (2019). Establishing the criteria for building comparable corpora in cross‑cultural research on graduates’ academic writing [Paper presentation]. Languages and Cultures in Time and Space (JIKUVIP 9), University of Novi Sad. Presented November 16. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2019). NP‑internal PP licensing with psych verb nominalizations in Serbian [Paper presentation]. Languages and Cultures in Time and Space (JIKUVIP 9), University of Novi Sad. Presented November 16. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2019). Not all object experiencers are the same: Evidence from SE anti‑causatives with Serbian psych verbs [Paper presentation]. Syntax and Semantics of Internal Arguments, University of Bucharest and University of Cologne. Presented October 24–25. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2019). Serbo‑Croatian long and short‑form adjectives: Definiteness inside AP [Paper presentation]. RTANJ Linguistics 3, Humboldt University (Rtanj, Serbia). Presented July 4–7. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2019). A corpus‑based contrastive study of experiencer verbs in English and Serbian: Some implications for the structure of VP [Paper presentation]. English Language and Anglophone Literatures Today (ELALT 5), University of Novi Sad. Presented March 9. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2018). Case, aspect and the role of SE with Serbian experiencer verbs [Paper presentation]. RTANJ Linguistics 2, Humboldt University (Rtanj, Serbia). Presented September 20–23. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2018). Gaps in the aspectual paradigms of experiencer verbs in Serbian [Paper presentation]. NSLingColl 8, University of Novi Sad. Presented December 27. [Slides/Handouts]
Marković, M., & Kovačević, P. (2018). Acoustic manifestations of information and contrastive focus in Serbian [Paper presentation]. Languages and Cultures in Time and Space (JIKUVIP 8), University of Novi Sad. Presented November 17. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2018). Case patterns with Serbian experiencer verbs [Paper presentation]. Language, Literature, Theory, University of Niš. Presented April 27–28. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., Milićev, T., & Đurić Paunović, I. (2017). Non‑finite complements in Serbian: Empirical evidence from translation [Paper presentation]. English Language and Anglophone Literatures Today (ELALT 4), University of Novi Sad. Presented March 25. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2016). Case, aspect, and theta roles with psych verbs in Serbian [Paper presentation]. NS LingColl 7, University of Novi Sad. Presented December 27. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2017). On DP, scrambling, case and the clausal structure of Serbo‑Croatian [Paper presentation]. RTANJ Linguistics 1, University of Niš and Humboldt University (Rtanj, Serbia). Presented July 6–9. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., & Milićev, T. (2016). The nature(s) of syntactic variation: Evidence from the Serbian/Croatian dialect continuum [Paper presentation]. FDSL 2016, Humboldt University. Presented December 8–10. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2016). Serbo‑Croatian complementizer DA as an accusative case marker [Paper presentation]. NS LingColl 6, University of Novi Sad. Presented December 27. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2015). Case inflections as theta role signals [Paper presentation]. The Third International Conference on English Studies English Language and Anglophone Literatures Today (ELALT 3), University of Novi Sad. Presented March 21. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2014). Uticaj određenosti na distribuciju imenica u srpskom jeziku [The impact of definiteness on the distribution of nouns in Serbian] [Paper presentation]. STULIKON 3, University of Sarajevo. Presented April 25–27. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2013). Ekstrakcija argumenata u nominativu iz zavisnih rečenica u srpskom jeziku [The extraction of nominative case‑marked arguments from embedded clauses in Serbian] [Paper presentation]. STULIKON 2, University of Zagreb. Presented May 3–4. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., & Pupezin, M. (2011). Determinatorska fraza u srpskom jeziku? [Determiner phrase in Serbian?] [Paper presentation]. STULIKON 1, University of Belgrade. Presented May 6–8. [Slides/Handouts]

Invited Talks

Kovačević, P.(2025). Can Syntax Carry Social Meaning? Evidence from clausal Complements in Serbian and Croatian, StuLiKON 10, University of Novi Sad, May 15, 2026. [Slides/Handouts]
Simonović, M., Kovačević, P., Mišmaš, P., & Vinke, J. (2025). Nominalisatie and nominalizacija walk into a pub, where nominalisering and nominaliziranje are already sitting: Latinate nominalisations in Germanic and Slavic [Invited talk]. Slavic Linguistic Colloquium (online), University of Berlin, December 4, 2025. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2025). The Typology of Nominalizations and the NP/DP Parameter: A Cross-Slavic Perspective [Invited talk]. JENom 11, University of Graz, July 4, 2025. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2025). Social Meanings in Syntactic Variation: Evidence from Serbo-Croatian Clausal Complements [Invited talk]. Meertens Institute, Amsterdam, March 17, 2025. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2024). What predicts the choice of clausal complement with modal verbs in Serbian [Invited talk]. SinFonIJA 17, University of Nova Gorica, Nova Gorica. Presented September 27–29. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P., & Stanković, B. (2023). Clausal complements between language structure and identity: Documenting, visualizing and theorizing variation in Shtokavian (non‑finite embedded clauses) [Invited talk]. Vuk’s Foundation/Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia. Presented October 16. [Slides/Handouts]
Kovačević, P. (2023). The status of verbal theme vowels in contemporary linguistic theorizing: Some recent developments [Invited talk]. University of Graz, Graz, Austria. Presented January 10. [Slides/Handouts]

Research Projects

2023 - 2025 - Clausal Complements between Language Structure and Identity: Documenting, Visualizing, and Theorizing Variation in Shtokavian (Non-)Finite Embedded Clauses (ClaCoLaSi), The Science Fund of the Government of Serbia (Grant #1589). PI: Branimir Stanković. [Link ]

2019 - 2022 - Expressions of hedging, stance, and interaction with the reader in the academic writing of novice researchers in English as a foreign language. Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. PI: Biljana Radić Bojanić.

2015 - 2022 - Languages and Cultures in Time and Space. Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. PI: Snežana Gudurić.

2014 - 2016 - Producing and contesting the national order of things: tracing how language standardisation processes and state effects configure (non)users near Serbian/Croatian border. Marie Curie/NEWFELPRO. PI: Andrew Hodges.

Contact

Work Email: predrag.kovacevic@ff.uns.ac.rs

Private Email: pedjakovacevic90@gmail.com