Verbatological-genre and pragmatic-semantic characteristics of proverbs as microtexts

The paper investigates the syntactic aspects of the composition of the novel Time of Death (first and second books) by Dobrica Ćosić, from the standpoint of theoretical-methodological postulates of text theory, linguistic composition and verbatology. Intra-sentence relationships in statements are discussed, with special reference to verb and noun rection, as well as their mutual relationship. The authors first recognize and describe the ability of language units to influence the form of dependent units that are combined with them, i.e. rectional structures, and based on the analysis of this type of structural cohesion - the research results are presented as determining and describing: appositional constructions in the organization of sentence structures; appositive or dislocated subcategorical determinatives; and attributive provisions with a classification meaning. Therefore, the subject of research are: (1) all forms of connection in appositional constructions - noun, pronoun and adjective and (2) all syntactic procedures of form expansion by adding new elements - apposition, adlocation, collocation, prosthesis, structural expansion. It was determined that in the novel Time of Death by Dobrica Ćosić there are two formal ways of building the structure: (a) congruent and more dominant - most often as three-part sentence structures with a conjunction and a predicate or with a semi-conjunction and a predicate, and (b) a reaction type of structure - with a conjunction and a predicate. On the basis of these findings, two regularities were established: the rules of linear distribution of consecutive sentences and the rules of structural repartition of the meaning pivots of the sentence. The authors conclude that Ćosić's sentence in Time of Death is characterized by linear discursiveness, most often as a connection of consecutive units, in which the syntactic mechanisms of conjunction, adjunction, interjunction and disjunction are particularly activated. Ćosić's syntactic procedure in this novel is defined as 'parable' - i.e. as a procedure with a distinct tendency and ability to build a complex structure by combining comparable microstructures, in the result of which the verbatological and stylistic value of successive constructions is revealed.