NEGATIVE INTENSIFIERS AND THEIR POSITIVE COLLOCATES IN THE CROATIAN LANGUAGE: METAPHORICAL COLLOCATIONS AND THEIR USE AMONG THE CROATIAN YOUTH

This paper deals with the analysis of selected negative intensifiers (brutalno, jezivo, ludo, očajno, odurno, odvratno, prokleto, strahovito, strašno, stravično, užasno) and their positive collocates in the Croatian language. The aims of the paper include the description of the semantic fields to which the collocates of the negative intensifiers belong, the use of such collocations among the Croatian youth, and the types of conceptual metaphors that may be identified by establishing the source and target domains in metaphorical collocations containing a negative intensifier and a positive collocate. In order to achieve these aims, the corpus of the Croatian language was examined by using Sketch Engine, and a completion test was prepared and administered among 170 students at the University of Zadar during April 2024. The analysis of the corpus of the Croatian language shows that among the 11 negative intensifiers, the most frequently occurring are ludo, strahovito, užasno i prokleto, with the greatest numbers of different positive collocates. The semantic field of emotions proved to be dominant according to the number of positive collocates, and is followed by the fields related to qualities, physical appearance, cognitive traits, and character traits. When it comes to the use of the analyzed collocations among the Croatian youth, in comparison to the frequency of use of negative intensifiers, a higher frequency of use of neutral intensifiers has been noted, as well as the influence of the English language in the case of the expressions proposed by the participants themselves. Regarding conceptual metaphors identified in the analysed collocations, a high degree of positive emotions, physical attractiveness, and certain character and cognitive traits is associated (depending on the semantic field and collocate) with concepts of horror, terror, craziness, despair, damnation, brutality, and disgust.