Radoslav Katičić

Radoslav Katičić ( born July 3, 1930 in Zagreb) is a Croatian linguist and historian. He is in Croatia as one of the most important authorities on questions of the Croatian language and history.

Career

Katičić studied at the University of Zagreb, and in 1959 ibid. his doctorate with a thesis on the Indo-European verbal inflection. In addition to the Indo-European studies he focused mainly with Classical Philology, General Linguistics, Indology and the history of the Croatian language. By the year 1977, in which he was appointed as Professor of Slavic philology at the University of Vienna, Katičić worked as a university lecturer at the University of Zagreb.

Katičić is a regular member of several European academies.

Work

Katičićs scientific contributions can be divided into four areas:

• General Linguistics and studies the ancient language levels in the Balkans, mainly related to the methodological approach of transformational grammar
• Linguistically - stylistic work on certain aspects of various European and non-European languages
• Numerous works on the history of the Croatian language from the beginning of literacy in Croatian Church Slavonic vernacular written about the works of Renaissance writers like Marin Držić or Marko Marulić to the syntax of the modern Croatian standard language
• Synthetic works analyzing the beginnings of Croatian civilization with a multidisciplinary approach with the aid of philology, archeology, cultural studies, palaeography and textual criticism

Some aspects of his work are subjected to criticism, especially his purist approach to the linguistic terminology, the primordial conception of nation and subjectivity in articles on language policy. In addition, his work has been judged negatively on the syntax of other Croatian Syntaktikern.