SLOVENIAN LEGAL LANGUAGE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A SLOVENIAN LANGUAGE

SLOVENIAN LEGAL LANGUAGE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A SLOVENIAN LANGUAGE EXPERT The paper draws attention to the current issues of legal language use within oneʼs own language, in this case Slovenian. We use specific cases to point out the additional semantic stress on legal terminology, word-formational variations and their (non-)acceptability, the need to take into consideration grammatical categories such as semantic definiteness in adjectives, and perfective and imperfective aspects in verbs and gerunds, as well as the (non-)justification of conversions within multiword legal terms. In this regard it is established that whatever is ambiguous in legal terminology is at the

state-forming profession, which confirms and establishes the Slovenian language as a fully-functional state language.For a precise and unambiguous use of language it is particularly important, especially in law, to be familiar with the sense-forming and word-formational capabilities of Slovenian, as well as its syntactical or text-formational/grammatical features and particularities.A sound and, in particular, a continuous functional development of oneʼs own language may facilitate a productive discussion on the multi-lingual and multi-cultural society.In the last two decades, however, the extensive use of globalized terms has inhibited the full functionality of the standard language and with it the competitive edge of its legal variety.
A precondition for the borrowing of a term is its conceptual and semantic placement in a cultural environment where that legal term can sensibly be used.It has been repeatedly pointed out in discussions on the denominative capabilities of Slovenian that too often incongruity arises between the conceptual base of a term and its expressive use (Vidovič Muha 1986, 2000).

Legal Slovenian and its denominative capabilities
The essential feature of legal language is its executive power; in the legal profession the communicative power of language is further developed into executive power.If one starts from the basic premise that language is a reflection of the social and cultural world, it should therefore express social processes and orientations in the most reliable fashion possible, where consistent use of terminology is necessary (with textually acceptable or necessary variants); the main guiding principle, however, remains clear -unambiguous communication.Terminological analyses done so far (Novak 2007;Fajfar 2010) have drawn attention to inconsistencies or faults in judgements; in this way the first step towards a more stable legal terminology has already been made.The language of law is particularly sensitive in terms of content, which is why its users (lawyers) should be made acutely aware of accurate usage of terminology.Among others things we should differentiate between set phrases and obsolete lexical items; while the former may be a consensually prescribed necessity within the given profession, the latter are just a case of linguistic and professional carelessness.
Legal language validates the importance of the word-formational process -the codependence of language and text -which is vital for the appropriate communicative and executive end-effect, is most expressively seen in legal texts.What is required is analysis and elaboration, including from the standpoint of language and linguistic appropriateness, the established textual patterns that apply to normative legal texts and also to the texts of legal practice written by non-legal professionals.An analysis of civil lawsuits and judgements has shown that the precision and unambiguity of information and acts stated is also dependent on the cohesion of the established textual pattern, i.e. on the manner and degree of cohesive resources used; cohesion is always a consequence of the better or worse coherence of the text.Generally, the prescribed textual structure of judgements contains overly complex sentence structures, which prevent the addressee from sufficiently understanding what was written and at the same time reduce the effect of the text (Novak 2007: 174-185); 2 essential textual features are clarity, unambiguity, unity, consistence, clarity, logic, specificity, appropriateness and the possibility of verifying what was written, including appropriate inclusion of intertextuality.

1.1.1
Many features of legal Slovenian explicitly described by Toporišič (1991: 191-205) as belonging to the so-called political "self-governing" Slovenian are still present in todayʼs legal language, e.g.too many multiword denominations, which are a consequence of the socio-political system, for example the syntagm neporočena oseba ženskega spola 'unmarried person of female genderʼ instead of neporočena ženska 'unmarried womanʼ or dekle 'girlʼ; in some other cases there is now a clear semantic differentiation between the use of the terms prekinitev dela 'termination of workʼ and stavka 'strikeʼ; there are too many of the so-called internationalisms, although certain terms have become systemically established, e.g.konferenca 'conferenceʼ, and there are still double terms such as načrtovanje/planiranje 'planningʼ, and there are certain terms that are disappearing due to a predominant secondary semantic use, e.g.partija instead of stranka 'political partyʼ; there are still too many abbreviations, though they cannot be avoided since they have been brought about by the changing political reality; there are too many nominal expressions, and here one needs to reject in particular the ambiguous accumulation of genitive nominalisations.A permanent shortcoming is the inability to master neutral word syntax and in particular the understanding that the socalled free word order in Slovenian is based on functional sentence perspective.

1.2
Due to the markedly inter-disciplinary scope of legal texts one could also claim that terminological variations are a consequence of intensive processes of terminologization and partial de-terminologization, which results in more general lexis.Here from the standpoint of legal Slovenian, and perhaps even preferentially from the standpoint of law, we stipulate that the compilation of a Slovenian general terminological dictionary is a terminological necessity for the future; such a dictionary should in the context of broader terminologization of Slovenian lexis highlight generally used terms, which acquired semantically narrow and specialised roles of professional terms within specific professional fields.
Legal terminologization of general lexis is a reasonably well-established process in Slovenian that necessitates that legal terms be precisely defined; narrowing down or specifying the meaning of the general lexeme requires a more precise definition, 2 From the standpoint of relevance and reference of the analysed legal texts, Novak (2007) presented a research text corpus of thirty judgements issued by Slovenian courts between 1997 and 2004.According to the authorʼs opinion it is precisely the judgement that is a sufficiently representative textual type with peculiarities that in her estimation are also contained in other legal texts.In modern legal texts it is sensible to pose a question regarding the degree of linguistic competence in co-dependence with the degree of communicative capability.
and here unmarked standard lexis has an advantage.In this way, it is general lexis that provides conceptual and semantic differentiation between terms such as zavrniti 'turn downʼ and zavreči 'rejectʼ, which must be very precisely defined as legal terms.
General lexis also includes examples such as mnenje 'opinionʼ in contrast to sklepni predlog 'submissionʼ, as well as korist 'benefitʼ in contrast to ugodnost 'advantageʼ, which of course are not interchangeable.Similarly lastnik 'ownerʼ does not mean the same as imetnik 'proprietorʼ, and proizvod 'productʼ and izdelek 'articleʼ also belong to two different legal categories.The term stalno prebivališče 'permanent residenceʼ in contrast to sedež 'head officeʼ clearly draws on the specifics of a given text, amandma combines 'supplementary or changed proposal to an actʼ, razlikovalni značaj 'distinctive characterʼ can neither lexically nor syntactically and semantically be equated with razlikovalni učinek 'distinctive characterʼ, whereas, for example, dejavnost 'activityʼ may be perfectly equivalent to aktivnost 'activityʼ, and similarly also izvedenec 'expertʼ and ekspert 'expertʼ, and so on.It should be pointed out that the semantic and grammatical differences are not interchangeable between phrases such as pravica obrambe 'defense rightʼ and pravica do obrambe 'right of defenseʼ, postopek za ugotovitev ničnosti 'declaration of invalidity proceedingsʼ and postopek za ugotavljanje ničnosti 'invalidity proceedingsʼ, razlikovalen element 'distinctive elementʼ and razlikovalni element 'distinctive elementʼ, nasprotna stranka 'counterpartyʼ and ugovarjajoča stranka 'opposing partyʼ, which has further confirmation in terms of transformation: terms such as postopek z ugovorom versus postopek ugovora 'opposition proceedingsʼ, postopek s pritožbo versus pritožbeni postopek 'appellate procedureʼ, and so on. 3Below are some examples originating in general vocabulary and used in legal language (labeled as legal in the Standard Slovenian Dictionary); the most typical are examples when the general sense lexeme is terminologized into a phrasal term: korist 'which is or represents a certain value as a consequence of some sort of work, actionʼ in contrast to the legal phrase premoženjska korist 'proceedsʼ; knjiga 'a large number of printed sheets bound togetherʼ in contrast to zemljiška knjiga 'land registryʼ; breme 'a heavy object usually carried on oneʼs shouldersʼ in contrast to dokazno breme 'burden of proofʼ; čas 'limited duration with conditions, circumstances, including the accompanying realityʼ in contrast to čakalni čas 'waiting timeʼ, čas zastaranja 'limitation periodʼ; dokaz 'which substantiates or supports a claimʼ, obremenilni dokaz 'incriminating evidenceʼ, razbremenilni dokaz 'exculpatory evidenceʼ, nasprotni dokaz 'opposing evidenceʼ; pregon in the phrase kazenski pregon 'criminal prosecutionʼ; požig in the phrase naklepni požig 'arsonʼ; prednik 'a relative in a straight line going backwardsʼ in contrast to pravni prednik 'legal predecessorʼ; predmet 'which exists independently from human consciousness, thinking and can be perceived by the senses, mind, particularly as a whole of certain featuresʼ in contrast to dokazni predmet 'material evidenceʼ; razlog 'which substantiates or supports a given action, decisionʼ in contrast to oprostilni razlog 'reason for acquittalʼ, sodbeni razlog 'reason for trialʼ; zavod 'a work organization for carrying out a particular activity whose purpose is not to make a profitʼ in contrast to kazenski poboljševalni zavod 'correctional facilityʼ, and so on.The terminologized meaning is more conceivable due to its semantic specialization, which in turn guarantees greater legal protection.
What needs to prevail is consensual, unambiguous terminology with clear definitions; it is important to precisely define the term in advance, as far as this is objectively possible, as well as within each legal text.Despite the fact that legal texts are structurally fixed and formulaic, it is further confirmed that the actual context enables the recognition of all, or most of, the variations of terminologically relevant lexemes, and in continuation their justification or non-justification; for example, the appropriate selection of a newly emerging globalized word or term such as notranji/skupni/ enotni trg 'domestic/common/single marketʼ or trgovski izvor/poreklo 'commercial originʼ is defined by the actual text and the overall context (Fajfar 2010: 42-46, 142) because it is the manner of translating these global variants that reveals different aspects of the approach towards the existing socioeconomic reality.This indirectly demonstrates the need to develop a Slovenian terminological portal, which would contribute, in particular, to the unification and increased appropriateness of Slovenian terminology.
Another question arises: can we, even marginally, assess the degree of terminologization of legal terms (based on the following relations: general lexis in contrast to general terminology, and the appropriate terminological lexis in contrast to inappropriate terminological lexis) and among the terminological options draw out a selection of preferential terms?
The so-called general terminology (i.e. the use of identical terms in different professional fields) in law is generally a consequence of a conceptual-semantic shift within the same term used in different legal systems; as we continue we also deal with the problems of 'acceptable terminological variationʼ -it is precisely this terminological parallelism that largely reflects the process of translating EU legal terms.

1.2.1
The question of adjectival derivatives used in collocations remains open.Adjectival derivatives are an essential part of the phrase; Fajfar (2010: 133-134) addresses the issue of formational variants of the type diskrimatorni/diskriminatorski ukrep in contrast to diskriminacijski ukrep.A permanent feature of adjectives in terminological phrases is their classifying quality, e.g.razbremenilni dokaz, nasprotni dokaz.
It has been demonstrated numerous times that it is useless to avoid internationalisms in various professional fields, since it is the semantic complexity of these terms that makes them internationally established; it is difficult to substitute them with semantically simpler terms from the native language.In this manner it is semantically inadequate to change the international term kohezija 'cohesionʼ in the phrase gospodarska kohezija 'economic cohesionʼ with povezanost 'connectednessʼ as in gospodarska povezanost 'economic connectednessʼ; in certain other cases the term transparentnost 'transparencyʼ could be adequately substituted with preglednost.
The executive power in law is of central importance, which is why perfective verbs take precedence over imperfective ones (Jemec Tomazin 2010: 212), and two-aspect verbs are not permitted due to potential ambiguity.It is precisely from the standpoint of executiveness that the following two terms are fundamentally different: postopek za ugotovitev ničnosti and postopek za ugotavljanje ničnosti; also, it is more acceptable to use vložnik ugovora (why not vložitelj, 4 examples in Gigafida4 ) than vlagatelj ugovora.An analysis of judgements confirms the predominance of the perfective verbal aspect; the imperfective aspect is, as one would expect, tied to the present tense and the perfective aspect to the past tense, e.g. the verb navajati in contrast to navesti 'citeʼ.Lawyers as language users should be aware of the semantic and grammatical power of the verb as well as other partsof-speech.Apart from aspect, two other important categories are also manner and mood.

1.3
The syntax used in judgements -which are typical legal texts with an established cohesive pattern -was analysed in terms of sentence complexity.Judgements were statistically processed in parts (1 st part: head/pronouncement; 2 nd part: explanation; 3 rd part: legal precept); the statistical analysis reflects the (syntactical) state of Slovenian legal texts.It is probable that the 1 st part will contain a sentence with 14 clauses, the 2 nd part a sentence with 12 clauses and the 3 rd part a sentence with 6 clauses (Novak 2007: 52-78).The analysed judgements were dominated by compound sentences; among complex compound sentences, subordinate complex sentences were the most frequent.The first part predominantly consisted of subordinate relations; when coordination is present, it is only the copulative coordination that is used.According to the statistics (Novak 2007: 61-66), object clauses were the most numerous, followed by modifying clauses; in terms of coordination the most frequently represented was copulative coordination.The type of the predominating subordinate and coordinate relations used (i.e.object and modifying clauses as well as the copulative coordination) suggests that connectives and conjunctions are underused, which of course does not contribute to greater clarity and unambiguity, with intelligibility being rendered even more difficult by the frequent use of appositions and embedded clauses.

1.3.1
The predicate in judgements typically contains verbal phrases with a marked semantic hierarchy of verbs, ranging from semantically broad or fundamental to semantically specialised verbs; these do not only testify to the essential role of the verb aspect, but also point out the typical use of manner and mood in legal texts, e.g. in judgements.In the following examples aspect performs a dominant role: zavrniti tožnikov tožbeni zahtevek, izstaviti za zemljiškoknjižni vpis sposobno listino za vknjižbo lastninske pravice na nepremičnini, pristopiti k sodni poravnavi, Odločitev o revizijskih stroških je zajeta z zavrnilnim izrekom te odločbe, Tožnik tako predlaga, da se ugotovi obstoj njegove terjatve iz naslova premalo izplačanih plač, osem dni po vročitvi prepisa sodbe, pogodba o poravnavi pravnega razmerja z določitvijo vzajemnih pravic in obveznosti.

THE RESPONSE OF LEGAL SLOVENIAN TO THE INTRODUCTION OF CONCEPTS OF THE SUPRA-NATIONAL LEGAL ORDER, I.E. THE LEGAL ORDER OF THE EU
In the last two decades the lexico-grammatical response of legal Slovenian to the adoption of concepts of the transnational legal order, i.e. the legal order of the EU, has been in the forefront.According to information provided by some Slovenian legal experts "the European legal order shows great concern for the linguistic interests of the Member States" (cf.Accetto 2010: 35), which certainly is a good opportunity for the Slovenian legal language, but which requires continual professional engagement by Slovenian legal experts and Slovenian linguists.In the forefront is the question of how to translate terms without "harming the meaning" if it holds true that the legal supranational language of the EU is "in its essence a translational language" (Fajfar 2010: 39). 5ranslation in its final version should strive to have all the lexico-syntactic properties of Slovenian, i.e.Slovenian word-formational and text-formational properties.
The current state of standard legal Slovenian both in Slovenia and within the EU requires in particular the timely, systematic gathering, editing and verification of terminology (Erbič 2009: 110).Since Slovenia entered the EU there have been three linguistic dissertations dealing with the state of legal terminology (Novak 2007;Jemec Tomazin 2010;Fajfar 2010).We have seen the emergence of glossaries and thesauruses of existing terms and terminological phrases as "language reproductions of the conceptual world worded in judgements", and with a tendency to reflect or present the actual state in terminology.Public and non-public terminological collections such as Evroterm and CuriaTerm have been in operation; in the pipeline (at the Fran Ramovš Institute for the Slovenian Language, SRC SASA) are legal dictionaries such as a modern legal terminological dictionary and a European legal dictionary; a potential source for revitalising certain Slovenian legal terms may come from the legal-historic dictionary (up to the year 1848) which is in the making.