Dativ zakletve in the Act of Swearing in Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin

The article examines how the notion of dativ zakletve and its terminological equivalents are understood and categorised. The study presents a review of Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin grammars in which that notion is present. Next, various sources are surveyed for details of the zakletva speech act, in which the titular meaning of dative is embedded. On this basis, it is established that dativ zakletve was isolated from just one of many existing patterns of folk swearing formulas, which currently function as idioms with reduced components. The study of the descriptions of this use of the dative case reveals problems with its classification. Those result from, among others, old grammatical traditions, the lack of a thorough analysis of swearing formulas, and the selection of data. It is finally concluded that there is no ground for isolating the notion of dativ zakletve as distinct, so that we are dealing with flaws in grammatical categorisation.