Matjaž Zgonc (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
On 19 March 2025, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia (henceforth: SCRS) published its verdict (SCRS) concerning the appeal made to the High Criminal Appeals Court in Koper (henceforth: HCK) about a sentence received by two individuals who sexually attacked an unsuspecting young woman while camping in 2017 (HCK). While the content of the verdict was a vile act in and of itself, what rubbed people the wrong way (there were several responses in both traditional (Source 1, Source 2) and social media (Source 3)) was the justification SCRS gave for its verdict. Whereas the district court ruled, following §4 of article 171 of the Slovenian Penal Code (SPC), that a sex-driven attack of multiple persons successively qualifies as an aggravated offence and merits three years in prison, HCK instead opted for the unaggravated interpretation because the quantifier več “multiple” in več oseb zaporedoma “multiple persons successively” nedvomno “indubitably” (SCRS, §§18–19) means “more than two”, not “more than one”. The perpetrators thus received suspended sentences of five months instead, and SCRS upheld this verdict and detailed the linguistic explanation behind it.
It is the purpose of this contribution to show how, while the law must be respected and its social and discursive particularities considered, this verdict is problematic and linguistically flawed. For readers of this blog, it will be interesting to note how commonplace prescriptive modes known from other domains, in this case ipse dixit (i.e. an author who is considered an authority claims a linguistic construction is incorrect according to themselves and provides a correct alternative), and reference to older texts, underpin legal normativity which, as opposed to linguistic normativity, has at least a perlocutionary truth-value that normative utterances usually lack.
To start with, to those unfamiliar with Slovene it might be strange to see how a quantifier like več “multiple” can mean anything but “more than one”. In binary number languages like English, Hindi and Japanese as well as most of the world’s languages, only the singular and the plural are used, which is why any non-singular entity necessarily takes on a plural meaning. In languages such as Modern Standard Arabic and Slovenian, however, there is also the dual, used to refer to two entities, with separate forms for nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and some numerals. Notice how adverbs are not present on the list.
The use of the dual, where applicable, is strictly prescribed only in Standard Slovene. Colloquially it is quite common to see plural forms used where the Standard demands the dual, i.e. mi smo šli “we went” for midva sva šla/midve sva šli “we-DuM went-DuM/we-DuF went-DuF”, so much so that the non-use of the dual may be considered an old chestnut type of usage problem for Slovene. Linguistic studies, for their part, show that the use of the dual varies across dialects (Jakop 2010) and is in no danger of disappearing.
Furthermore, one must be aware of the ways in which the law, in particular penal law, operates.[1] When deciding on the interpretation of a given legal document, several methods can be used. Prevalent among these are linguistic, logical, systematic, and teleological methods.[2] Whereas in civil cases the domains where the law can be applied are usually less rigidly defined (social and technological changes, for example) and thus more flexible methods come into play more frequently, penal law, which is highly concerned with preserving the extent of criminal liability (i.e. aiming not to expand it; this is known as the principle of legality), avoids broad interpretations as a rule and thus tends to stick to linguistic and teleological interpretations. These two categories concern what the literal meaning of the words used in the legal documentation is, and what the purported achievement of the given law was, respectively. When analyzing the language used in criminal court proceedings, one must therefore bear in mind that the court’s interpretations will be more literal and rigid than what is usual in language for general or even specific purposes.
Let me proceed to the heart of the matter. As mentioned above, the relevant legal basis consists of article 171, especially 171-4 of SPC and is as follows: “Sexual violence. Article 171. (1) Whoever causes another person to commit or suffer an act of sexual violence without their prior consent not covered in any preceding article is to be punished with up to five years in prison […] (4) If the act from the preceding paragraph was committed in a horrific or especially degrading manner, or if the act was committed by multiple persons sequentially, or [committed] over a convicted or otherwise detained person, is to be punished with between three and up to fifteen years in prison”[3] (SPC). The quantifier več “multiple” is taken – literally adjudged – to mean “more than two but not two”, narrowing it down in scope from the usual interpretation that certainly exists in Slovenian, but also in line with the linguistic method employed in criminal proceedings.
HCK applied the narrow scope interpretation of več to mean “more but no less than two” (HCK, §7) to dismiss the aggravated offence interpretation in SPC 171-4 above, arguing that an aggravated offence interpretation is merited if the act was committed by več oseb zaporedoma, torej se zahteva udeležba najmanj treh oseb “multiple persons sequentially, so participation of a minimum of three people is required”.[4] Thus, HCK failed to explain how they arrived at this interpretation of the wording in SPC, which is most likely why the case was brought before SCRS. In their verdict, the supreme court did offer a substantial explanation of their linguistic method of interpretation, to which I will now turn my attention.
The verdict, comprising 24 sections, starts by acknowledging and summarizing the issue, realizing in §10 that interpreting the quantifier več in več oseb zaporedoma “multiple persons sequentially” is the crux of the matter. In §§11–16 SCRC addresses the superordinate legal constituents (the constitution, EU law and a convention), reiterating that the principle of legality established there binds their interpretation of the quantifier in question. In §16, the existence of various significations of več (oseb) “multiple (persons)” in SPC is acknowledged, which are then expounded in §§17–21 (in a section titled Razlaga besedne zveze “več oseb” “Explaining the phrase ‘multiple persons’”).
In §17, it is claimed that the phrase več oseb “multiple persons” is najpogosteje “most frequently” used with cardinal numerals when designating offences which imply complicity. Nine examples follow, and SCRS mentions how SPC uses the wording dve ali več oseb “two or more persons” in each of those cases. This is different from the case in SPC 171, where the cardinal numeral is absent, which SCRS concedes is one of the only two instances where an offence pertaining to the same semantic category ‘implying complicity’ where this is the case.[5] SCRS goes on to state that there is nothing within the wording itself which would render the reference of the quantifier unambiguous, other than the fact that the reference excludes the notion of ‘one person’. At this point, one does not have to be a linguist to understand that “more than one”, the definitive implication of več oseb, subsumes “two” whether or not there is a dual which exists in the phonological form of other word classes, but SCRS proceeds to explain why, according to modern Slovenian law, this is not true.
In the past, specifically in Socialist Republic of Slovenia,[6] SCRS (§18) goes on to say, več oseb “multiple persons” could be used to mean dve ali več oseb “two or more persons”. This is because in an older version of SPC, which was in effect in Socialist Republic of Slovenia, all special offences implying complicity were contingent on the general article defining complicity, in which the phrase več oseb “multiple persons” was used. [7] Moving back to SCRS, in §19, it is claimed that in contemporary law the generic article defining complicity used the cardinal numeral dve “two”, as in dve ali več oseb “two or more persons”. In article 20 of SPC (SPC 20), one finds dual-form pronouns drugega “the other” and z drugim “with another”, not cardinal numerals, but since, according to SCRS, cardinal numerals were present in the older version of SPC,[8] SCRS should be afforded grace in their misuse of linguistic terminology. (I assume their interpretation would be the same if they used the terms correctly since it is the concept of dual as opposed to singular and plural, implicit also in drugega and z drugim, that is relevant here.) Since, SCRS goes on to claim (§§19–20), the cardinal numeral dve “two” is used to modify the quantifier več “multiple” in the general definition of complicity, this particular quantifier on its own must be taken to mean “more than two” in all special articles implying complicity. Because the cardinal numeral is not present, SCRS concludes that “the use of the plural form” (zaradi uporabe množinske oblike) causes “the aggravated offence category to comprise cases where at least three people are complicit” (se tako v to kvalificirano obliko […] umeščajo tisti primeri, pri katerih gre za sostorilstvo vsaj treh oseb). Finally, in §21, SCRS concedes how suffering sequential sex attacks by two or more than two persons may be similar in essence, but makes an indirect appeal to the legislative branch, i.e. the parliament, to address this issue.
Unpacking this legalese is hard work. Using a purely linguistic method, SCRS was apparently unable to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion regarding the meaning of več oseb, for which reason some historical and teleological arguments were given. Because, from a (descriptive) linguistic point-of-view, the Slovenian word več means “more than one”, and because the concept of dual is encoded into Slovenian, two differing significations must have arisen within the domain of law: “more than one” and “more than two”. The text of SPC 171 did not suffice to disambiguate the quantifier, for which reason allusions to a different text, namely SPC 20 and several articles from penal codes previously in effect were made to demonstrate a conjectural difference between definitions in the general part, which the articles in question belong to. That is, the version of SPC previously in effect used no numerals in its definitions, while the contemporary one does so, and since the numeral in question was dve “two”, the lack of explicit mention of the numeral elsewhere in the text was interpreted as intending to preclude the semantic content of the numeral. Very basically, because dve ali več oseb “two or more persons” is the usual, or most frequent, way of putting več oseb “multiple persons” in SPC, the lack of reference to dve “two” was interpreted so that več “multiple” meant “more than one but not two”. Not using the numeral – večdesetletno vztrajanje pri samostojni besedni zvezi ‘več oseb’ “several decades of persisting with the bare phrase ‘multiple persons’” (SCRS, §20) – was thus declared to indicate the legislative intention to designate as an aggravated offence only three or more successive sexual attacks, but not two. It is perhaps pertinent to remind the reader that the former entails prison time and the latter merely a suspended sentence.
By referring to apparent similarities between več “more (than one)” and dve ali več “more than two”, SRCS itself seems to implicitly recognize the absurdity of this. Setting the law aside, from a descriptive linguistic point of view it is also difficult to see how this reasoning is sound, especially since SCRS ultimately justifies the non-verdict of aggravated offence by invoking množinsk[a] oblik[a] “the plural form” (§20)] – več is an adverb in Slovene and adverbs, as I mentioned above, do not have a dual form, for which reason the position of SCRS, namely that there is a difference in signification between the dual and plural forms of več, is linguistically invalid.
A prescriptive-linguistic point of view is, I would argue, a more felicitous choice. It is easy to recognize the ipse dixit approach typical of prescriptive texts in the discussion summarized above. It is well known that ipse dixit resolutions to usage problems can become parroted by other texts down the line if subsequent authors say the same thing in their texts (cf. e.g. Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2020, 31). Reaction to an ipse dixit approach can be one of deference to absolute authority (such as Kingsley Amis, nicknamed ‘The King’ and the author of a usage guide called The King’s English, waxing lyrical about H. W. Fowler, author of a much older and tremendously successful usage guide also called The King’s English, calling him his “great predecessor” (Amis 2011, vii)). It can also be a reaction of a complete rejection (as in Geoffrey Pullum’s (2009) article called “50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice” on The Elements of Style, a usage guide by Strunk and White; this title has since become a bit of a legend). In law, complete deference to the higher authority of the court is institutionalized, but the core tenet of ipse dixit remains the same: več means “more than two” and not “more than one” because and only because SCRS said so.
What is more, references to other texts (older penal codes, different articles or different laws in this case) to justify a particular interpretation of a given text is a familiar trick of Slovenian institutional prescriptivism: from 1848 to roughly 1990, but especially between 1950 and 1970, swathes of words and phrases were eradicated from public speech as un-Slovenian Germanisms, Serbianisms, Croatisms, Englishisms, Styrianisms, etc. (see Thomas 1991; Zgonc under review). This trick, whereby a clearly functional concept is ascribed a moral value because of an analogous property or because of the property of the text in which it appeared (some words were accepted because they were used by the so-called “good writers”, others were not because they were not), only for this value to be onomasiologically imposed onto a different text, is also at play when a court takes an interpretation of a phrase with a fixed number of meanings, such as več, and imposes on it an interpretation of its function in different texts, even though they were supposed to be using the purely linguistic method. In law, this is considered a valid final verdict, because the Supreme Court’s decision is always final. In descriptive linguistics, this is considered unscientific prescriptivism. In prescriptive linguistics, it is considered a usage problem being resolved in a highly typical fashion.
Linguistic prescriptivism and law are similar yet different. The law is a textual domain concerned with justice, but even more so with internal consistency, and in the desire to uphold this internal consistency interpretations that are supposedly literal might make recourse to analogy (as in, “other articles use the numeral, so it must be significant that this one does not”), intertextuality (as in, “there is nothing which structurally supports one of the two possible interpretations of this text, but there is something in a different text”) and ipse dixit (as in, “x indubitably means y”). In other textual domains, normative utterances in the mold of ‘you must say x, not y,to mean z’ have no truth-value, as was famously claimed by Bentham in his distinction between is-statements and ought-statements, i.e. between descriptive and normative statements (see also Auroux 1998, e.g. 232). This is why regular normative utterances can safely be ignored if they correspond poorly with actual language use. Legal normative utterances, on the other hand, always have at least a perlocutionary truth value, because there is a universally known and accepted punishment in place for aberrant interpretations of its proposition. Thus, “you must say dve ali več oseb ‘two or more persons’, not več oseb ‘multiple persons’, to include dve osebi ‘two persons’” has a truth-value which can be used in a legal process to prevent sexual attackers from going to jail, even if the logic is linguistically invalid.
Matjaž Zgonc, March 2025
References:
Amis, Kingsley. 2011. The King’s English: A Guide to Modern Usage. London: Penguin. [First published in 1997.]
Auroux, Sylvain. 1998. La linguistique est une science normative. La raison, le langage et les normes, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 221–289.
Jakop, Nataša. 2010. Dvojinske in pluralizirane oblike v slovenskih narečjih “Dual and pluralized forms in dialects of Slovene”. Slavia Centralis 3(1), 74–87.
Pullum, Geoffrey K. 2009. 50 years of stupid grammar advice. The Chronicle of Higher Education 55(32), B15.
Thomas, George. 1991. Linguistic Purism. New York: Longman.
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 1996. Lindley Murray and the concept of plagiarism. In Two Hundred Years of Lindley Murray, ed. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Münster: Nodus Publikationen, 81–96.
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2020. Describing Presciptivism. London: Routledge.
HCK = VSK Sodba II Kp 44022/2017. Last accessed 24 March 2025.
SCRS = VSRS Sodba I Ips 44022/2017. Last accessed 24 March 2025.
Zgonc, Matjaž. Under review. Standardologija slovenščine: je slovenski knjižni jezik bližje standardizaciji zgodnega tipa ali poznega tipa? [The standardology of Slovene: Is standard Slovene closer to early-type or late-type tandardization?]
SPC = KZ-1 = Kazenski zakonik [“Penal Code”]. Last accessed 24 March 2025.
[1] I wish to thank legal experts T. B. and R. R. L. B. for the helpful and patient insight into the relevant legal matters. I did my best to summarize their input here faithfully; any errors in this interpretation are my own.
[2] There are at least six others, but this fact it not relevant for the present purposes.
[3] Original: Spolno nasilje. 171. člen.(1) Kdor brez privolitve druge osebe doseže, da ta stori ali trpi kakšno spolno dejanje, ki ni zajeto v prejšnjem členu, se kaznuje z zaporom do petih let. (4) Če je dejanje iz prejšnjega odstavka storjeno grozovito ali posebno poniževalno ali če je dejanje storilo več oseb zaporedoma ali nad obsojenci ali drugimi osebami, ki jim je vzeta prostost, se kaznuje z zaporom od treh do petnajstih let. The translation is deliberately verbatim to reflect the text as faithfully as possible. The translation is mine given that an official version does not exist.
[4] For full disclosure, the appeal also challenged the material legal matter of the case itself, which is also partially true for VSRS. However, for reasons of brevity and given that it concerns legal expertise, I decided it was not relevant for the present purposes to delve deeper into this.
[5] The other is rape, a similar type of offence.
[6] Before 1991, Slovenia was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, where constituents known as “republics” enjoyed a certain degree of legal autonomy.
[7] SPC, as is the case with most penal codices within the civil law system, is divided into a “general” part which defines the fundamentals, and a “special” part which, invoking the general part, defines specific offences.
[8] Unfortunately there is no digital copy of the older SPC. Two physical copies exist in two library warehouses in Slovenia, one belonging to the National Library and the other to the College of Law at The University of Ljubljana. Neither can be retrieved, only examined on the spot.
Bridging the Unbridgeable 