The declension of foreign words and loanwords in Croatian newspapers

Sa？etak This paper deals with the declension of foreign words and loanwords in Croatian newspapers in the period from 1950 to 1999. The usage of foreign nouns, of a-type declension, with vowel final sounds in nominative in newspaper texts is compared with Croatian literary-linguistic norm. This comparison uncovers which forms are either inconsistent in terms of their usage or not in accordance with the linguistic norm. It can be seen that the grammatical norms of the second half of the 20th century were insufficient for news writing style incessantly inundated with new expressions - particularly foreign names which should be adjusted to Croatian declension system. That also points out the need for more detailed description in the present morphological norm