There are three senses of the term 'alternativeness': a) the choice of one between two options, b) equivalence (mutual interchangeability), and c) alternation. Only the first sense is grammaticalized as disjunctive. It is expressed by non-ambiguous sentential and/or phrasal disjunctive conjunctions ili, bilo and volj(a). The meaning of equivalence is not related to structural but to explanatory characteristics of language units, while no construction with the meaning of alternation has a

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... ically disjunctive meaning as primary, but does have a syntactically adversative meaning. This means that it is not expressed with a disjunctive construction but with adversative independent constructions (sentences and phrases), both with conjunctions (the conjunction a) and with non-conjunctive markers of adversative alternation. The role of reduplicated semantic specifiers of adversative alternation is performed by temporal, quantitative, locative, and modal adverbs (čas, kad, nekad, ponekad, d(ij) elom, pola, negd(j)e, možda), by pronouns, which are often used as adverbials (što, nešto, koje), and by the modal particle makar. None of these specifiers, which are always reduplicated, has the role of a disjunctive conjunction. They always function as semantic specifiers of the adversative conjunction a, which is an obligatory semantic specifier, which means that if it is omitted the sentence becomes ungrammatical. The given reduplicated obligatory semantic specifiers unambiguously verify the sense of alternativeness as adversative alternation. In other words, another distinctive semantic subtype must be added to the subtypes of independent adversative clauses marked by semantic specifiers – this subtype are sentences featuring specifiers with the meaning of alternative alternation.