Modern Croatian features four functional domains which are marked by constructions based on two non-finite forms of verba dicendi, namely the adverbial participle govoreći ‘speaking’ and the past participle rečeno ‘said’:
a) stance-marking with the prototypical construction adv + non-finite verbum dicendi (e.g. iskreno govoreći / rečeno ‘frankly speaking’);
b) contextualization with the prototypical construction govoreći / rečeno + adj.ins + noun.ins (e.g. nogometnim žargonom rečeno ‘speaking (lit. said) in soccer jargon’);
c) quotative indexing with the prototypical construction govoreći / rečeno + noun.ins+ noun.gen (e.g. govoreći rječnikom sv. Pavla ‘lit. speaking in the language of St. Paul’)
d) direct speech marking with the help of “plain” govoreći.

Only with the formant rečeno ‘said’ is the construction semi-productive, which implies a crystallization of functions: “plain” govoreći seems to be developing towards an exclusive marker of direct speech, whereas rečeno ‘said’ is turning into the preferable formant for all the modified constructions that are associated with discourse functions.
The diachronic part of the paper is concerned with the development of the four constructions mentioned above and proposes an explanation for the current crystallization of functions: firstly, the semantic structure of reći ‘say’ predisposes this verb for discourse functions. Secondly, historical language contact with German may have enhanced the rooting of discourse structuring constructions with rečeno ‘said’ in Croatian, as German also features a semi-productive construction based on the past participle gesagt ‘said’ that serves discourse functions.