Search

The issues related to the transformation of Slavic languages at the turn of the 20 th - 21 st centuries are considered. Special attention is paid to the tendencies of enrichment of Bulgarian and Russian languages with phraseological units. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that for the first time a comparative analysis of dictionaries containing phraseological neologisms is made. The results of a comparison of the sources of phraseological units and their areas of functioning are presented. The author proceeds from the fact that the enrichment of phraseology is subject to two trends - borrowing and updating at the expense of its own reserves. It is established that borrowed phraseological units are represented by calques, semi-calques and units that preserve the original sound appearance. It is emphasized that they function in technical, political, financial, military, sport and other spheres of communication. The author dwells on the differences between Bulgarian and Russian neologisms: Bulgarians have mainly folk and folklore units; Russians have many expressions from synthetic genres of art. The higher productivity of such “suppliers” of neologisms as international political discourse, military and slang spheres in the Russian language, and financial and economic sphere in the Bulgarian language is proved. The relevance of the study is proved by the need to create the Russian-Bulgarian and Bulgarian-Russian dictionaries of phraseological neologisms.

Bulgarian Dialectology as Living Tradition (BDLT) has been one of the longest-running Slavic digital humanities projects in the United States. Initially conceived in 2008 as a series of printed volumes, the digital project was built upon the foundation of a long-term international collaboration dating to the 1970’s. As BDLT nears completion in 2019, this paper reflects on the trajectory of its development and its sustainability as an unfunded digital humanities project, and the ways it can serve as both a model and cautionary tale for others who seek to undertake similar work.

Mental and emotional verbs in semantic and syntactic descriptionThe main issue of this article concerns relations between the semantic plane of the sentence, which is presented by means of notions of predicate argument structure, and the plane of formal realisation of this structure. The existing attitudes to the studied verb classes are presented. Then rules governing the model of description used are specified (the article has been written within an elaborate scientific grant concerning Bulgarian, Polish and Russian). Obligatory semantic features of both classes are pointed out, followed by an elaboration on the scope of analysis of semantic and syntactic phenomena. This scope is determined by basic semantic sentence categories on which comparative, including contrastive, research is based. Drawing on examples of particular units studied, I then discuss the effectiveness of the analysis which enables comparing differences between sets of sentence structures allowable for each class studied. Those differences stem from semantic differences typical of those classes. Czasowniki mentalne i czasowniki emocji w opisie semantyczno-syntaktycznymTematyka artykułu dotyczy relacji między płaszczyzną semantyczną zdania, ujętą w terminach struktury predykatowo-argumentowej, a płaszczyzną realizacji formalnej tej struktury. Zarysowane zostały dotychczasowe podejścia do opisu badanych klas czasowników oraz sprecyzowano ustalenia dotyczące zastosowanego w artykule modelu opisu (artykuł powstał w związku z realizacją obszernego grantu dotyczącego języka bułgarskiego, polskiego i rosyjskiego). Wskazano obligatoryjne dla obu klas cechy semantyczne oraz scharakteryzowano zakres analizy zjawisk semantyczno-składniowych. Zakres ten wyznaczają podstawowe semantyczne kategorie zdaniowe, których badanie stanowi podstawę dla porównań, także porównań konfrontatywnych. Zaprezentowane zostały przykłady opracowania wybranych jednostek oraz wskazana skuteczność analizy, która pozwala ukazać różnice między zbiorami dopuszczalnych dla każdej z badanych klas struktur zdaniowych. Różnice te wynikają z charakteryzujących te klasy różnic semantycznych.

Clinical linguistics and phonetics is one of the fast growing scientific fields in the past decades. Its role is important either for developing methods and interdisciplinary ap-proach in linguistics and phonetics or studying the nature of communicative disorders. It could also include collaborative work with specialists from other fields as computational linguistics, neuroscience, etc. In this broad context clinical linguistics and phonetics is a challenge for the Humanities in Bulgaria. The reason is that with regard to interdiscipli-nary research in this area there is still much to be done. A few are the studies in Bulgaria which could be related to Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics but many of them have the disadvantage of a research in isolation, i.e. with no collaboration with the appropriate specialists. When it is up to communication an interdisciplinary and even multidisciplinary approach is needed having in mind that communication itself is a complicated process and its disorders are a challenge for all scientists who work in the field of communication.

A lexicographical approach to the contrastive analysis of Bulgarian and Polish phraseology This article discusses the concept behind The Lexicon of Active Bulgarian and Polish Phraseology [Leksykon aktywnej frazeologii bulgarskiej i polskiej] and provides an overview of the key aspects of the methodology used for selecting and composing the dictionary’s entries. The authors outline the theoretical underpinnings of this project, touching on the issue of interlingual equivalence, and explain both the process of selecting and verifying phraseological material and the methodology of presenting lexicographical information in the Lexicon . The article includes various examples of active phraseological units from both languages. Konfrontacja jezykowa bulgarskiej i polskiej frazeologii – podejście leksykograficzne W artykule przedstawiono podstawowe zalozenia koncepcji i metodologii ukladania Leksykonu aktywnej frazeologii bulgarskiej i polskiej . Autorzy prezentują teoretyczne podstawy badania, poruszają problem ekwiwalencji miedzyjezykowej, zasad wyboru i weryfikacji prezentowanego materialu frazeologicznego, metodologii przedstawienia informacji leksykograficznej w Leksykonie . Material jest zilustrowany roznorodnymi przykladami aktywnych jednostek frazeologicznych w jezyku bulgarskim i polskim.

Clitic doubling of the proposed direct object in Bulgarian The presence or absence of accusative clitic doubling in Bulgarian clauses with direct object preposing serves grammatical or pragmatic purposes and falls within the discussion on word order, in particular the analysis of clauses exhibiting marked word order. Grammatical doubling occurs in clauses where the clitics are part of the verb’s morphological make-up and in clauses where the clitics serve as case markers for disambiguating the syntactic function of the initial noun phrase (NP). Pragmatic clitic doubling does not affect the clause grammaticality or in terms of semantics: it serves as a topicality marker, signaling the discourse-old status of the preposed NPs’ referents or is used to activate such referents. Pragmatic clitic doubling may occur with focused discourse-old NPs, which at first sight may appear as an inconsistency: one would expect that the topic and focus should be identified differently. In Bulgarian pragmatic accusative clitic doubling is not admissible only when the preposed NP realizes contrastive, emphatic focus. Podwajanie klityki zaimkowej dopelnienia blizszego w jezyku bulgarskim Podwajanie klityki zaimkowej dopelnienia blizszego w jezyku bulgarskim (jej obecnośc lub brak) sluzy funkcji gramatycznej lub pragmatycznej i wiąze sie z zagadnieniem szyku wyrazow, zwlaszcza we frazach nacechowanych na szyk. Repryza wystepuje w funkcji gramatycznej w wyrazeniach, w ktorych klityki stanowią cześc frazy werbalnej i sluzą ujednoznacznieniu funkcji skladniowej frazy nominalnej, wystepującej w pozycji inicjalnej w zdaniu. Czynniki pragmatyczne nie naruszają ksztaltu gramatycznego czy semantyki frazy: pragmatyczne podwajanie sluzy topikalizacji, sygnalizując status referenta poprzedzającej frazy nominalnej, lub sluzy do aktywacji takiego referenta. Pragmatyczna repryza moze wystąpic po frazie nominalnej, ktora jest specjalnie wyrozniona ( in focus ), co na pierwszy rzut oka moze sie wydawac niekonsekwencją: oczekiwalibyśmy raczej, ze temat (topic) i fokus (specjalny akcent) powinny byc identyfikowane jezykowo w sposob rozny. W jezyku bulgarskim pragmatyczne podwajanie obiektu jest niedopuszczalne jedynie wowczas, gdy poprzedzająca fraza nominalna sluzy funkcji kontrastywnej, tj. wyrazaniu specjalnej emfazy.

Some types of nouns in Bulgarian in view of their formal description This article presents a part of the formal description of nouns in Bulgarian made for the purposes of the Normative grammar of modern Bulgarian . It reviews the descriptive approach that has been adopted and some issues that can be solved through its implementation. In particular, cases of variation of forms within the paradigm of the nouns as well as types of nouns with “defective” paradigm are discussed. Niektore typy rzeczownikow w jezyku bulgarskim ze wzgledu na ich opis formalny W artykule przedstawiono cześc formalnego opisu rzeczownikow w jezyku bulgarskim. Opis zostal sporządzony na potrzeby Gramatyki normatywnej wspolczesnego jezyka bulgarskiego . Zaprezentowano przyjete kryteria opisu oraz ich zastosowanie na wybranych przykladach. W szczegolności omowiono przypadki wariancji form wewnątrz paradygmatu rzeczownikowego i przeanalizowano typy rzeczownikow o „wadliwym” paradygmacie.

On a new approach in describing adjectives in Bulgarian (with the ontext of the development of a normative grammar) The article presents a new approach in the description of adjectives in Bulgarian, one that is based on strict differentiation between form and semantics by applying a purely morphological criterion. The relevant features of the adjectives are grouped in separate inflection types based on the presence of ending or lack thereof, the lexeme’s ending combinations, the presence of morphonological (including stress) changes (alterations) in inflection, as well as on the presence of doublet forms. The formation of inflectional types according to the above specified relevant features is illustrated with examples, followed by a proposal of changes to the traditional classification of the parts of speech. O pewnym nowym podejściu w opisie przymiotników w języku bułgarskim (w kontekście opracowania gramatyki normatywnej) Artykuł przedstawia nowe podejście do opisu przymiotników w języku bułgarskim, oparte na wyraźnym rozróżnieniu formy i znaczenia poprzez zastosowanie wyłącznie kryterium morfologicznego. Relewantne cechy przymiotników są pogrupowane w typy fleksyjne na podstawie obecności lub braku końcówki, kombinatoryki końcówek w leksemie, występowania zmian morfonologicznych (w tym akcentu), alternacji we fleksji, oraz form obocznych. Formowanie typów fleksyjnych zgodnie z wyżej wymienionymi cechami dystynktywnymi zilustrowano przykładami, a następnie zaproponowano zmiany w tradycyjnej klasyfikacji części mowy.

New Bulgarian, Polish, and Ukrainian phraseology and language corporaThis article examines phraseological innovations in the Bulgarian, Polish and Ukrainian languages. Particular attention is paid to trends in the development of phraseology and to the sources of the enrichment of the phraseology of the three studied languages. The role of corpus technologies in research on language dynamics is described. Nowa bułgarska, polska i ukraińska frazeologia a korpusy językoweW artykule zostały przeanalizowane innowacje frazeologiczne w językach bułgarskim, polskim i ukraińskim. Szczególną uwagę autorzy zwracają na tendencje rozwojowe frazeologii oraz źródła wzbogacania zasobu frazeologicznego w trzech analizowanych językach. W artykule została przedstawiona rola technologii korpusowych w dziedzinie badania dynamiki rozwoju języka.

The exponents of the category of definiteness / indefiniteness and a certain type of expressive expressions in Bulgarian and PolishThe paper focuses on the functions of the pronoun exponents of the semantic category of definiteness / indefiniteness in Bulgarian examples of the following type: Свършихме я. Тънко я преда. Свърши се вашата, etc. Their reference to sentences such as Свършихме я тази работа. allows interpreting the function of the phrase as thematic. This type of sentences was confronted with examples such as Тя му я изтърси една… И ти ми ги говориш едни… The features of intonation and the semantic features of the double object phrase indicate its rhematic nature. Specific formal traits of such sentences, including the usage of the exponents of the category of definiteness / indefiniteness, are related with their expressive markedness.

Multi-volume Polish-Bulgarian Confrontative GrammarPolish-Bulgarian Confrontative Grammar (GKBP) is the first and so far the only expanded attempt to make the semantic confrontation with the gradually developed interlanguage. GKBP consists of 9 volumes which were published in 12 volumen. It was decided to arrange the description of Polish-Bulgarian confrontative grammar in the direction from the contents to the form. The semantic interlanguage enabled the emergence of two equivalent grammars: the grammar of the modern Bulgarian language and the grammar of the modern Polish language. The analysis of semantic categories, which was applied in GKBP, ensures the coherent confrontative description, irrespective of whether the described languages have grammatical exponent of meanings or not. GKBP falls into the stream of modern theoretical confrontative research based on the logical theory of quantification, on the modern theory of processes titled „Petri nets”, and on the theory of logical predicate-argument structures. Our research removes the exact division into grammatical and lexical levels, thanks to which our research has introduced a lot of new observations of the examined phenomena. Universal semantic linguistic categories such as the time, the modality, the definiteness / the indefiniteness and the semantic case – which are essential for the language description, but have not yet been examined and have not been sufficiently described in the academic grammars of the Polish and Bulgarian languages – have been selected. The sequence of description in this synthesis was established not on the basis of order of developed volumes of GKBP, but on the basis of the generally accepted order of elements of the semantic structure of the sentence. The most external in the semantic structure of the sentence is its modal characteristics. Thereafter, the time, quantifiers and their order in the semantic structure of the sentence as well as the predicate-argument items are placed. Therefore, it is not an abbreviated summary of the issues analyzed in GKBP volumes. It is the description of selected semantic categories organized in accordance with the semantic order of the semantic structure of the Polish and Bulgarian sentences.

Contemporary Contrastive Studies of Polish, Bulgarian and Russian Neologisms versus Language CorporaIn the field of Slavonic linguistics contrastive studies of neologisms occupy little place, the newest words are insufficiently described and classified. The aim of this article is to draw attention to the need for contrastive description of the newest lexis and checking exclusively one of many possibilities of obtaining Polish, Bulgarian and Russian neologisms. Language corpora, as this possibility is in question, are not the only source from which the author obtains her research material, yet a growing interest in corpora has inspired her to also use this method. The author wants to show the reader to what degree language corpora can help in building the thesaurus of Polish, Bulgarian and Russian neologisms. Making an attempt to confront a collection of neologisms of contemporary Polish, Bulgarian and Russian language, the author points out the need to standardize the description (identical for each of the analysed languages), which she intends to propose in another publications on neologisms in Polish, Bulgarian and Russian language. The application of contrastive method to three different but related languages from the Slavonic group will help, in her opinion, to discover more mechanisms of new words coming into existence and examine the newest derivative processes and their productivity.

The names of herbaceous plants belong to the oldest layer of vocabulary in Slavic languages, so many studies have been conducted so far. In addition to the official and scientific nomenclature, there is also a rich folk terminology regarding herbaceous plants. The subject of consideration are just such names, rooted in the language and created by the Bulgarian language users themselves, and especially the part of them which somehow refers to the broadly understood world of animals. The analysis will be limited to the names of herbaceous plants found in Bulgaria. This limitation is dictated by the certainty that we are dealing with a native name, not a borrowing from another language, and the role of these plants in the folk culture. From this point of view both the construction and the word formation motivation are considered.

The paper discusses the interplay between the semantic category of definiteness/indefiniteness and thematic-rhematic structure. Special attention is paid to the semantic requirements that must be met by phrases that may undergo thematization. The “thematizability” of both general and unique phrases is stressed and considered an argument in favour of the common treatment of generality and uniqueness.

Статья посвящена условиям, при которых происходит попеременная актуализация то эвиденциального, то эпистемического компонента в семантическом потенциале эвиденциальных показателей болгарского языка. Сосредоточиваясь на сентенциальных наречиях с инферентивными функциями, мы опираемся на следующие предпосылки: (i) для каждой единицы следует отличать её устойчивое семантическое значение от прагматического потенциала, выявлению которого способствуют (или препятствуют) те или иные коммуникативные условия; (ii) эвиденциальные и эпистемические компоненты значения довольно легко вытесняют друг друга из позиции доминанты, причём процесс подавления то одного, то другого компонента обусловлен действием обоюдных или однонаправленных импликатур; (iii) однонаправленные импликатуры происходят с определёнными показателями репортивных значений, эпистемические импликатуры которых могут быть подведены под категорию обобщённой коммуникативной импликатуры (Generalized Conversational Implicatures, GCIs). На этом основании мы показываем, что (iv) GCIs срабатывают также в значении инферентивных показателей; они могут быть классифицированы в соответствии с тем, какой из компонентов (инферентивный или эпистемический) больше подвержен по давлению. Существенным фактором, способствующим выдвижению на передний план инферентивного компонента, является перцептивная основа инференции. В общем и целом, (v) чем сложнее реконструкция когнитивной (или коммуникативной) основы, ведущей к инференции, тем ярче на переднем плане укрепляется эпистемическая функция, тогда как эвиденциальная (инферентивная) функция остаётся в тени, и наоборот. Наше исследование можно признать экспериментально-эвристическим, и оно содержит попытку классификации условий микрои макроконтекста, которые способствуют или препятствуют высвечиванию эвиденциальной функции., The article deals with tip effects between evidential and epistemic components in the meaning potential of evidential markers in Bulgarian, the focus being on sentential adverbs with inferential functions. We justify (and start with) the following assumptions: (i) for any unit we should distinguish its stable semantic meaning from its pragmatic potential which can be favored (or disfavored) by appropriate discourse conditions; (ii) there is a trade off between evidential and epistemic meaning components that are related to each other on the basis of mutual or one-sided implicatures; (iii) one-sided implicatures occur with certain hearsay markers whose epistemic implicatures can be captured as Generalized Conversational Implicatures (GCIs). On this basis, we show that (iv) GCIs work also with inferential markers; they can be classified depending on which component (the inferential or the epistemic one) can be downgraded more easily. A crucial factor favoring the inferential meaning is a perceptual basis of the inference. In general, (v) the more complicated the reconstruction of the cognitive (or communicative) basis leading to an inference, the clearer the epistemic function emerges while the evidential function remains in the background, and vice versa. The study is corpus-driven and also includes an attempt at classifying microand macro-contextual conditions that (dis)favor a highlighting of the evidential function.

The main goal of the experiments described in this paper was to compare the behavior of Bulgarian words with vs. without «vowel/O» alternation. The O-form may for instance be observed, within the relevant word paradigms, in noun plurals, in adjectives’ gender and plural inflections, and in derived nouns. The materials in experiment 1 consisted of six sets of frequency controlled Bulgarian words, contrasting with respect to the following factors: Alternation (sets A1, B1, C1 with alternation vs. A2, B2, C2 without alternation), Morphology (set A with plural formation, an inflectional process, vs. set C with abstract noun formation, a derivational process), and Stress pattern (set A with first syllable stress vs. set B with second syllable stress). The experimental paradigm was based on repetition priming with visual-input lexical decision. Alternation had a clear effect on the lexical decision time, while Morphology (in the specific manifestation of this parameter) was virtually ineffective and Stress had a minor effect. The materials in experiment 2 consisted of two sets of adjectives contrasting with respect to Alternation (D1 vs. D2), presented in three forms: base-form, inflected (plural) and derived (the corresponding abstract noun). The results of experiment 2 substantially replicate those of experiment 1. The converging results of experiments 1 and 2 offer themselves to a relatively straightforward interpretation. The Bulgarian participants showed a sharp inclination towards full listing, i.e. direct access, of the morphologically modified forms (both inflected and derived) of morphophonologically complex, thus opaque, alternating words. By contrast, the morphologically modified forms of non-alternating, transparent words were clearly processed compositionally. As for the contrast inflection/derivation, although the specific instantiation of this opposition did not prove to directly yield a statistical difference, its interplay with the morphophonological complication implied by the process of vowel/O alternation produced a relatively clear effect in terms of lexical decision speed. Finally, the combination of vowel alternation and second syllable stress, involving replacement of the stressed vowel in morphologically modified forms, seemed to enhance the intimations of direct access.

The main goal of the experiments described in this paper was to compare the behavior of Bulgarian words with vs. without «vowel/Ø» alternation. The Ø-form may for instance be observed, within the relevant word paradigms, in noun plurals, in adjectives’ gender and plural inflections, and in derived nouns. The materials in experiment 1 consisted of six sets of frequency controlled Bulgarian words, contrasting with respect to the following factors: Alternation (sets A1, B1, C1 with alternation vs. A2, B2, C2 without alternation), Morphology (set A with plural formation, an inflectional process, vs. set C with abstract noun formation, a derivational process), and Stress pattern (set A with first syllable stress vs. set B with second syllable stress). The experimental paradigm was based on repetition priming with visual-input lexical decision. Alternation had a clear effect on the lexical decision time, while Morphology (in the specific manifestation of this parameter) was virtually ineffective and Stress had a minor effect. The materials in experiment 2 consisted of two sets of adjectives contrasting with respect to Alternation (D1 vs. D2), presented in three forms: base-form, inflected (plural) and derived (the corresponding abstract noun). The results of experiment 2 substantially replicate those of experiment 1. The converging results of experiments 1 and 2 offer themselves to a relatively straightforward interpretation. The Bulgarian participants showed a sharp inclination towards full listing, i.e. direct access, of the morphologically modified forms (both inflected and derived) of morphophonologically complex, thus opaque, alternating words. By contrast, the morphologically modified forms of non-alternating, transparent words were clearly processed compositionally. As for the contrast inflection/derivation, although the specific instantiation of this opposition did not prove to directly yield a statistical difference, its interplay with the morphophonological complication implied by the process of vowel/Ø alternation produced a relatively clear effect in terms of lexical decision speed. Finally, the combination of vowel alternation and second syllable stress, involving replacement of the stressed vowel in morphologically modified forms, seemed to enhance the intimations of direct access.