Balcania et Slavia

Studi linguistici | Studies in Linguistics

Vol. 3 – Num. 2

December 2023

e-ISSN 2785-3187

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Edizioni
Ca'Foscari
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e-ISSN 2785-3187

**Balcania et Slavia**

Studi linguistici | Studies in Linguistics

Editor-in-Chief
Iliyana Krapova

**Edizioni Ca' Foscari** - Venice University Press

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URL https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/balcania-et-slavia/
**Balcania et Slavia**

**Studi linguistici | Studies in Linguistics**

Semestral journal

**Editor-in-Chief** Iliyana Krapova (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia)

**Managing Editor** Giuseppe Sofo (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia)

**Advisory Board** Francesco Altimari (Università della Calabria, Italia) Paola Maria Cotta Ramusino (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italia) Stephen M. Dickey (University of Kansas, USA) Maksim Anisimovič Krongauz (Higher School of Economics, Russia) Brian Joseph (Ohio State University, USA) Svetlana Nistratova (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Vladimir Aleksandrovič Plungian (Institute of Linguistics and V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia) Aleksandr Jur'evič Rusakov (Academy of Sciences of Albania, Albania) Andrej Nikolaevič Sobolev (Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia) Giuseppina Turano (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Björn Wiemer (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Deutschland)

**Editorial Board** Assia Assenova (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Tsvetana Dimitrova (IBE, Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria) Pavel Duryagin (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Gëzim Gurga (Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italia) Flora Koleci (INALCO, France) Julia Nikolaeva (Sapienza Università di Roma, Italia) Laura Orazi (Università degli Studi di Macerata, Italia) Luisa Ruvoletto (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Linda Torresin (Università degli Studi di Padova, Italia)

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Introduction

Giuseppina Turano, Luisa Ruvoletto,
Iliyana Krapova, Svetlana Nistratova

143

Motivating a Morphome

Albanian Case Syncretism
as a Case Study

Gjorgje Bozhoviq

145

Предложные конструкции

в резьянском микроязыке с частицами **ta-/tu-/to-**

Liudmila Fedorova

161

Sulle costruzioni relative non-restrittive del romeno
(a confronto con l'italiano)

Guglielmo Cinque

181

A Glimpse of the Semantic Structure
of the Bulgarian Preposition **na**

Snezha Tsoneva-Mathewson

195

The Diachrony of Subjunctive-Infinitive
Competition in Balkan Slavic

Typological vs. Sprachbund Phenomena

Tomislav Sočanac

207

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Introduction

Iliyana Krapova, Svetlana Nistratova,
Luisa Ruvoletto, Giuseppina Turano

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

We are happy to announce the publication of the second issue of *Balcania et Slavia* in 2023. This issue features five contributions in different fields of Slavic and Balkan linguistics within different theoretical frameworks: semantics, morphology, historical linguistics, syntax and pragmatics in several Slavic languages. What follows is a brief synopsis of the papers.

In the paper *Motivating a Morphome. Albanian Case Syncretism as a Case Study*, Gjorgje Bozhoviq from the University of Belgrade discusses case syncretism patterns in Albanian, proposing an underlyingly syntactic (i.e. functional) motivation for seemingly ‘morphomic’ (i.e. purely formal) metasyncretism patterns in its nominal inflection. It is argued that the distribution of syncretized and non-syncretized forms in the Albanian nominal paradigm is motivated by language economy in such a way that syncretism is used to produce an ‘optimal’ distribution of formally distinct case forms, ensuring that syncretized forms are always in complementary distribution with respect to their syntactic functions, and that the paradigm contains only the minimal necessary number of morphologically different forms.

In his paper *Sulle costruzioni relative non-restrittive del romeno (a confronto con l'italiano)*, Guglielmo Cinque from the Ca' Foscari University of Venice argues that non-restrictive (or appositive) relative clauses can either belong to sentence grammar (integrated non-restrictive relatives) or to the grammar of discourse (non-integrated non-restrictive relatives). Italian exhibits both constructions using different relative pronouns (*che* and *cui* as opposed to *il quale*). The evidence presented leads to an analysis of non-restrictive relatives in Standard Romanian as part of the grammar of discourse.
The paper *The prepositional constructions with adverbial particles ta-/tu-/to- in the Resian microlanguage* by Liudmila Fedorova from the Russian State University for the Humanities focuses on prepositional constructions expressing spatial relations in the Resian micro-language. Compound prepositions typically consist of two or three components based on simple prepositions (-w, -na, etc.), with an adverbial particle ta-/tu-/to- as the first component. The author attempts to clarify the choice of the particles, using data from Baudouin de Courtenay's works on the Resian dialect, historical and modern Resian texts, as well as evidence native speaker judgements. The analysis shows that the choice of particles can be determined by phonetic and semantic factors.

Snezha Tsoneva-Mathewson from Plovdiv University presents a semantic analysis of the polysemy in Bulgarian *na* in her paper *A Glimpse of the Semantic Structure of the Bulgarian Preposition na*. Applying the methodology of cognitive semantics to the classification, the author builds a comprehensive model for the semantics of this preposition, accounting for both core spatial meanings and secondary non-spatial ones. More specifically, the data presented in the article exemplify the meanings of [support] and [active state] and the possible trajectories of their formation.

In his paper *The diachrony of subjunctive-infinitive competition in Balkan Slavic: Typological vs sprachbund phenomena*, Tomislav Sočanac from the Ca' Foscari University of Venice approaches from a diachronic perspective the infinitive loss in various Slavic languages. The author distinguishes between broader typological processes and specific innovations in the Balkan language area and proposes a formal analysis for the diachronic development of subjunctive-infinitive competition in Balkan Slavic languages, involving the change in the syntactic status of the subjunctive marker *da* and leading to broader Inf>Subj replacement. A formal analysis is suggested for the diachronic development of subjunctive-infinitive competition in Balkan Slavic languages, involving the change in syntactic status of the subjunctive marker *da* and eventually leading to broader Inf>Subj replacement.

*Balcania et Slavia* is an online peer-reviewed journal, published annually in two issues and available in open access. It was first published in 2021, and in 2023 the journal was officially included in the list of scientific journals by the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of University and Research Institutes. The journal is published by Edizioni Ca' Foscari. It is financed entirely by the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

We thank the publisher for offering support and collaboration. Many thanks also go to our reviewers for their constructive criticism and valuable suggestions for each contribution.
# Motivating a Morphome
Albanian Case Syncretism
as a Case Study

Gjorgje Bozhoviq

University of Belgrade, Serbia

**Abstract** This paper discusses case syncretism patterns in Albanian, arguing for an underlyingly syntactic (i.e. functional) motivation for seemingly 'morphemic' (i.e. purely formal) metasyncretism patterns in its nominal inflection. It is argued that the distribution of syncretized and non-syncretized forms in the Albanian nominal paradigm is motivated by language economy in such a way that syncretism is used to produce an 'optimal' distribution of formally distinct case forms, so that the syncretized forms are always in complementary distribution w. r. t. their syntactic functions, and only the minimal necessary number of morphologically different forms remains in the paradigm. From a purely morphological point of view, this creates seemingly 'morphemic' patterns, in which, as a rule, syncretized forms do not form a natural class. However, these particular syncretism patterns are motivated in fact by the underlying functional 'needs' (or the lack thereof) of the nominal morphosyntax, so that the distribution of syncretized and non-syncretized forms in the Albanian nominal inflectional paradigm is, in fact, entirely motivated by the division of labour between case and definiteness in the syntax.

**Keywords** Case. Definiteness. Syncretism. Morphome. Morphology-syntax interface. Albanian.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 Motivated vs. Morphemic Splits. – 3 Case Study: Albanian Case Syncretism. – 3.1 Evidence for Morphemic Splits – 3.2 Evidence for External Motivation – 4 Conclusion.

A previous version of this text was published as: Božović, Đ. (2023). "Motivating a Morphome: Albanian Case Syncretism as a Case Study." *Comparing typologies: Online Proceedings of the 13th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting*. University of Patras, 27-36. https://pasithee.library.upatras.gr/mmm/article/view/4403/4324.

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Edizioni
Ca Foscari

**Peer review**

Submitted 2023-08-31

Accepted 2023-12-05

Published 2024-01-22

**Open access**

© 2023 Bozhoviq | © 4.0

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**Citation** Bozhoviq, G. (2023). "Motivating a Morphome", *Balcania et Slavia*, 3(2), [1-16] 145-160.
# 1 Introduction

The notion of morphomes, going back to Aronoff (1994), figures prominently in the debates about the autonomous status of morphology and the nature of its interfaces with other modules of grammar, syntax in particular. A morphological pattern is said to be 'morphomic' when no explicit motivation for it can be found outside of morphology itself (Corbett 2015; 2016), that is, when its existence cannot be explained away by phonological (e.g. shape of the stem) or semantic conditioning (i.e. feature composition)—what Aronoff (1994) has called "pure morphology". Although for Aronoff *all* of morphology is ultimately morphomic (i.e. "unnatural"; cf. now also Aronoff 2016), morphomic patterns (or splits, in Corbett's terms) contrast with (externally) motivated ones, and the issue at hand in much of the literature on morphomes so far is how to distinguish the two kinds of phenomena.<fnref n="1" />

However, it has been observed that the distinction between morphomic and motivated may actually be a more fine-grained one, or a scale rather than a dichotomy (see Smith 2013 and other contributions to that volume; now also Herce 2020). Here, I will present one case study in that vein, with data from Albanian, in which apparently morphomic patterns of case syncretism in noun inflection have been produced in fact by an external (syntactic) motivation. In that sense, I will argue that the Albanian noun inflection is both morphemic *and* motivated at the same time, thus being a curious case of a 'motivated morphome' (sic!).

The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the theoretical background, concepts and their definitions are briefly introduced and explained. This is to set out the foundation for our case study, which is detailed in Section 3. Finally, some tentative conclusions are drawn from there in Section 4.

# 2 Motivated Vs. Morphomic Splits

In a discussion of what constitutes a canonical morphome, O'Neill (2011a; 2011b; 2013) gives the following definition for the concept: a "regular distribution of identical form, usually an allomorphic root/stem, which does not correspond to any coherent generalization or function, phonological, semantic or syntactic" (O'Neill 2013, 221 et seq.). As a negative definition, then, the definition of a morphome depends crucially on our understanding of what does constitute a

<footnote n="1">1 In addition to the works already referred to here, cf. also the other contributions in Luís, Bermúdez-Otero (2016) for a more recent discussion.</footnote>
"coherent generalization or function", that is, what counts as motivation for a morphological pattern. According to Corbett (2016), paradigmatic splits are motivated if they "correspond to morphosemantic, morphosyntactic or phonological specifications" and ultimately "motivation is justified by appeal to a natural class" (Corbett 2016, 85). A morphome (morphemic pattern or morphemic split), therefore, is any regular pattern that does not form a natural class, which is usually defined in terms of featural makeup:

[M]otivation is most easily seen by reference to natural classes in the feature system. In a reasonable feature system, perfective forms versus imperfective constitute natural classes, as do past versus nonpast, singular versus plural, and so on. Motivated segments of a paradigm are sometimes called 'subparadigms'. By contrast, first-person plural is not a natural class, since it requires reference both to person and to number. Anything beyond natural classes requires an extra step, and so needs additional justification. (Corbett 2015, 163)

A number of such morphemic patterns have been identified in the literature and argued to be psycholinguistically real and diachronically persistent; albeit mostly for Romance languages, following Maiden (2005; see also Maiden 2018 and 2021 for the most recent surveys).<fnref n="2" /> One such pattern in Romance verb inflection is the so-called “L-pattern”, identified by Maiden (2018), in which stem allomorphy splits the verbal paradigm in two halves in such a way that only 1SG present indicative and all persons of the subjunctive regularly feature a palatalized allomorph, while all the remaining persons of the present indicative have a non-palatalized stem. Identical forms, in this case allomorphs of the stem, are thus regularly distributed in a way that fails to form a natural class, because neither the combination 1SG.PRS.IND+PRS.SBJV nor PRS.IND minus 1SG qualify as valid subparadigms; they both require an “extra step” to be defined. Interestingly though, in spite of that, this is a stable pattern throughout all of Romance. A subset of examples from Portuguese, with the L-shaped morphemic pattern marked in bold, is reproduced here in Table 1.

<footnote n="2">2 Even when they do discuss the data from outside the Romance family, most of the analyses of morphemic patterns in the literature focus exclusively on single languages or language branches. A wider typological survey has not been undertaken until Herce (2023), where as much as 120 morphemic structures have been identified across the world's languages, in addition to several important cross-linguistic generalizations on morphomes.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 1** The “L-pattern” in Portuguese verbal inflection (from Maiden 2018, 86)</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>1SG</th><th>2SG</th><th>3SG</th><th>1PL</th><th>2PL</th><th>3PL</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>PRS.IND</td><td><strong>tenho</strong><br>'have'</td><td>tens</td><td>tem</td><td>temos</td><td>tendes</td><td>têm</td></tr><tr><td>PRS.SBJV</td><td><strong>tenha</strong></td><td><strong>tenhas</strong></td><td><strong>tenha</strong></td><td><strong>tenhamos</strong></td><td><strong>tenhais</strong></td><td><strong>tenham</strong></td></tr><tr><td>PRS.IND</td><td><strong>vejo</strong><br>'see'</td><td>vês</td><td>vê</td><td>vemos</td><td>vedes</td><td>vêm</td></tr><tr><td>PRS.SBJV</td><td><strong>veja</strong></td><td><strong>vejas</strong></td><td><strong>veja</strong></td><td><strong>vejamos</strong></td><td><strong>vejais</strong></td><td><strong>vejam</strong></td></tr><tr><td>PRS.IND</td><td><strong>faço</strong><br>'do'</td><td>fazes</td><td>faz</td><td>fazemos</td><td>fazeis</td><td>fazem</td></tr><tr><td>PRS.SBJV</td><td><strong>faça</strong></td><td><strong>faças</strong></td><td><strong>faça</strong></td><td><strong>façamos</strong></td><td><strong>façais</strong></td><td><strong>façam</strong></td></tr><tr><td>PRS.IND</td><td><strong>venho</strong><br>'come'</td><td>vens</td><td>vem</td><td>vimos</td><td>vindes</td><td>vêm</td></tr><tr><td>PRS.SBJV</td><td><strong>venha</strong></td><td><strong>venhas</strong></td><td><strong>venha</strong></td><td><strong>venhamos</strong></td><td><strong>venhais</strong></td><td><strong>venham</strong></td></tr><tr><td>PRS.IND</td><td><strong>meço</strong><br>'measure'</td><td>medes</td><td>mede</td><td>medimos</td><td>medis</td><td>medem</td></tr><tr><td>PRS.SBJV</td><td><strong>meça</strong></td><td><strong>meças</strong></td><td><strong>meça</strong></td><td><strong>meçamos</strong></td><td><strong>meçais</strong></td><td><strong>meçam</strong></td></tr><tr><td>PRS.IND</td><td><strong>caibo</strong><br>'fit'</td><td>cabes</td><td>cabe</td><td>cabemos</td><td>cabeis</td><td>cabem</td></tr><tr><td>PRS.SBJV</td><td><strong>caiba</strong></td><td><strong>caibas</strong></td><td><strong>caiba</strong></td><td><strong>caibamos</strong></td><td><strong>caibais</strong></td><td><strong>caibam</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

Recently, Round (2015) has identified three kinds of possible morphemic phenomena, termed rhizomorphomes, meromorphomes, and metamorphomes. Rhizomorphomes are morphemic patterns realized at the level of inflectional classes of words, insofar as they arelexically determined, i.e. unmotivated from outside of morphology itself. Meromorphomes are “categories which mediate between morphosyntactic feature structures and the phonological operations by which individual pieces of individual word forms are composed” (Round 2015, 48). Metamorphomes, in turn, are realizations of meromorphomes in specific paradigms which consist of regular patterns of formal identity between pieces of a paradigm (like the L-pattern in Table 1 above), that are similarly unmotivated or “purely morphological”.

In addition to stem allomorphy, another typical instance of a metamorphomic pattern, in the sense of Round (2015), is syncretism. Following the Jakobsonian tradition of featural decomposition of Russian case forms (Jakobson 1962; 1984), syncretism is often represented via feature underspecification (Caha 2019). However, when a syncretism pattern lacks such motivation in terms of featural makeup, as for instance, when it splits the paradigm into unnatural classes,
it has been often used as an evidence that morphological structures
are autonomous, even outside of the literature on morphomes (cf.
Baerman 2004; Baerman, Brown, Corbett 2005, inter alia). In the fol-
lowing section, I will describe in more detail such apparently meta-
morphomic patterns of case syncretism in Albanian noun inflection.

3 Case Study: Albanian Case Syncretism

In this section, I focus on Modern Standard Albanian (MSA) noun inflection as a case study of an externally motivated (meta)morphemic pattern. First I will argue that MSA syncretism patterns are indeed morphemic, in the sense that they form unnatural classes which cannot be possibly defined in terms of feature composition. Then I will provide a synchronic motivation in the syntax for precisely such a morphemic distribution of Albanian case forms, arguing that the MSA metamorphome under investigation is in fact both motivated and morphemic in the relevant sense.

MSA nouns have three genders which roughly correspond to three inflectional classes in the singular, traditionally termed masculine, feminine and neuter. Masculines (M) take the NOM.SG.DEF suffix -i or (phonologically conditioned) -u, while feminines (F) have the NOM. SG.DEF in -a and neuters (N) in -t (with phonologically conditioned vari- ants -it and -të). Although N is a productive class for deverbal and deadjectival substantivizations with the prepositive article të (e.g. të ardhur-it ‘arrival’ ← participle ardhur ‘to arrive’, të ftohtë-t ‘cold- ness’ ← adjective i/e ftohtë ‘cold’), other than those it has lost most of the inherited neuters from Old Albanian, which are inflected as M in- stead in the modern language (e.g. vaj-i ‘oil’, mish-i ‘meat’ for the old- er vaj-të and mish-të etc.), so it is often said to be in decline (cf. Agal- liu 2002; Buchholz, Fiedler 1987; Newmark, Hubbard, Prifti 1982).

MSA has two numbers, singular (SG) and plural (PL). Formation of
the plural stems is highly irregular for most nouns and more deriva-
tion-like than inflection-like (Bozhoviq 2021, with references therein).
All nouns inflect the same in the plural, however, regardless of their
gender, taking the same set of case suffixes and the definiteness suf-
fix -t (or its phonologically conditioned variants -it and -të). In addi-
tion, in some cases, gender agreement in the plural may differ from
the pattern of the corresponding singular noun (as in *shtet-i* ‘state’
vs. *Shtetet e Bashkuar-a* ‘United-F States’), showing that gender is
truly an inherent property of the plural stems rather than of lexemes.
Therefore, counting SG and PL inflections separately, there are a total
of four inflectional classes in MSA, marked traditionally according to
the NOM.DEF suffix: M.SG (-i/u), F.SG (-a), N.SG (-t) and a PL (also -t) class.

In both the SG and the PL, MSA nouns inflect for case and definite-
ness. Indefinite forms (INDEF) are unmarked, the definite ones (DEF)
take special suffixes. Nonetheless, due to pervasive mergers throughout the paradigm, the exact number of cases is often debated in the Albanological literature (see e.g. Përnaska 2003). At most four morphologically distinct case forms may be identified, however. These are NOM, ACC, DAT and ABL. MSA noun inflection is summarized in Table 2.

<table><caption>**Table 2** Modern Standard Albanian noun inflection</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">M.SG</th><th colspan="2">F.SG</th><th colspan="2">N.SG</th><th colspan="2">PL</th></tr><tr><th>INDEF</th><th>DEF</th><th>INDEF</th><th>DEF</th><th>INDEF</th><th>DEF</th><th>INDEF</th><th>DEF</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>NOM</td><td>-Ø</td><td>-i/u</td><td>-Ø</td><td>-a</td><td>-Ø</td><td>-t/-it/-të</td><td>-Ø</td><td>-t/-it/-të</td></tr><tr><td>ACC</td><td></td><td>-in/-un</td><td></td><td>-n/-në</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>DAT</td><td>-i/u</td><td>-it/-ut</td><td>-e</td><td>-s/-së</td><td>-i</td><td></td><td>-ve</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>ABL</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>-sh</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

## 3.1 Evidence for Morphemic Splits

Let us now focus on the patterns of syncretism in Table 2. First, it is obvious that the paradigm is split along the lines of the core/non-core (i.e. structural/inherent) case distinction, while both are syncretic: there are two major mergers in the paradigm, viz. NOM/ACC merger on the one and DAT/ABL merger on the other hand. This is a motivated split, which can have morphemic splits nested inside, according to Corbett (2016). Neither of these two mergers is actually complete, though. ACC is still kept formally distinct from NOM in the M.SG.DEF and F.SG.DEF inflections, by virtue of the ACC.SG.DEF suffix -n (and its phonological variants), and the ABL.PL.INDEF form in -sh remains the single non-syncretized cell in the entire DAT/ABL subparadigm. In addition to that, NOM.INDEF and ACC.INDEF forms in the M and F classes trigger different case agreement on their agreement probes despite formal identity; cf. the shape of the ezafe-like linker morpheme (LNK) in (1a) and (2a) versus (1b) and (2b), respectively.<fnref n="3" />

<footnote>(1) a. Ky është një djalë i mirë. this.M be.3SG.PRS a boy.NOM.SG.INDEF LNK good 'This is a good boy.'</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 It should be noted that the Albanian linkers themselves represent a closed system with only four forms: i, e, të and së, alternating as exponents of the various combinations of gender, number, case and definiteness features. At moments this system seems to make more distinctions than noun inflection does, as in the examples (1) and (2) above, but for the most part linkers are even more underspecified than the corresponding noun forms. No morphemic patterns can be identified, as the shape of the linkers falls out entirely from their feature composition.</footnote>
b. E=pashë një djalë të mirë.
3SG.ACC=see.1SG.AOR a boy.ACC.SG.INDEF LNK good
'I saw a good boy.'

(2) a. Kjo është një vajzë e mirë.
this.F be.3SG.PRS a girl.NOM.SG.INDEF LNK good
'This is a good girl.'

b. E=pashë një vajzë të mirë.
3SG.ACC=see.1SG.AOR a girl.ACC.SG.INDEF LNK good
'I saw a good girl.'

As regards the noun form, though, NOM and ACC are both systematically unmarked and regularly merged throughout the indefinite, as well as N.DEF and PL.DEF paradigms. In other words, MSA NOM/ACC merger is a 'metasyncretism' of a kind identified by Williams (1994) as a (meta)pattern pertaining to different paradigms (or in Williams's terms, a metaparadigm). If one agrees with Aronoff (1994, 25) and Corbett (2016, 72) that even single cells may be morphemic, in the sense that, as singletons, both they and the reminder of the paradigm minus that one cell, form unnatural classes, it may be argued that the single non-syncretized cell in this metapattern, viz. the ACC.SG.DEF one, is also a morphemic split of a kind, nested within a motivated one.

The other merger, the one of DAT and ABL, also has an apparent morphemic split nested inside. That is the L-shaped syncretic pattern in DAT/ABL.PL. Syncretism here, too, regularly affects DAT.PL and ABL.PL cells, but with the exclusion of a single cell, viz. ABL.PL.INDEF in -sh, thus forming unnatural class consisting of DAT.PL.INDEF, DAT.PL.DEF and ABL.PL.DEF, to the exclusion of ABL.PL.INDEF.

In addition to this, there is also a formal identity between DAT/ABL.INDEF and NOM.DEF in the M.SG and the F.SG inflections. In M.SG, both of these forms end in -i/u, while in F.SG the formal identity is obscured by a phonological change that has affected the original NOM.SG.DEF suffix *-e for F nouns (still preserved as the corresponding form of the agreeing LNK morpheme, as in (2a)) in hiatus formed with the stem-final vowel, coalescing them both into -a (cf. Topalli 2009, 207-8). This may seem as a purely accidental syncretism, if only it wasn't fully regular and of a metasyncretic character (i.e. unifying the paradigms of M.SG and F.SG underlyingly, regardless of the exact surface form of the suffixes that make up the pattern). Needless to say, as a split involving NOM.DEF and DAT/ABL.INDEF, it forms a very unnatural class.<fnref n="4" />

<footnote n="4">⁴ Compare a similarly odd syncretism involving GEN.SG and NOM.PL, which was often considered accidental in the literature, but is nonetheless notoriously recurring in</footnote>
Another possible metasycretism in the MSA noun inflection in Table 2 could be the one involving *N.SG.DEF* and *PL.DEF*, which are both marked with the suffix *-t* (-it/të).⁵ A connection between *N* and *PL* is semantically plausible in Albanian (with *N* typically covering various abstract and mass nouns). Unifying *N.SG* and *PL* (and conversely, *M.SG* and *F.SG*) into a single metaparadigm can also be corroborated by the almost mirror-like distribution of forms more generally in the *N.SG* and *PL* paradigms on the one, and the *M.SG* and *F.SG* paradigms (with distinct *ACC* and the syncretism of *DAT/ABL.INDEF* and *NOM.DEF*) on the other hand. If so, this would be another motivated split, inside which however the aforementioned metasycretism of *DAT/ABL.INDEF* and *NOM.DEF* in the *SG* metaparadigm is nested as a (minor) morphemic one.

Leaving clearly motivated syncretisms aside, the remaining candidates for morphemic splits in MSA noun inflection that have been discussed so far are summarized visually in Table 3, by shading all the cells that form a particular pattern.⁶

<table><caption>**Table 3** Morphemic patterns in MSA noun inflection</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">m.sg</th><th colspan="2">f.sg</th><th colspan="2">n.sg</th><th colspan="2">pl</th></tr><tr><th>indef</th><th>def</th><th>indef</th><th>def</th><th>indef</th><th>def</th><th>indef</th><th>def</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>nom</th><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>acc</th><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>dat</th><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>abl</th><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

As has already been said, none of the shaded patterns in Table 3 form a natural class. If motivation for a paradigmatic split is understood to mean “reference to natural classes in the feature system” (Corbett 2015; 2016), then the (meta)syncretism patterns in Table 3 cannot be motivated and therefore must be considered morphemic.

different language families and eventually even turns out to be motivated, as shown by Caha (2016; cf. also Caha 2019 and references therein).

5 Note also that there are Tosk Albanian dialects in which the suffix *-t* is generalized across the *PL.DEF* inflection (so that *DAT/ABL.PL.DEF* has the desinence *-vet*), and the inherited neuters such as *vaj-të*, *mish-të* etc. are also better preserved there (cf. Çerpja 2017 for an overview).

6 Alternatively, given the all-pervading mergers in MSA noun inflection, one could say that motivated syncretisms are shown in Table 3 as well, only by lack of any specific shading. This is actually significant for fully comprehending the nature of MSA system of inflection: it is truly a ‘(meta)system of syncretisms’, as will be discussed in what follows shortly (§ 3.2).
## 3.2 Evidence for External Motivation

While it is true that the paradigmatic splits in Table 3 are unnatural, it has been argued elsewhere (cf. Božović 2021), however, that MSA case syncretisms of the kind shown in Table 3 are not just “purely formal”, in the sense that they actually play a role at the morphology-syntax interface.

Namely, it should be noted that the morphemic distributions in MSA noun inflection are a product of a specific interaction of two categories, viz. case and definiteness. Both case and definiteness are categories of contextual (i.e. required by the syntax, as per Booij 1994; 1996) inflection in MSA. This may be seen in the following examples (3-4).

(3) a. Vajz-a është e mençur.
    girl-NOM.SG.DEF be.3SG.PRS LNK smart
    ‘(A/the) girl is smart.’

b. *Vajzë është e mençur.
    girl.INDEF be.3SG.PRS LNK smart

(4) a. Vjollc-a është studente.
    Vjollca-NOM.SG.DEF be.3SG.PRS student-F.SG.INDEF
    ‘Vjollca [a female personal name] is a student.’

b. *Vjollc-a është student-ja.
    Vjollca-NOM.SG.DEF be.3SG.PRS student-F.SG.DEF

A subject NP has to be definite in addition to bearing the NOM case, as in (3a) vs. (3b), and this is true for both common and proper nouns, for which cf. (4), i.e. regardless of their inherent semantics, showing that definiteness in MSA is truly a category of contextual (that is to say, bound to marking syntactic relations) rather than inherent inflection. Therefore, in principle, a morphologically definite form in MSA may be ambiguous with respect to the referential or non-referential readings, as is also shown by the English translation of (3a).<fnref n="7" /> A predicative NP, on the other hand, has to be indefinite; cf. (4a) vs. (4b). Now compare this with the ACC forms marking various kinds of objects in (5-7).

(5) a. (E=)kam punë-n e rëndë.
    3SG.ACC=have.1SG.PRS work-ACC.SG.DEF LNK heavy
    ‘I have a lot of work to do.’

<footnote n="7">7 For a more detailed contrastive study of noun definiteness in Albanian and English, cf. Backus Borshi (2015).</footnote>
b. *(E=kam punë të rëndë.
3SG.ACC=have.1SG.PRS work-INDEF LNK heavy)

(6) a. A ke uri?
Q have.2SG.PRS hunger-ACC.SG.INDEF
'Are you hungry?'

b. *A ke uri-në?
Q have.2SG.PRS hunger-ACC.SG.DEF

(7) a. Jetoj në Evropë (Jugor-e).
live.1SG.PRS in Europe-ACC.SG.INDEF Southern-F
'I live in (Southern) Europe.'

b. Jetoj në Evropë-n *(Jugor-e).
be.1SG.PRS from Europe-ACC.SG.DEF Southern-F

While here it is possible in principle to have either a definite or an indefinite object phrase, depending on its semantics and pragmatics, specific syntactic configurations, such as those involving optionality vs. obligatoriness of object clitic doubling (5), certain phraseological constructions (6), various noun modification strategies and prepositions governing the ACC (7), actually systematically disallow one of the options. In other words, there is a specific division of labour between case and definiteness, making use of this additional distinction provided by the morphology in order to signal some of the syntactic relations in the functional domain of cases, which in turn reduces the overall number of necessary distinct forms in the (singular) metaparadigm to just three: two of them marked, non-syncretic ones, viz. NOM.DEF (for marking subjects) and ACC.DEF (for objects made either semantically or pragmatically specific), and the third 'elsewhere' (i.e. syncretic) form.

This similarly holds true for the DAT/ABL merger, as well. The only syntactic position in which DAT (typically marking indirect objects) and ABL (typically marking complements of various prepositions) systematically contrast with each other (only this time in the PL paradigm) is that of a modifier/complement of a DEF vs. INDEF head noun; cf. (8-9).

(8) a. dru lisa-sh
tree.INDEF oaks-ABL.PL.INDEF
'oak tree(s)'

b. *drur-i lisa-sh
tree-DEF oaks-ABL.PL.INDEF
(9) a. *drur-i* i *lisa-ve* *qindra-vjeçare*
    tree-DEF LNK oaks-DAT/ABL.PL.DEF hundred-year.olds
    ‘the tree of the hundred-year-old oaks’

b. *dru* i *lisa-ve*
    tree.INDEF LNK oaks-DAT/ABL.PL.DEF
    ‘oak tree [e.g. as a material]’

While the syncretic DAT/ABL modifier (with a linker) can combine with both an INDEF and a DEF head noun in different syntactic configurations, as in (9), the non-syncretic ABL.INDEF is reserved for INDEF contexts only (8a) and cannot modify a DEF noun (8b). Here too, a division of labour between case and definiteness has worked to produce a reduced number of distinct forms, delegating some of the functions of cases to the distinction in definiteness, resulting thus in an L-shaped morphemic (meta)paradigm, with just two distinct forms: a single non-syncretized ABL.PL.INDEF one, and an ‘elsewhere’ one, obvious as regards the case, but contrasting in definiteness/specificity.

According to Božović (2021), the division of labour between case and definiteness in MSA has led thus to a specific complementary distribution of the syncretized and non-syncretized forms with respect to their syntactic functions. Namely, forms such as acc.SG.DEF and ABL.PL.INDEF are kept formally distinct only in (morpho)syntactically ambiguous contexts, as in (5a), where the object clitic is syntactically optional, in (7) with an overt modifier, or in (8a) and (9b), with an INDEF head noun. Only in such contexts, the case/definiteness distinction has to be formally maintained, because it remains the only overt signal of a syntactic relation. If there is, however, any other strategy of syntactic function coding available, such as the obligatory object clitic doubling in (5b), a phraseologically fixed VO construction as in (6), and the like, then the noun (viz. NP) need not mark a case distinction overtly; instead, it can revert to the syncretic ‘elsewhere’ form, and thus maintain a laudably high level of language economy.

This equally holds true for the motivated as well as morphemic mergers in MSA. Crucially, however, it is precisely this kind of merging forms that are in complementary syntactic distribution, so as to reduce the number of necessary distinct forms to an ‘optimal’ minimum, that as an effect produces in turn unnatural classes of the kind we have observed in Section 3.1 above. Recall, for instance, the DAT/ABL.SG.INDEF+NOM.SG.DEF morphome. There is not a single syntactic context in which the exponents of these values would ever compete for the same position. This is, however, exactly what allows them to formally syncretize, as instead of having to mark all the relevant contrasts formally on the noun, speakers can rely on the specific syntactic configurations to distinguish the necessary functions. In return, the necessary number of distinct inflectional forms is maximally
reduced, but the resulting distribution of identical forms within a
paradigm necessarily produces unnatural classes, i.e. morphomic
splits. In that sense, the incomplete mergers of NOM/ACC and DAT/ABL
in MSA, as well as the apparent formal identity of DAT/ABL.SG.INDEF and
NOM.SG.DEF, are disturbingly both relevantly morphomic *and* motivat-
ed by language economy.

4 Conclusion

In this paper, I have argued that the distribution of syncretized and
non-syncretized forms in Albanian noun inflection is motivated by
mechanisms of language economy, driven by the division of labour
between case and definiteness in the syntax, in such a way that syn-
cretism is used as a means to produce an ‘optimal’ (that is, maximally
economical) distribution of formally distinct case/definiteness forms
for each (sub)paradigm. In turn, this creates several metamorpho-
mic patterns, in which, as a rule, syncretized forms never make up
a natural class (e.g. NOM and ACC, but with the exception of ACC.SG.DEF,
or DAT and ABL with the exception of ABL.PL.INDEF, or a rather strange
merger of DAT/ABL.SG.INDEF and NOM.SG.DEF).

In other words, it is precisely the morphome that, far from being
"useless" and "arguably increas[ing] the complexity of the system
with no obvious corresponding return" (Corbett 2016, 64), actually
plays a crucial role in the organization of forms in the language. In
that way, Albanian noun inflection, with its pervasive case syncre-
tisms, features non-trivial splits that are both morphomic *and* (ex-
ternally) motivated at the same time.

It is important to note that syncretism, as a means of maintain-
ing this maximal economy, could not work this way if it did not pro-
duce unnatural classes, such as those discussed here; in that case,
its power to maximally economically organize the system of forms
would be significantly reduced, if not lost. This is why, in the end,
morphomic (in the sense of forming an unnatural class) and (extern-
ally) *motivated* should not be understood as a total dichotomy: here
we have seen that, in the case of Albanian case syncretism, a syn-
tactic (functional) drift may actually feed and itself rely on morpho-
mic distributions of forms.

The analysis provided here for Albanian, therefore, may contribute
to the ‘morphome debate’ in morphology, which is still almost exclu-
sively dominated by the data from Romance, and to a better under-
standing of the morphology-syntax interface in general, as well as to
the literature on (meta)syncretism patterns and the morphosyntax of
the Balkan Sprachbund noun phrase in particular.

On a final (side) note, it was already pointed out by Newmark
(1962), some sixty years ago, that the Albanian case system is in fact
a “combinatorial” one, in which case and definiteness interact so as
to reduce the number of necessary distinct forms; in what was es-
sentially a proto-derivational account<fnref n="8" /> of inflection:

In traditional descriptions of Albanian the essential simplicity of
the case system is obscured by mixing together information about
the morphological structure, the syntactic distribution, and the
semantic functioning of the case form. By treating these aspects
of linguistic structure separately but in relation to one another, a
combinatorial description may reveal underlying regularities of
structure in each aspect, without sacrificing a view of the complex
integrity of the language itself. (Newmark 1962, 321)

In so many aspects this short article resonates with the present
issues.

<footnote n="8">8 As such, Newmark’s analysis represents an important early alternative to the Ja-kobsonian feature-based decompositional approach to case syncretism, which has had a significant influence on later researchers. Sadly, this paper has remained practical-ly unknown.</footnote>
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<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>
# Предложные конструкции в резьянском микроязыке с частицами *ta-/tu-/to-*

Liudmila Fedorova

Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvennyy Gumanitarnyy Universitet, Moskva, Russia

**Abstract** The study is focused on prepositional constructions expressing spatial relations in the Resian microlanguage. Usually compound prepositions have two or three components based on simple prepositions (-w, -na, etc.), with an adverbial particle *ta-/tu-/to-* as the first component. The paper attempts to clarify the choice of the particles. The materials used are the works of Baudouin de Courtenay on the Resian dialect, historical and modern Resian texts, evidence of a native speaker informant. The result of the analysis shows that the choice of particles can be determined by phonetic and semantic motives.

**Keywords** Resian microlanguage. Spatial relations. Compound prepositions. Adverb particles.

**Summary** 1. Введение. – 2. Типы резьянских локативных конструкций и их состав.
– 3. Обсуждение. – 4. Анализ. – 5. Краткое заключение.

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

Edizioni
Ca Foscari

## Peer review

Submitted 2023-05-04

Accepted 2023-12-22

Published 2023-01-18

## Open access

© 2024 Fedorova | 4.0

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>

**Citation** Fedorova, L. (2024). "Предложные конструкции в резьянском микроязыке с частицами *ta-/tu-/to-*". *Balcania et Slavia*, 3(2), [1-20] 161-180.
# 1 Введение

Резьянский идиом, один из островных южнославянских микроязыков, в определении А.Д. Дуличенко (Дуличенко 1981, Дуличенко 2017), рассматривается лингвистами в числе словенских диалектов.

Задачей настоящего исследования является рассмотреть одну из особенностей резьянской грамматики – предложные конструкции для передачи пространственных значений (собственно местонахождения и направления). Как правило, они передаются не простыми предлогами при существительном, а с помощью составных предлогов или наречно-предложных конструкций, особенно часто включающих первообразные предлоги *w/v 'в'и na'на'.

Так, мы находим примеры таких употреблений уже в первом письменном памятнике – Резьянском катехизисе, рукописный текст которого был составлен по-резьянски Доменико Мичелли в 1797 г. и опубликован Бодуэном де Куртенэ в 1875 г.: *tu-v treh persunah 'в трех лицах', *ta-nà chrishu 'на кресте', *tu-v svotè od Marie Vergine, 'в животе Девы Марии'; *tu-v Paravishu, 'в раю'; *ta-nà simgnè anu tu-v uvsachin meste, 'на земле и во всяком месте'; *tuv useh gnih perfeziunah 'во всех их совершенствах; Du te jè cret al anu gial sè na tè svit? 'Кто тебя создал и привел на этот свет?'* (БдеК 1875).

Здесь конструкции *tu-v, ta-nà, sè na* соответствуют простым предлогам 'в', 'на', однако с препозицией частиц *tu, ta, sè*, предположительно с исходным значением типа 'там, тут'.

Подобные примеры можно, по-видимому, считать грамматическими фразеологизмами – в понимании Баранова и Добровольского. которые относят к ним сочетания служебных слов, в том числе предлогов (например, рус. *из-за, из-под*), или полнозначного и служебного слова для выражения грамматических значений в широком понимании (Баранов, Добровольский 2008, 73-8).

Материалом для исследования послужили тексты и примеры, записанные Бодуэном де Куртенэ (БдеК), а также современные резьянские тексты и примеры из Biside 2009 (записи устной речи резьян), Clemente 2020 (NC)<fnref n="1" />, Steenwijk 1992. В них сохраняется орфография источника, где это возможно и необходимо.

<footnote n="1">1. Книга написана автором (Nadia Clemente) как пособие для ознакомления с резьянским языком от лица его носителя, а не как научное издание. Мы использовали ее по разрешению автора как богатый источник аутентичного материала, в основном осойского говора (О соян, Oseacco).</footnote>
## 2 Типы резьянских локативных конструкций и их состав

Можно выделить три типа резьянских локативных конструкций.

### 2.1 Локативные конструкции первого типа

Это конструкции с первой частью, производной от наречий, или наречием, типа: *dö-na* 'вниз(y) на' (*dö< dölu*), *dö-w* 'вниз в', *dö-h* 'вниз к', *dö-po* 'вниз по', *ghorë-na* / *gorë-na*<fnref n="2" /> 'вверх(y) на', *won-na* 'вверх на', *wne-w* 'вверху в' *nutrë-w* (Loc.) 'внутри', *nutär-w* (Acc.) 'внутрь' (часто *nu-w*), *nutrë-na*, *nutär-na* 'внутрь/и (на)' (часто *nu-na*), и др. (примеры записи на осойском диалекте по Clemente 2020, 44-48). Вторая часть представляет собой первообразный предлог в локативном (местном или направительном) значении, исключая *od* 'от', *künträ* 'против' и некоторые другие.

Здесь не всегда очевидно, представлено ли в первом компоненте (*dö-*, *ghorë-/* *gorë-*, *won-*, *wne-*, *nutrë-*, *nutär-*, *nu-*) наречие или уже собственно наречный предлог. Можно предположить, что дефисные написания и особенно сокращенные формы указывают на сращение компонентов в составной предлог, отражающее процесс грамматикализации. Однако наличие свободных употреблений полных форм в качестве наречий может говорить об их относительной самостоятельности.

Пример использования сращений можно увидеть в записи Бдек в описании маршрута:

(1) ...tadí mawa'jitith dőz Ucjo; da videt kako to je pa'todi dölu. Zutra grewa wùni čis Kilo ano dona Ravanco (Бдек 1895: 70) – '...тогда (мы-двое) должны идти вниз-через Учью, чтобы посмотреть, как там также внизу. Завтра (мы-двое) пойдем вверх-через Килу [перевал] и вниз-на Раванцу'.

В слитном написании (в собственной фонетической транскрипции Бдек) восстанавливаются: *döz - dölu-čiz*, 'вниз-через', *wùni čis - won-čiz* 'вверх-через', *dona - do-na* 'вниз-на'. Здесь же представлено и наречие *dölu*, так что лексическая связь предлога и наречия поддерживается.

Обращает на себя внимание порядок компонентов в этих конструкциях (наречный предлог + первообразный предлог),

<footnote n="2">2 Диграф gh отражает произношение осойского говора [y]. В более принятой орфографии используется *g*. (см. Н. Steenwijk, Piccolo dizionario ortografico resiano / Mali bisidnik za tö jošt rozajanskë pîsanjë, Padova 2005)</footnote>
обратный в сравнении с русскими аналогами: *dö-w* – в-доль, *gho-ré-na*, *won-na* – на-верху, *wne-w* – во-вне, *nutär-w* – в-нути.

Русские аналоги обычно рассматривают как производные от сочетаний первообразного предлога *в, на* и падежной формы управляемого им существительного: *дол, верх, нутро* (ср. рус. *нутро* из *vъп-отър* в результате переразложения, давшего *вънотър* (Фасмер 3: 90–91; Аникин 7; 327–329)). Резьянские же конструкции в представленном виде естественно рассматривать как производные от сочетания наречия и первообразного предлога.

Отметим, что сочетание локативного наречия и простого (первообразного) предлога совершенно нормально для разных языков: так, по-итальянски можно сказать *vado giù a Trieste* 'иду/еду вниз в Триест', *vado su a Tolmezzo* 'иду/еду вверх в Толмеццо'; в русском языке: *вверх на крышу, вдоль по улице, вблизи от центра* – первая часть обычно трактуется как наречный предлог, хотя возможна и трактовка как предложного наречия (Урысон 2017).

## 2.2 Локативные конструкции второго типа

Этот тип представляют сочетания первообразных предлогов с местоименно-наречными частицами *ta* и *tu* ('там, туда'), причем эти частицы уже не имеют собственно пространственного значения и используются не только в локативных, но и во временных значениях (примеры по БдеК 1895 и Biside 2009):

*tu-w njiwo* 'в поле' – *tu-w noće* 'ночью',
*ta-h hiše* 'к дому' – *ta-prad Vinahte* 'перед Рождеством',
*tà me paháme* 'между скалами' – *tà med lítame* 'между годами'.

Как представляется, сочетание предлога с подобной частицей ('там, туда') редко встречается как устойчивая конструкция в других языках: некоторую параллель можно усмотреть с разговорными употреблениями в итальянском: *vado là a Prato/Ràvanza* 'иду/еду туда в Прато/Раванцу', *vado là a Padova* '...туда в Падую', в разговорном словенском *tam gori, tam doli*, но это скорее свободные сочетания с частицами. В русском нормально свободное сочетание типа там вдали за рекой, где каждый компонент локализации уточняется последующим.

Использование конструкций первого и второго типа можно проследить в другом примере описания маршрута БдеК с его же переводом на немецкий:

(2) ...góre po Plání nútus Klúsawo, – tus Pécawo, – górez Vilíko Dulíno. – gorë u Počěčinin, – Bojánave Klinb, – nútu Žlip, – tána Kókowo = nútu na
Kókowo, – *nutuz* Bučónawo, – *nútuž* Lišičjo, – *tána* Študenčíhon, – *taǔ* Pláni, – *tana* Pláni, – *nútuz* Dernúwo, – *nútu zá* timi Kráji, – *dólu po* Pýsku Wòrsb, – *dólu po* ti Vilíki Pláni.

...oben an Planja in Klusowo hinauf, – in Pecowo, – oben in das große Thal hinauf, – oben in Počečin, – Bojem’s Keile, – in Žlin hinein, – auf Kokowo, – in Bučonawo hinein, – in Lisičja hinein, – uber Študenčitj, – in Planja, – auf Planja, – in Dernuwo hinein, – hinter jenen Orten hinein, – unten uber Sandgipfel, – unten uber die Große “Planja” (Fläche). (Materialen 1895, §47)

Здесь предлоги с *ta-*: *tána* < *tá* + *na*, *tau* < *ta* + *w*; предлоги с *na* отмечают открытые места, с *w* (u) – вхождение в пространство, мыслимое как закрытое, с *nutu* (*< nutu**) прохождение через поселения (*nutus*/-*z/-*ž- < *nutar*+ čis ‘через’), т.е. предлоги с *na-* концептуализируют пространство как плоскость, с *w-* и *nutu-* – как объем. Аналогично в записях Бдек (1875, Х): *tu-w* Osoâh (в Осекко) – *tà na Níve* (на/в Ниве), *tàna Sòlbice* (на/в Столвице). Тем самым в предлогах учитывается характер местности и положение населенного пункта (также Федорова 2021).

Из примеров видно, что составные наречно-предложные конструкции способны достаточно точно передавать местонахождение и направление, а также уточнять вертикальную ориентацию, что важно в условиях горной местности. Так, уточнение вертикальной ориентации присуще и словенским диалектам долин Натизоне и Торре, диалектам других альпийских народов (по устным замечаниям коллег на Convengo Linguistica Slava - 9), а также и словацкому языку (Корина 2013).

## 2.3 Локативные конструкции третьего типа

Эти конструкции включают все три компонента – *ta/tu* + наречный предлог + первообразный предлог:

*tu-wnë-na* *hlivë* ‘там-сверху-на хлеву (на сеновале)’, *ta-nu-w* *hiše* ‘там-внутри-в доме’;

*bet ta-dö-na* *Bile* ‘быть там-внизу-на Биле (в Резьютте)’;

*bet ta-dö-w* *Bile* ‘быть там-внизу-в Биле (в Сан-Джорджо)’<fnref n="3" />
(примеры по Clemente 2020, 44).

Иногда можно предположить для таких случаев не трехчленный комплекс, а сочетание двучленного наречия и первообразного

<footnote n="3">³ По объяснению N. Clemente, различие связано с более открытым местом (Резьютта) и с более закрытым (Сан-Джорджо), откуда часть жителей после наводнения переселилась к входу в долину.</footnote>
предлога; подобное членение предполагает пример от информанта из (Steenwijk 1992, 163):

(3) somą bili ta-wněte goré 'we were up on the mountains'.

Наличие артикля и одного дефиса позволяет предположительно разбить локативную фразу на две тактовые группы: с ударными наречием и существительным. Тогда можно говорить об особенной структуре наречия *ta-wné* с местоименно-наречным компонентом (ср. рус. *вон там*), которая иногда встречается в других языках (ср. ит. *lassù e laggiù*). Однако у нас нет надежных критериев, чтобы разделить эти виды конструкций (дефис не всегда помогает; это можно было бы сделать более определенно на основе анализа устной речи).

Сам Стэнвейк квалифицирует *ta-wně* как наречие в сочетании с предлогом (*na, w*) наряду с такими сочетаниями как *nútu pod, gorě z* (в упрощенной орфографии, по Steenwijk 1992, 171).

Можно проиллюстрировать некоторые конструкции примерами из современных текстов, в частности – записи устной речи в издании «Biside ta-na traku» (2009):

(4) ...tö nî tej injân, da wsako nuć so mužje **ta-par** hiše, <...> itadej ci ni so bile magare **ta-dö w** Mužace lubu bö dölu, ka ni so dělale **tu-w** gozdē, ni niso mogle prit **ta-h** hiše.

'...это не как сейчас, что каждую ночь мужчины дома, <...> тогда если они были, например, в Моджио или еще дальше, когда они работали в лесу, они не могли прийти домой' (Biside 2009, 19).

Здесь **ta-par** – ‘там-при’, **ta-dö w** – ‘там-внизу в’, **ta-h** – ‘туда-к’. При достаточно свободной сочетаемости компонентов для выражения различных значений порядок компонентов устойчив. Можно сопоставить его с логикой русских разговорных конструкций типа «там вдали за рекой», где первый компонент равно значен указательному жесту направления, второй определяет дистанцию или путь, третий – положение по отношению к конкретному ориентиру. Только в резьянской конструкции на втором месте обычно указание на вертикальную ориентацию.

Полные трехчленные конструкции не так часты, как двучленные; в них второй член может быть опущен, так что получается конструкция второго типа:

(5) *To-ghorë-na Koritë – Ta-na Koritë so pet hiš.* ‘В Корите пять домов’ (пример NC).

Как видно, предлоги с первой частью *ta-/tu-/to-* часто встречаются в устной речи.
### 3 Обсуждение

Предложные конструкции с первой частью *ta-/tu-/to-* обсуждаются в работе (Steenwijk (1992, 171-172). Х. Стэнвейк квалифицирует *ta-* как безударное (или со вторичным ударением) локативное наречие ('adverb of place'), способное замещать самостоятельные локативные наречия; при этом он отмечает возможность самостоятельного его употребления (в примерах идиоматизированных конструкций *ta doma* 'дома', *ta lëtë* 'летом'). Для *tu-* он указывает лишь возможность использоваться с предлогом *w* наряду с *ta-*. При этом он отмечает, что эти наречия, по-видимому, лишены лексического значения.

Подробно рассматривает употребление лексемы *ta* в пространственно-временных обстоятельствах Р. Бенаккьо (2003, 2022b). При этом она приводит свидетельства использования этой лексемы не только в резьянском, но и в словенских диалектах Фриули (терском, надижском), и на более широком славянском пространстве. Предполагается, что использование конструкции с *ta-* может быть результатом контактного влияния фриульских диалектов, в которых возможны формы с частицей *là* 'там' перед предлогом *di* или его сочлененной с артиклем формой *dal* (*là dal miedì* 'у врача'), но это возможно только в отношении этого единственного предлога (Бенаккио 2003, 19), в то время как для резьянского сочетаемость гораздо шире. Более вероятным представляется отмеченное там же материальное и структурное влияние фриульских форм предлогов, образованных на базе счетания предлога *in* 'в' и артикля с вставным *-t-* и с утратой начального *in*: *in+un > in-t-un, intun > tun, in + il > in-tal > intal > tal, in + la > in-ta, inta > ta*.

Как и Стэнвейк, Бенаккьо признает компонент *tu-* в резьянском лишь фонетическим вариантом *ta-*, появляющимся в предпозиции к *w*.

Представляется более оправданным считать *ta-/tu-/to-* местоименно-наречными частицами *ta < j(i)tăn, tu < j(i)tu, to < j(i)to*, — с исходным значением 'там, туда', возможно, связанными с указательными местоимениями *j(i)ti, j(i)ta, j(i)to*. На связь *ta < tan* 'там' в результате утраты конечного *n* указывал и БдеК (1875, 42), при этом *tan* естественно связывается с формой *tam* (БдеК 1875, 13-14, §31), восходящей к праславянскому *tamo*, на что также обращает внимание Р. Бенаккьо.

В свою очередь, краткие формы этих указательных местоимений, по-видимому, дали начало формам определенного артикля *te, ta, to; ti/te*. По мнению Р. Бенаккьо, резьянские формы определенного артикля формируются в процессе грамматикализации местоименных клитик, с опорой на обобщающее значение. Причем для резьянских текстов XVIII-XIX вв. характерно их
использование перед субстантивированными прилагательными (Бенаккьо 1998, Бенаккьо 2014, Бенаккьо 2022c); эта особенность сохраняется и в современной речи; можно сравнить параллельные названия сборника Bideš 2009 на резьянском и стандартном словенском:

(6) (а) Bideš ta-na traku: Bideš anu imprěšti od naših tih starih (рез.)

(букв. 'Слова и вещи/инструменты (от) наших старших')

(б) Besede na traku: Besede in predmeti naših starih (словенск.)

С другой стороны, об использовании определенного артикля в разговорных словенских диалектах приморской группы (в том числе резьянского, Натизоне и Торре) пишет Н. Bažec (2019), отмечая, что литературный (стандартный) словенский не выделяет эту грамматическую категорию. Тем самым использование таких форм может расцениваться как характерная черта разговорной речи. Резьянский сохраняет эту разговорную стихию, в то время как стандартизированный словенский имеет более книжный характер.

Глубокие идеи о связи коммуникативных частиц с местоименными корнями, передающими скрытые смыслы определенности/неопределенности, высказала Т.М. Николаева; рассуждая о фо-нетическом распределении консонантных основ частиц, она от-метила, в частности, характерную для болгарского и македон-ского определенного артикля основу на *t-* (Николаева 2000, 341).

Можно усмотреть в использовании местоименно-наречных частиц *ta-/tu-/to-* в резьянском идиоме развитие общей категории указательности-определенности, распространившейся на локативные комплексы.

Кроме того, можно заметить в организации резьянской фразы тенденцию к удлинению тактовых групп за счет клитик, что создает более уравновешенный, размеренный строй разговорной речи. В работе (Бенаккьо 2022а, 116–120) отмечается распространенное использование в резьянской фразе глагольных и местоименных клитик, также при местоименной репризе, т.е. в последнем случае наблюдается смысловая избыточность. На это могут указывать также примеры редупликации предлогов: [j]tû-tû potőćæ ‘там-в-там-в ручье’, *ta za ta za nû* ‘позади-позади неё’ (БдК 1875), *okül nu okül* ‘около и около, вокруг’ (Bideš, 13, также 140). Здесь можно говорить об эмфатической и выделительной функции повторов.
## 4 Анализ

Если говорить о предложных конструкциях с частицами как о грамматических фразеологизмах, интересно задаться вопросом, в чем различие частиц *ta-/tu-/to-* в их составе.

### 4.1 Гипотеза различения дистанции

Первоначально возникает предположение, что частицы распределены по значениям дальности дистанции: *ta-* 'там', *tu-/to-* 'тут'. Эта гипотеза никак не подтверждается материалом, так как оба значения присутствуют у всех этих частиц. (Так, в контексте (4) *ta-dö w Mużace* и *tu-w gozdë* – одинаково далекие объекты.)

Кроме того, есть свидетельства использования частицы *sè*, которую более обоснованно связывать со значениями 'сюда, здесь'. Очевидный пример присутствует уже в Резьянском Катехизисе (Du te jè creal anu gial sè na tè svit?).

Стэнвейк сопоставляет разные записи «Отче наш» с XVIII в. и обнаруживает параллельные конструкции с частицей *sè* на месте *ta* (Steenwijk 2005).

Фрагменты «Отче наш» 'как в небе, так и на земле':

(7) ...tachoj tou nebbe, pà sè nà semgnì (запись БдeК, с рукописи 1797 г.)

(8) ...tacoj tim nebe itacu tàna semj (запись Срезневского 1841).

Фрагменты Резьянского Катехизиса (в издании БдeК 1875):

(9) ...Du te jè creal anu gial sè na tè svit? 'Кто тебя создал и произвел на этот свет?'

(10) ...sè na tin'svetu, se na toi simij 'здесь на этом свете, здесь на этой земле'.

Частицу *sè* Стэнвейк сопоставляет с *ta*, считая первую более архаичной в подобной конструкции. Кроме того, Стэнвейк предполагает некоторое соответствие в словенских говорах Каринции, где *se* встречается как «эмфатическая частица» перед наречиями места: *se vūne → sounē* (ссылаясь на Ramovš 1935: 5, цит. по Steenwijk 2005, 413). Все же параллель Рамовша с словенским относительна, поскольку там речь не о предлогах.

Р. Бенаккьо полагает, что частица *sè*, противопоставленная *ta* как изначальное указание на близкое место по отношению к более отдаленному, постепенно утратилась, в то время как *ta* с нейтрализацией указательного значения укрепилась (Бенаккьо 2022b).
Можно также предположить связь *sè* с группой местоименных форм с указательным значением 'этот': (j)isi, (j)isa, (j)iso ('этот, эта, это'), естественную для исходного значения *sè* 'здесь, сюда', сохраняющегося в современном языке в наречном значении. Но нельзя исключить и того, что в самостоятельных наречных формах (ji)tan, (ji)tu/to, (i)sè исходно присутствовала градация по стени пени отдаленности объекта, которая затем стерлась.

## 4.2 Гипотеза различения места и направления

Другое предположение может заключаться в различении пространственных значений места и направления: 'там' и 'туда'. Это предположение как будто бы тоже не подтверждается материалом; можно это проиллюстрировать хотя бы тем же примером (4), где частицы используются недифференцированно в конструкциях для обоих грамматических значений: *ta-par hiše* - 'при доме, дома' (место, loc), *ta-dö w Mužace* - 'внизу в Моджио' (место, loc), *tu-w gozdë* - 'в лесу' (место, loc), *ta-h hiše* - 'к дому, домой' (направление, dat); отсюда видно, что грамматическое значение и соответственно падежное управление задаются первообразным предлогом во второй позиции. Так что подобное распределение было бы осмыслено искать в самостоятельных наречных формах.

Поскольку вопросительные наречия различают значения места и направления (*kë 'where', kän 'for where', Clemente 2020, 51), естественно ожидать, что и указательные формы были способны дифференцировать значения аналогичным образом. Р. Бенаккьо отмечает преимущественное распределение наречий: *jitän* для значения 'где', а *tän/tä* - 'для 'куда' (Бенаккьио 2003, 14; также 2022b, 128). Бенаккьо ссылается на материалы Резьянского словаря БдЕК, в которых, по свидетельству А.Д. Дуличенко, для ударного наречия *ta* отмечено значение направления, в то время как в безударной форме клитики *ta* оба значения (места и направления) нейтрализованы (Бенаккьио 2003, 15, сноска 4; также 2022b, 130, сноска 4).

## 4.3 Гипотеза фонетической обусловленности

Далее возникает гипотеза, что распределение частиц как-то связано с их фонетическим окружением. Для ее проверки был собран корпус из 100 примеров конструкций из *Опыта фонетики резьянских говоров* Бодуэна де Куртенэ (1875), а также десятков примеров из его записей резьянских текстов, в том числе *Резьянского катехизиса*, и примеров из современных резьянских текстов (Biside ta-na traku 2009).
В проанализированном материале среди 100 примеров из Бдек было обнаружено 45 примеров для *tu* в сочетаниях: *tu + w, wnë-na* и 55 примеров для *ta* в сочетаниях: *ta + na, pod, po, h, za, med, par, prad* и др. При этом для *tu* не нашлось примеров сочетаний с другими предлогами, кроме двух указанных. Зато отмечены примеры ассимилятивного перехода конечного согласного v/w перед согласным следующего слова в определенной фонетической дистрибуции: в *p, b* (перед зубными и l), *m* (перед носовым), *f* (перед свистящими):

*tuw:* *tuw Osoâh* – ‘в Осоянах’

*tuu:* *tùu Bîle* – ‘в Биле (Сан-Джорджо)’, *tùu lîtah* – ‘в летах’ [так! (§25, с. 11)]

*tup:* *tùp târze* – ‘в городе’, *tùp tédne* – ‘в течение недели’, *tùp c’rkvœ* – ‘в церкви’

*tub:* *tùb dúle* – ‘в долине’, *tùb loncè* – ‘в горшке’, *tùb da lonèc* – ‘в один горшок’

*tum:* *tum ní korýtaco* – ‘в одном корытце’, *tùm nohè* – ‘ночью’ (но и *tùb nohè*)

*tû:* – *tû potô’cœ* – в потоке, *tû Bańítcih* – ‘в Венеции’ (loc. pl., Bańítke – Венеция)

(Здесь запись *tû* отражает, по-видимому, долгое *u* – сокращение *tuu*)

Возможно и выпадение конечного слабого w:

*tú ni hözdœ* – в одном лесу, *tú mi sèrce* – в моем сердце.

Примеры с *tà* встречались в раздельном или слитном написании (в фонетической записи) с рядом предлогов:

*tà na / tàna* – ‘на’ – 20 примеров, это самый частый вариант: *tàna Ravance, tà na nogâh* – ‘на ногах’, *tàna kráju* – ‘на краю’

*tà za dôbon* – ‘за дубом’

*tà čiz áuštrjo* – ‘через Австрию’, *tàčiz wôdo* – ‘через воду’

*tà po striho* – ‘под трехой, под крышей’

*tàh církvœ* – ‘к церкви’

*tà med lîtame* – ‘между годами’

*tà p’r ohnô* – ‘возле огня’

*tà pod Zormíh* *tà pod Zormíh* (‘местность’)<fnref n="4" />.

Однако встречается также несколько примеров с *tàu* и его фонетическими вариантами; можно предположить здесь слияние *tà+w*: *tàu jíspe* – в избе, *táp te vir* – ‘в тот колодец’, *tàu nin kúrà nice* – ‘в одной (долгой, узкой, мрачной) яме’, *tàup Čěrni wùrh* (‘в Черный верх’), *tàub Nýsko hláwo* (‘в Низкую главу’), *tàup Tùlstin warsœ* (‘местность’), *tàup te drúgo stácjo* (‘в другую комнату’).

Получается, что очевидное вроде бы решение о чисто фонетическом разделении частиц не проходит: оказывается, что возможно сочетание не только *tu-w*, но и *tà-w* (*tà-u*). И кроме того у Бдек есть параллельные примеры и с *tò*: *tòu cerkvè, tòup církvœ*,

<footnote n="4">⁴ Зора - гора, см. Бдек. Резья и резьяне, 1876, 239.</footnote>
tùp c'rkvæ` - в церкви, но tàup cirkou - в церковь (БдЕК 1875, 31).
Можно еще предположить более явную фонетическую выделен-
ность конструкций с tòu и tà-u/w, тяготеющих к двусложности и,
возможно, создающих эмфатический стилистический акцент.

4.4 Уточнение гипотезы

Объяснить несколько примеров tà-w можно было бы различием
говоров или индивидуальными особенностями информантов, но
аналогичные примеры с ta-w и ta-wne встречались для разных
говоров и в текстах, записанных Стэнвнейком от разных информ-
мантов Сан-Джорджо (Билы): ta-w din momént 'in a twinking',
ta-w padɛlo 'in a frying-pan', ta-wnë w Olándi<fnref n="5" /> 'up north in Holland'
(Steenwijk 1992, 166, 171).

Примеры от нашего информанта Нади Клементе (NC) позво-
лили уточнить картину:

tu-w jíspe (loc) ‘в избе’ – [tet] ta-w jispo (acc) ‘[идти] в избу’;
tu-w tin veŕu (loc) ‘в этом колодце’ – [tet] ta-w ta vir (acc) ‘[идти] к этому колодцу’;
tu-w nin kúrnice (loc) ‘в яме’ – ta-w dań kúrnek (acc) ‘в яму’;
tu-w Čérni(n) warsè (loc) ‘в Черном верхе’ – ta-w Čérni waŕh (acc) ‘в Черный верх’;
tu-w Nýske hláve (loc) ‘в Низкой главе’ – ta-w Nýsko hláwo (acc) ‘в Низкую главу’.

Разговорные примеры, подтвержденные несколькими информан-
тами из О соян (IM 1943, DL 1945):

(11) Män tet ta-w hišo punj ... – ‘Мне надо пойти в дом взять (что-то)’.

(12) Män tet ta-w hozd po dörwä – ‘Мне нужно пойти в лес за дровами’.

(13) Tazè tà-w jispo – ‘Иди в избу’.

Ho:

(14) Se tu-w hišě, ta čašań – ‘Я дома, жду тебя.’

(15) **Tu-w** kintīne so... (flejsā vina) – ‘В подвале есть... (бутылки вина)’.

(16) **Tu-w** hosde'so...(madve'dje) – ‘В лесу есть... (медведи)’.

<footnote n="5">5 В упрощенной транскрипции для wnë, а также для других примеров из Steenwijk 1992.</footnote>
Встречается пример с **ta-w** в аккузативе и в Biside 2009 в тексте, отмеченном пометами «по-нивски и по-солбацки»:

(17) *Alore limbrena na mèla kètinico enu to luvìlu ta-w den batun* (Biside, 141) *'Тогда у зонта была цепочка, которая защелкивалась на кнопку'.*

Можно понять, что в случаях с указанием места обычно используется *tu-w*, а для указания направления движения - *ta-w*. Это распределение в общем согласуется с абсолютным большинством примеров для *tu-w* из БдеК, однако для *tà-w* у него возможны оба варианта (направления и места). Хотя есть и пример БдеК *tùp c'rkvæ`* или *tòup c'rkvæ`* ('в церкви'), *tàup cirkou* О ('в церковь') (БдеК 1975: 31), где форма аккузатива с *tà-* (в варианте, записанном в Осоянах) противопоставлена формам локатива с *tu-*.

Возможно, что более редкое использование *tà-w* в локативе на месте обычного *tu-w* является также приемом эмфатического выделения. Так, Клементе объясняет приведенные у БдеК примеры *tà-w* в локативе как производные от сочетания с наречием *jitàn* 'там': *tàu jíspe* < (*ji*)*tà(n)* w *jíspe* 'там в избе', *tàu nin kúrnice* < (*ji*) *tà(n)* w *nin kúrnice* - 'там в одной (долгой, узкой, мрачной) яме'. Маркированные переходные формы могут создавать определенный стилистический эффект. Такие формы оказываются как бы промежуточными между развернутыми конструкциями с местоименным наречием *jitàn* и краткой формой предлога *tu-w*.

Можно заметить, что в ряде примеров встречается вариант *to-*: прежде всего в составе конструкций *to-ghorë-na*, *to-ghorë-w* (орфография по NC), где не исключено действие гармонии гласных, а также в объединении с *u/w* (*tòu*, *tòuf*): *tòu Osoâh*, *tòu cerkvè*, *tòu terzih* ('в городах'), *tòuf srîdi* ('в середине'), *tòup tohà drúzaha* ('в того другого'), *tòub Lôho* ('местность'). При этом в некоторых случаях отмечены и параллельные примеры с *tu-w* (*tùp tárze* - *tòu terzih*), что позволяет предположить и для *tò* эмфатическое выделение. Возможно, есть и другие факторы, объясняющие примеры с *to-* (*tòu*) в записях БдеК и в текстах XVIII-XIX вв., которые остались за пределами анализа.

Однако гипотеза об эмфатическом выделении нуждается в дальнейшей проверке на современном материале и в звучащей речи.

## 4.5 Оставшиеся вопросы

При этом все же нельзя говорить о строгом падежном распределении *tu-* и *ta-* с *w* в современном языке. Так, у Стэнвейка есть и пример (18), нарушающий предложенную закономерность, ср. с (19) у той же информантки из Сан-Джорджо (Билы):
(18) ja si bila **ta-w Rime** (LB) 'I have been in Rome',

(19) to je **tu-w Búškin** (LB) 'that is in Slovenia'. (Steenwijk 1992, 167)

В обоих случаях представлен loc, однако выбраны разные частицы. Возможно, в (18) также использована эмфатическая форма от *jitàn* w или действуют иные аналогии.

Такую аналогию можно усмотреть с формой **ta-wné**, которую Стэнвейк квалифицирует как наречие (см. выше):

(20) Anu ni so slá wún na Bërdu. Anu tadí **ta-wné na** Bërdu ni so si narédili jíšico, ta-wné na Bërdu. (Steenwijk 1992, 189) 'И они пошли вверх на Бёрду. И тогда там-вверху на Бёрде они себе построили домик, там-вверху на Бёрде' (орфография упрощенная, перевод наш - ЛФ)

Развернутый контекст позволяет усмотреть здесь и эмфазу, и собранившуюся указательную коннотацию.

Интересные примеры мы находим в тексте резьянского религиозного песнопения «Bëšë Mate ta pod križon» ('Была мать под крестом', Stabat Mater), цитируемого в статье Clemente (2022) с параллельным английским переводом:

(21) Sveta Mate vi sprusitë, **tu-w** naše sërzë se šapríjtë plaje od Ježuš Kristuša ('Holy Mother we pray you, **in our heart here** close the wounds of Jesus Christ')

(22) 1. Bëšë Mate ta pod križon **ta-w dulörjë rat** na jöčë videt Böha ubišana ('The Mother was under the cross, **in too much pain** she cries to see God hanging')

(23) 5. Se udjöčëj wsake žwot, köj ša vidët Mate Boga **ta-w ti vililikë spažimën** ('Every person is saddened, by seeing the Mother of God, **in pangs**')

(24) 7. Ša wse hrihe od judjame pätël Ježuš **ta-w tormintah** odkärvâvët od hëjžleh ('Because of all the sins of the people, Jesus suffered **in torments** due to the bleeding lashes') (цит. по Clemente 2022, 77–78).

По мнению Клементе, религиозные песнопения могли быть известны с конца XVIII в.; они были собраны и изданы в *Libro dei canti* в 1999 г. (там же, 78). В выделенных примерах даны формы локатива, однако лишь в первом случае с ожидаемым предлогом: **tu-w** naše sërzë 'в нашем сердце', а в трех других – с предлогом **ta-w**: 'в большой печали/боли', 'в великих муках', 'в мучениях'. Их объединяет значение 'находиться в состоянии' в отличие от стандартного местного 'в сердце', что могло бы оправдать переносное и эмфатически маркированное употребление. (Кроме того, текст песнопения подчиняется законом ритмического
упорядочивания, что также способствует использованию эмфатических форм.)

В другом цитируемом Клементе религиозном прозаическом тексте — современном переводе отрывка из Апокалипсиса (Mass of Saint Mary Assumption), выполненного Марией ди Ленардо Барбарини и опубликованного в приходском Бюллетене Резьи *Ta pod Canynowo sinco / Pod Tyaninovo sinco* «Под тенью Канина» в 1981 г., — находим примеры только с **ta-w**: *ta-w nebe anu ta-w sintuaru* 'в небе и в святилище' (loc), *ta-w to same mestu* 'в то самое место' (acc) (там же, 79–80). Можно ли предполагать, что выбор **ta-w** с нейтрализацией противопоставления обусловлен высоким стилем религиозного текста? Мы не можем с определенностью ответить на этот вопрос, который остается открытым.

В текстах Стэнвейка есть также примеры использования предлога *w* и без указательной частицы, но с полным наречием *jzdé* 'здесь':

(25) *somo meli kárje mlínuw jzdé w Réziji*

(‘we had a lot of mills here in Resia’ (Steenwijk 1992, 167)

Аналогично встречаем и в Biside: *Izdë w vasy* 'здесь в деревне'(2009, 57).

Эти примеры вполне соотносятся с восстанавливаемыми конструкциями, производными от наречия *jitàn* 'там'. Они близки к конструкции первого типа (*dö-w*), но с местоименными локативными наречиями. В результате можно предположить, что и трехчленные конструкции третьего типа могут быть двусоставным комплексом, объединяющим предложное наречие с первообразным предлогом *w, na*.

Аналогию наречно-предложным конструкциям второго типа (*ta-h, ta-na, tu-w*) можно увидеть в примерах Стэнвейка с опущением *w* – *ta doma* 'дома', *ta lëtë* 'летом', *ta zílmë* 'зимой' (в упрощенной транскрипции), где представлены уже не конструкции с существительными, а наречия<fnref n="6" />. Можно предположить влияние фриульского, в котором также возможно сокращение предлога *in* 'в', совмещенного с артиклем, до форм *tal, ta* и под. (см. выше; также: *Il Nuovo Pirona – Vocabolario Friulano*, Pirona, Carletti, Corgnali, Società Filologica Friulana, Udine 2020. Pp. 463 “INTAL”, 432 “IN”).

Стэнвейк отмечает также ряд примеров, в которых предлог *w* употребляется без наречных частиц и наречий, приводя при этом параллели с частицами:

(26) *dala ser w panów ‘she put cheese in the pan’*

<footnote n="6">6 Однако: *tu-w jasanè* 'осенью'; *tu-w vilažej* 'весной' (по NC).</footnote>
(cf. dáli tu-w panów sér 'they put into the pan cheese')

(Steenwijk 1992, 172)

Примеры с употреблением одиночного *w* приводит и Н. Клемен-
те: *tet w hozd po dörwä* 'пойти в лес за дровами'; *ghnät krava w hliw*.
'загнать коров в хлев'. В этих случаях имена *hozd* 'лес' и *hliw* 'хлев'
теряют значение определенности, а выступают в качестве некон-
кретных понятий. Аналогичное объяснение естественно предпо-
ложить и для примера (26).

Другие случаи употребления одиночного предлога *w* не свя-
заны с передачей пространственных отношений.

5 Краткое заключение

Итак, в данной работе была сделана попытка исследовать исполь-
зование частиц *ta-/tu-/to-* в составе предложных конструкций в
резьянских текстах. Анализ показал, что основным критерием
выбора частицы является фонетический: **tu** возможно только пе-
ред **w**, что обусловлено фонетическим созвучием, а **ta** перед дру-
гими согласными, а также и перед **w**.

Частица *ta* может сочетаться как с разными первообразными
предлогами, так и с наречными формами. Кроме того, *ta* в значе-
нии 'в' возможна и в самостоятельном идиоматическом употреблении (26). Но для *tu* морфофонетическая сочетаемость жестко ограничена, так что форма *tu-w* становится равнозначной предлогу *w* и в этом качестве встречается даже в сочетании с *ta*: *tà tup taríńu* 'на лугу' (БдeК 1875, 31).

Важным представляется более отчетливая связь **tu-w** с фор-
мой локатива, а **ta-w** с формой аккузатива, т.е. в направитель-
ном значении, которая выявляется в примерах информантов.
Современные примеры с **ta-w** в аккузативе кажутся стилисти-
чески нейтральными, так что локатив оказывается маркирован-
ной формой.

Мы предположили, что использование **ta-w** и **to-w** для переда-
чи локатива, возможно, отражающее переходную форму от соче-
тания с наречием, объясняется эмфатическим выделением и/или
стилистической маркированностью высокого стиля речи. Этот
вывод пока что имеет предварительный характер, скорее мож-
но говорить о тенденции.

Обобщая, можно отметить, что своеобразие предложных кон-
струкций резьянского языка состоит в использовании для про-
странственных значений сложных конструкций с местоимен-
но-наречными частицами, которые в силу устойчивого характера
могут уже рассматриваться как грамматические фразеологиз-
мы. Грамматикализация частиц *ta-/tu-/to-* при выветривании
лексического значения тем не менее распространяет скрытый смысл указательности-определенности на локативные конструкции. При обобщающем неконкретном значении объекта возможно использование предлога без этих частиц (26).

Особенностью структуры локативных предложных сочетаний является порядок компонентов: от более общего значения к более конкретному. Их использование является отличительной чертой резьянского идиома (как и терского и надижского) по сравнению с стандартным словенским и объясняется необходимостью ориентации в горной местности.

В заключение выражаем признательность резьянской коллеге Наде Клементе за предоставленные материалы и примеры и за их обсуждение, информантам IM и DL из Осоян за предложенные примеры, а также благодарность коллегам, принявшим участие в обсуждении доклада на Convengo Linguistica Slava - 9. Отдельная благодарность рецензентам, чьи замечания мы постарались учесть.
## Литература и источники

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Бенаккьо, Р. (1998). «К вопросу об определенном артикле в славянских языках: резьянский говор». Языки малые и большие... In memoriam acad. Nikita I. Tolstoi. *Slavica Tartuensia*, 4, 76-88.

Бенаккио, Р. (2003). «Употребление лексемы *ta* в пространственно-временных обстоятельствах в словенских диалектах Фриули: еще раз о славяно-романском контакте». Alberto, A.; Garzaniti, M.; Garzonio, S. (a cura di), *Contributi italiani al XIII Congresso internazionale degli slavisti* (Ljubljana 15-21 agosto 2003). Pisa: Associazione italiana degli slavisti, 11-23.

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Бенаккьо, Р. (2022c). «Грамматикализация определенного и неопределенного артикля в словенском языковом ареале». Benacchio, R. *Studi slavistici tra linguistica, dialettologia e filologia*. A cura di M. Fin et al. Firenze: Firenze University Press, 156-168. Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici, 48. https://doi.org/10.36253/978-88-5518-568-4.

Бодуэн де Куртенэ, И. (1875). *Опыт фонетики резьянских говоров с приложением: «Резьянский катехизис»*. [Соч.] И. Бодуэна-де-Куртенэ (J. Baudouin de Courtenay). Варшава: Э. Венде и К-о; Санкт-Петербург: Д.Е. Кожанчиков.

Дуличенко, А.Д. (1981). *Славянские литературные микроязыки: вопросы формирования и развития*. Таллин: Валгус.

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Корина, Н.Б. (2013). «Национальная специфика пространственных моделей в языке и культуре (русско-словацкий аспект)». *Вестник Московского государственного областного университета*, 4. https://www.evestnik-mgou.ru/jour/article/view/644/641.
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Baudouin de Courtenay, J. (1895). *Materialen zur südslavischen Dialektologie und Ethnographie I: Resianische Texte*. St. Petersburg.

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*Biside-ta-na-traku. Le parole su nastro. Besede na traku.* (2009). Udine: Associazione Culturale Museo della Gente della Val Resia.

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Clemente, N. (2022). «Resia – a Slavic enclave in Italy. Culture and religion in 19th century texts». *Ethnologia slovaca et slavica*, 43, 63-85.

Steenwijk, H. (1992). «The Slovene dialect of Resia: San Giorgio». *Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics*, 18, iii-352. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40997063.

Steenwijk, H. (2005). «Versioni settecentesche e ottocentesche del paternostro resiano». *Ceccherelli, A. et al.* (a cura di), *Per Jan Šlaski: scritti offerti da ma-giaristi, polonisti, slavisti italiani*. Padova: UNIPRESS, 409-23.
<figure><img src="image_13.png" /></figure>
# Sulle costruzioni relative non-restrittive del romeno (a confronto con l'italiano)

Guglielmo Cinque
Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

**Abstract** Non-restrictive (or appositive) relative clauses can either belong to sentence grammar (integrated non-restrictive relatives) or to the grammar of discourse (non-integrated non-restrictive relatives). Italian has both constructions (the former employs *che* and *cui* relative pronouns, while the latter employs the *il quale* paradigm, with distinct properties). The evidence discussed in the present article induces one to analyse the non-restrictive relatives of Standard (non colloquial) Romanian as belonging to the grammar of discourse.

**Keywords** Relative clauses. Non-restrictives. Discourse grammar. Romanian. Italian.

**Sommario** 1 Introduzione. – 2 Le due costruzioni non-restrittive dell'italiano. – 3 La situazione del romeno.

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /></figure>

Edizioni
Ca' Foscari

**Peer review**

Submitted 2023-12-01

Accepted 2024-02-20

Published 2024-04-04

**Open access**

© 2023 Cinque | 🔍 4.0

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /></figure>

**Citation** Cinque, G. (2024). "Sulle costruzioni relative non-restrittive del romeno (a confronto con l'italiano)". *Balcania et Slavia*, 3(2), [1-14] 181-194.
# 1 Introduzione

La frase relativa è una frase subordinata che contiene necessariamente un nominale identico a un nominale della frase superordinata (ad esempio, in una frase come *Ho perso un libro che mi avevi prestato* il complemento oggetto di *prestato* è necessariamente interpretato come ‘un libro’, nominale identico alla ‘testa’ della relativa, e cancellato). Ove questa condizione non sia rispettata perché il complemento oggetto di *prestato* è occupato da un nominale diverso, come in *Ho perso un libro che mi avevi prestato una penna*, la frase che ne risulta è inaccettabile (agrammaticale).

Sia la grammatica tradizionale che le teorie linguistiche formali più recenti distinguono due grandi tipi di frasi relative: le relative ‘restrittive’, che concorrono a individuare il referente della ‘testa’ della frase relativa (*un libro*, nel primo esempio menzionato sopra) chiarendo di che libro si tratti (*un libro* che mi avevi prestato), e le relative ‘non-restrittive’ (o ‘appositive’), che diversamente dalle restrittive, non contribuiscono a individuare il referente della testa in quanto questo è già indipendentemente individuato, come nel caso di un nome proprio: *Gianni, che tu conosci bene, non l’avrebbe fatto*. Per maggiori dettagli sulle differenze tra le due costruzioni, si vedano Grosu (2013, § 2.1).

In realtà le frasi non-restrittive non sono una costruzione unica, ma due costruzioni distinte; una appartenente alla grammatica della frase (Chomsky 1957), l’altra alla grammatica del discorso (Williams 1977), con proprietà diametralmente opposte, vedi (1) e (2), che saranno esemplificate partitamente nella sezione 2, riguardante l’italiano, prima di considerare la situazione del romeno. Per una discussione più approfondita su questa distinzione si vedano Cinque 2008; 2020, § 3.1).

(1) Proprietà delle relative non-restrittive della grammatica di frase

a. possibilità del subordinatore delle frasi complemento di modo finito di relativizzare DP;<fnref n="1" />

b. Impossibilità di un pied piping più ampio di un sintagma preposizionale semplice;<fnref n="2" />

c. Nessuna indipendenza illocutiva (la sola forza possibile è quella dichiarativa);

d. Impossibilità di occorrere in frasi distinte del discorso;

e. Impossibilità di ritenere la testa interna;

f. Impossibilità di una non identità della testa esterna e della testa interna;

<footnote n="1">1 Vedi esempio (3).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 Con ‘pied piping’, che si richiama al pied piper (pifferaio magico) di Hamelin, si intende la possibilità per l’elemento relativo di portarsi dietro altro materiale non relativo. Vedi esempio (4).</footnote>
g. Impossibilità di una testa diversa da un nominale;

h. Impossibilità di teste discontinue;

i. Non anteponibilità della relativa alla testa (frasale).

(2) *Proprietà delle relative non-restrittive della grammatica del discorso*

a. Impossibilità del subordinatore delle frasi complemento di modo finito di relativizzare DP;

b. Possibilità di un pied piping più ampio di un sintagma preposizionale semplice;

c. Indipendenza illocutiva;

d. Possibilità di occorrere in frasi distinte del discorso;

e. Possibilità di ritenere la testa interna;

f. Possibilità di una non identità della testa esterna e della testa interna;

g. Possibilità di una testa diversa da un nominale;

h. Possibilità di teste discontinue;

i. Anteponibilità della relativa alla testa (frasale).

La prima costruzione è parte integrante della frase superordinata (costruzione integrata); la seconda non è parte integrante della fra-se superordinata, ma appartiene ad una frase indipendente del di-scorso (costruzione non integrata).

Alcune lingue hanno entrambe le costruzioni (l'italiano), altre so-lo la costruzione appartenente alla grammatica di frase (il cinese) e altre solo la costruzione appartenente alla grammatica del discorso (l'inglese; vedi Cinque 2008).

Più avanti argomenterò che le relative non-restrittive del romeno appartengono, come quelle dell'inglese, alla sola grammatica del di-scorso (si veda la sezione 3).<fnref n="3" />

## 2 Le due costruzioni non-restrittive dell'italiano

La principale differenza tra la non-restrittiva della grammatica di fra-se e quella della grammatica del discorso è rappresentata in Italia-no dall'uso nella prima costruzione del subordinatore *che* delle fra-si complemento di modo finito per i soggetti e gli oggetti diretti e del pronome invariante *cui* per i complementi obliqui.<fnref n="4" /> Nella seconda co-struzione (quella della grammatica del discorso) l'italiano impiega, per tutti gli argomenti, il paradigma 'articolo + qual-'.

<footnote n="3">³ Citko 2016 argomenta che anche il polacco ha solo relative non-restrittive della grammatica del discorso.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Si veda:</footnote>

<footnote>(i)a. Inviterò anche Giorgio, che/*cui abita qui vicino.</footnote>

<footnote>b. Inviterò anche Giorgio, che/*cui voi certamente conoscete.</footnote>

<footnote>c. Inviterò anche Giorgio, $l_{PP}$ di cui] /*che avete certamente sentito parlare.</footnote>

<footnote>d. Inviterò anche Giorgio, $[PP a/con cui]$ /*che potrete parlare liberamente.</footnote>
## 2.1

Impossibilità di un pied piping più ampio di un sintagma preposizionale semplice

(3) a. *Inviterò anche Giorgio, [DP **il fratello di cui**] è uno dei nostri più cari amici.

b. *Inviterò anche Giorgio, [AP **affezionato a cui**] per altro non sono.

c. *Inviterò anche Giorgio, [CP **liberarmi di cui**] non mi è proprio possibile.

d. *Inviterò anche Giorgio, [AdVP **diversamente da cui**] io non serbo rancore.

Possibilità di un pied piping più ampio di un sintagma preposizionale semplice

(4) a. Inviterò anche Giorgio, [DP **il fratello del quale**] è uno dei nostri più cari amici.

b. Inviterò anche Giorgio, [AP **affezionato al quale**] per altro non sono.

c. Inviterò anche Giorgio, [CP **liberarmi del quale**] non mi è proprio possibile.

d. Inviterò anche Giorgio, [AdVP **diversamente dal quale**] io non serbo rancore.

## 2.2

Nessuna indipendenza illocutiva (la sola forza possibile è quella dichiarativa)

(5) a. *?L'unico che ci riuscirebbe è tuo padre, **che** potrà perdonarci?

b. *Ci sono poi i Rossi, **per cui**, ti prego, cerca di trovare una sistemazione!*<fnref n="5" />

Indipendenza illocutiva (la frase relativa può avere una forza illocutiva diversa da quella dichiarativa)

(6) a. L'unico che ci riuscirebbe è tuo padre, **il quale** potrà perdonarci?

b. Ci sono poi i Rossi, **per i quali**, ti prego, cerca di trovare una sistemazione!

## 2.3

Impossibilità di occorrere in frasi distinte del discorso

(7) a. Non ho mai parlato di loro, ad Ada, *Di cui* lei ha comunque un pessimo ricordo.

b. *Parlante A:* Difese la sua tesi contro tutti. *Parlante B:* *?Che* non aveva alcun fondamento.

<footnote n="5">5 La frase è, in maniera irrilevante, accettabile se *per cui* è interpretato come ‘per la qual cosa’, piuttosto che ‘per i quali’, riferito a ‘i Rossi’.</footnote>
## Possibilità di occorrere in frasi distinte del discorso

(8) a. Non ho mai parlato di loro, ad Ada. **Dei quali** lei ha comunque un pessimo ricordo.

b. *Parlante A:* Difese la sua tesi contro tutti. *Parlante B:* **La quale** non aveva alcun fondamento.

## 2.4

### Impossibilità di ritenere la testa interna

(9) a. *Se quel farmaco, **che farmaco** non è stato messo in commercio, una ragione ci dev'essere.

b. Giorgio riuscì a sposare quella ragazza. *Di cui ragazza*, devo dire, ero invaghito anch'io.

### Possibilità di ritenere la testa interna

(10) a. Se quel farmaco, **il quale farmaco** non è stato messo in commercio, una ragione ci dev'essere.

b. Giorgio riuscì a sposare quella ragazza. **Della quale ragazza**, devo dire, ero invaghito anch'io. (Cinque 1988, 449)

## 2.5

### Impossibilità di una non identità della testa esterna e della testa interna

(11) a. All'appuntamento erano venuti quaranta studenti. *Che numero* non impressionò nessuno.

b. *Ha raggiunto la fama con Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini, **che romanzo** ha poi anche avuto una riduzione cinematografica.*

### Possibilità di una non identità della testa esterna e della testa interna

(12) a. All'appuntamento erano venuti quaranta studenti. **Il qual numero** non impressionò nessuno.

b. Ha raggiunto la fama con Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini, **il quale romanzo** ha poi anche avuto una riduzione cinematografica.
## 2.6

### Impossibilità di una testa diversa da un nominale

(13) a. `[Frase] Carlo lavora troppo poco]. *Che verrà certamente notato.
b. Maria è `[Adjpo] suscettibile]. *Di cui non si era resa conto neanche sua madre.

### Possibilità di una testa diversa da un nominale (ad esempio una frase intera o un aggettivo)

(14) a. `[Frase] Carlo lavora troppo poco]. La qual cosa verrà certamente notata.
b. Maria è `[Adjip] suscettibile]. Della qual cosa non si era resa conto neanche sua madre.

## 2.7

### Impossibilità di teste discontinue (cioè di teste che non formano insieme un costituente unico)

(15) a. *Se **Carlo**, non amava più **Anna**<sub>j</sub>, **che**<sub>i,j</sub> d'altra parte non si erano mai voluti veramente bene, una ragione c'era.

b. *Se **Piero**<sub>i</sub> non si trova più tanto bene con **Ida**<sub>j</sub>, **tra cui**<sub>i,j</sub> d'altronde non c'è mai stata una vera amicizia,...

### Possibilità di teste discontinue (cioè di teste che non formano insieme un costituente unico)

(16) a. Se **Carlo**<sub>i</sub> non amava più **Anna**<sub>j</sub>, **i quali**<sub>i,j</sub> d'altra parte non si erano mai voluti veramente bene, una ragione c'era.

b. Se **Piero**<sub>i</sub> non si trova più tanto bene con **Ida**<sub>j</sub>, **tra i quali**<sub>i,j</sub> d'altronde non c'è mai stata una vera amicizia,... (Cinque 1982, 263)

## 2.8

### Non anteponibilità della relativa alla testa (frasale)

(17) *?Da quando, **che** è sempre una distrazione, mi son messo a giocare a carte,...

### Anteponibilità della relativa alla testa (frasale)

(18) Da quando, **la qual cosa** è sempre una distrazione, mi son messo a giocare a carte,...
Si consideri ora il romeno, che si dimostra possedere tutte e sole
le proprietà della costruzione non integrata della grammatica del
discorso.

3 La situazione del romeno

Il romeno standard, al contrario dell'italiano (che, nella sua costruzione integrata, impiega che), non può usare il subordinatore delle frasi complemento di modo finito per relativizzare soggetti e oggetti, vedi (19)a.-b.,<fnref n="6" /> ma utilizza un paradigma pronominale relativo corrispondente al paradigma articolo + qual- dell'italiano (care), vedi (20)a.-b., simile ai paradigmi relativi who e which dell'inglese, vedi (21) (cf. Dobrovie-Sorin 1994, 213; Grosu 1994, 212; 2013, §2.1):

(19) a. *Ion, că are trei copii, e fratele meu.*<sup>7</sup>
Ion, che ha tre figli, è mio fratello.
b. *Ioana, că mi-au prezentat(-o) ieri, nu mi-a plăcut.*
Ioana, che mi hanno presentato ieri, non mi è piaciuta.

(20) a. Ion, **care** are trei copii, e fratele meu. (Grosu 2013, 603)<fnref n="8" />
b. Ioana, **pe care** mi-au prezentat(-o) ieri, nu mi-a plăcut.

(21) a. John, **who** has three children, is my brother.
b. Joan, **who** you introduced to me yesterday, did not appeal to me.
c. That solution, **which** worked, was nonetheless abandoned.

<footnote n="6">6 Come l'inglese. Si veda:
(i.a. *John, that has three children, is my brother.
John, che ha tre figli, è mio fratello.</footnote>

<footnote>b. *Joan, that you introduced to me yesterday, did not appeal to me.
Joan, che mi hai presentato ieri, non mi è piaciuta.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">7 Le relative restrittive non possono parimenti essere introdotte dal complementatore că:
(i) *Avocatul că te-a sunat e amicul Mariei. (Benţea 2010, 175)
    avvocato.art che ti ha chiamato è amico.art Maria.GEN.
    'L'avvocato che ti ha chiamato è amico di Maria'.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">8 Le relative restrittive utilizzano gli stessi pronomi relativi utilizzati nelle non-restrittive. Vedi (i) e (ii):
(i)a. Omul care are trei copii e fratele meu.
    'L'uomo che ha tre figli è mio fratello'.
b. Femeia pe care mi-au prezentat(-o) ieri, nu mi-a plăcut.
    'La donna che mi hanno presentato ieri non mi è piaciuta'.
(ii)a. Ion, [căruia Maria i-a scris ieri], e fericit. (Grosu 2013, 598)
    Ion, cui.dat Maria gli ha scritto ieri, è felice.
    'Ion, a cui Maria ha scritto ieri, è felice'.
b. Fiecare student [căruia Maria i-a scris vreodată] e fericit. (Grosu 2013, 598)
    Ogni studente cui.dat Maria gli ha mai scritto è felice.
    'Ogni studente a cui Maria abbia mai scritto è felice'.</footnote>
Nelle sezioni che seguono illustro con esempi il fatto che il romeno mostra tutte e sole le proprietà fondamentali che caratterizzano la costruzione non-restrittiva della grammatica del discorso, che sono incompatibili con quella della grammatica di frase.

## 3.1 Possibilità di un pied piping più ampio di un sintagma preposizionale

La prima riguarda la possibilità di avere il pronome relativo all'interno di un costituente più ampio di un semplice sintagma preposizionale (possibile in italiano, come si evince dalla traduzione, con il paradigma art. + qual-, ma non con il pronome invariante cui della costruzione della grammatica di frase):

(22) a. D. maior E.B., graţie amabilităţii căruia opera filantropică avusese concure sul gratis,... (Caragiale, citato in Nilsson 1969, 19)

Il maggiore E.B., grazie all'amabilità del quale/*di cui le azioni filantropiche ebbero una concorrenza libera,...

b. Ii cunosc bine pe fraţii tăi, cel mai înalt dintre care e fără îndoială Ion. (Grosu 2013, 643)<fnref n="9" />

Conosco bene i tuoi fratelli, il più alto dei quali/*di cui è senza alcun dubbio Ion.

c. Am făcut de curând cunoştinţa unui mare savant, a discuta în mod serios cu care mi-ar cere cunoştinţe pe care nu le am. (Grosu 2013, 643 e seguente)

Ho fatto di recente la conoscenza di un grande studioso, per avere delle discussioni serie col quale/*con cui sarebbe necessario avere delle conoscenze che io non possiedo.

## 3.2 Independenza illocutiva

Un'altra proprietà riguarda l'indipendenza illocutiva della frase relativa non-restrittiva. Si vedano gli esempi in (23):

(23) a. Ion, pe care nu uita să-l inviţi la nuntă!, te-a căutat ieri. (Grosu 2013, §2.1)
(lett.) Ion, il quale/*che non dimenticare di invitarlo al matrimonio!, ti ha cercato ieri

b. Ion, pe care cine s-ar gândi să-l invite?,...

Ion, il quale/*che chi si sarebbe mai pensato di invitare?,...

<footnote n="9">9 Grosu contrasta questa possibilità nelle non-restrittive con la impossibilità delle corrispondenti restrittive. Si veda:</footnote>

<footnote>(i) #Ii cunosc bine pe băieţii cel mai înalt dintre care nu trece de 1.50 m. Conosco bene i ragazzi il più alto dei quali non passa il metro e mezzo.</footnote>
## 3.3 Possibilità di occorrere in frasi distinte del discorso

Un'altra proprietà riguarda la possibilità per la frase relativa non-restrittiva di occorrere in una frase distinta del discorso. Si vedano gli esempi in (24):

(24) a. Întreba pe cei dimprejur: - Joci? Care la rândul lor răspundeau într-un glas: - Se poate. (Nilsson 1969, 52)

Chiedeva a quelli attorno: – Giocate? I quali/*Che a loro volta rispondevano all'unisono: – Forse.

b. Îmi oferea premii de încurajare pentru răspândirea săpunului în Țara Românească și pe cât se poate pentru uzul batistei. La care răspundeam... (Nilsson 1969, 130)

Mi offriva premi di incoraggiamento per la promozione del sapone in Valachia e per quanto possibile per l'uso del fazzoletto. Al quale/*A cui risposi...

c. Am înțeles... Era Securitatea! Cu care nu avusesem ocazia să intru în contact direct [...] (Niculescu 2009, 63)

Ho capito... Erano i servizi segreti! Con i quali/*Con cui non avevamo avuto occasione di entrare in contatto diretto [...]

## 3.4 Possibilità di ritenere la testa interna

Un'altra proprietà della costruzione non-restrittiva della grammatica del discorso è quella di permettere la pronuncia della testa interna della frase relativa. Si vedano gli esempi seguenti:

(25) a. Guvernul a făcut o propunere cu ramificații multiple și complexe, care propuo nere fusese deja făcută de opoziție cu mulți ani în urmă. (Grosu 2005, §3.3.2.1)

Il governo ha fatto una proposta con molte e complesse ramificazioni, la quale/*che proposta era già stata fatta dall'opposizione molti anni fa.

b. Au adus covorul, care covor nu se potrivea în noul décor. (Gheorghe 2013, 490)

Hanno portato il tappeto, il quale tappeto non si addiceva al nuovo stile.

## 3.5 Possibilità di una non identità della testa esterna e della testa interna

In parte simile alla precedente proprietà è quella di ritenere la testa interna della relativa non-restrittiva senza totale identità con quella esterna. Si vedano gli esempi (26):

(26) a. Un Micul, care nume îi trădează originea vlahă,... (Nilsson 1969,12)
Un tipo soprannominato Micul, il quale nome tradisce la sua origine valacca,...
b. E posibil ca guvernul să demisioneze în curând, în care caz va urma o lungă
perioadă de incertitudine politică. (Grosu 2005, §3.3.2.1)

È possibile che il governo cada presto, nel qual caso seguirà un lungo perio-
do di incertezza politica.

3.6 Possibilità di una testa diversa da un nominale

L'antecedente di una frase non-restrittiva della grammatica del di-
scorso può anche essere non nominale, come è il caso in (27), in cui
è un'intera frase a fungere da antecedente:<fnref n="10" />

(27) a. În patruzeci și nouă de lupte crâncene nu-și pierduse niciodată sângele re-
ce, salvase situația de multe ori, drept care fusese de atâtea ori lăudat, deco-
rat, îmbrățișat. (Nilsson 1969, 48)

In quarantanove lotte crudeli lui non perse mai il suo sangue freddo, aveva salvato la situazione molte volte, per la qual cosa era stato lodato, decora- to e abbracciato.

b. Lelu le-a prezentat-o pe Geta, după care au mers în casă (Gheorghe 2004, 149)
Lelu gli presentò Geta, dopo di che/<fnref n="11" />*di cui entrarono in casa.

3.7 Possibilità di teste discontinue

Anche questa è una possibilità aperta solo alla costruzione non-re-
strittiva della grammatica del discorso. Si veda (28):

(28) ?Dacă Ion, n-o mai iubeşte pe Donka, care copii, de altfel nu s-au iubit nicio-
dată cu adevărat,... (Alexander Grosu, comunicazione personale)

Se Ion non ama più Donka, i quali ragazzi/*che (ragazzi) d'altra parte non si
erano mai amati veramente,...

3.8 Anteponibilità della relativa alla testa (frasale)

Si consideri infine la possibilità per la relativa non-restrittiva della
grammatica del discorso di essere anteposta al proprio antecedente:

<footnote n="10">10 Un'altra possibilità consiste nell'utilizzare il pronome di una relativa 'senza testa' con una testa funzionale, ceea, come in (i):</footnote>

<footnote>(i) Ion a demisionat, ceea ce m-a surprins. (Ionescu 2011, 70)
'Ion si è dimesso, cosa che mi ha sorpreso'.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11 Qui, che non è il che che relativizza soggetti e oggetti, ma una forma arcaica per la qual cosa.</footnote>
(29) Ne umplu, cu vârf, farfuriile, cu ciorbă, ne așeză frumos șervețelele și – lucru la care nu gândeam – ne întinse și câte o ceașcă dolofană cu prăștină (Nilsson 1969, 51)

Riempì i piatti di brodo, stese bene le salviette e – cosa alla quale non avevo
pensato – ci servì anche una bella tazza di acquavite.

Nessuna di queste possibilità è propria della costruzione restrittiva,
né, come visto dalle traduzioni dei precedenti esempi, che impiega-
no cui e che in italiano, della costruzione non-restrittiva della gram-
matica di frase. In italiano, le proprietà da 3.1 a 3.8 si dimostrano
possibili solo con i pronomi relativi del paradigma articolo + qual-.

Altre lingue, tra le quali le lingue con relative pre-nominali e mol-
ti dialetti dell'Italia settentrionale, presentano solo il tipo appartе-
nente alla grammatica di frase (virtualmente identico alle relative
restrittive); e non hanno il tipo appartenente alla grammatica del di-
scorso, l'unico possibile, come si è visto, in romeno standard, le cui
relative non-restrittive manifestano le proprietà tipiche delle non-re-
strittive inglesi e delle non-restrittive italiane che impiegano il para-
digma articolo + qual-.<fnref n="12" />

Il romeno letterario appare aver avuto un'altra costruzione rela-
tiva, che impiegava il pronome ce (lett. 'che cosa'), usato anche nel-
le relative 'senza testa' (eu spun ce am auzit 'Io dico ciò che ho sentii
to'; fericit de tot ce vedea 'felice per tutto quello che ho visto'). Vedi
Nilsson (1969. cap. 3), Dobrovie-Sorin (1994, §6.1.4.2), Grosu (1994,
§8.3; 2013, §3.2) and Sevcenco (2015, 333). Grosu (1994, 212 e ss.)
porta vari argomenti per analizzare il ce delle relative 'senza testa'
come pronome relativo e per analizzare il ce che introduce le relati-
ve con testa esterna come semplice subordinatore. Data la possibili-
tà, in romeno letterario di frasi non-restrittive come (30), si può ipo-
tizzare che quella lingua avesse anche la costruzione non-restrittiva
della grammatica di frase:

(30) a. Când trecurăm print-un sat, ce Hidveg îi zicea,... (Nilsson 1969, 25)

Quando passammo per un villaggio, che chiamano Hidveg,...

b. Cuconu Costache Bănescu, ce fusese numit şef de poşťă aci,... (Nilsson 1969, 57)

Maestro C.B., che era stato nominato capo dell'ufficio postale qui,...

C'è da aggiungere che il romeno colloquiale (substandard) sembra
aver rianalizzato il pronome *care* come semplice subordinatore (in-
variante) relativo, simile al *ce* del romeno letterario e al *che* italia-
no (per cui si potrebbe ipotizzare che tale varietà del romeno abbia
entrambi i tipi di frasi relative non-restrittive, cf. Grosu 1994, 212).

<footnote n="12">12 Per i riferimenti bibliografici a supporto di queste affermazioni rimando a Cinque 2008, § 6; 2020, § 3.1.4.</footnote>
Vedi anche Sevcenco (2010, 20). Questa conclusione sembra avvalora da esempi come i seguenti, dove *care* sembra semplicemente introdurre una frase relativa la cui testa interna è resa da un pronome di ripresa:

(31) a. A venit la noi un elvețian, care proiectul lui l-a interesat pe director.
(Gheorghe 2004, 279)

È venuto da noi uno svizzero, che il suo progetto l'ha interessato il direttore.

È venuto da noi uno svizzero, il cui progetto ha interessato il direttore.

b. Ion, care l-am văzut pe el ieri,...

Ion, che l'ho visto a lui ieri,...

Ion, che ho visto ieri,...

c. Mândră, mândrulița mea, care m-am iubit cu ea. (Gheorghe 2013, 490)

Cara, carina mia, che mi sono innamorato con lei.

Cara, la mia carina, che io ero innamorato di lei.

Ci sono quindi elementi per sostenere che le relative non-restrittive del romeno standard (non colloquiale) siano unicamente appartenenti alla grammatica del discorso, con le proprietà proprie di questo tipo.
## Riferimenti bibliografici

Bențea, A. (2010). "On Restrictive Relatives in Romanian: Towards a Head-Rai: sing Analysis". GG@G (Generative Grammar in Geneva), 6, 165-90. https:// www.unige.ch/lettres/linge/syntaxe/journal/Volume6/anama- ria_final.pdf.

Chomsky, N. (1957). *Syntactic Structures*. The Hague: Mouton.

Cinque, G. (1982). "On the Theory of Relative Clauses and Markedness". *The Linguistic Review*, 1, 247-94. [Ristampato in Cinque 1995, 54-103].

Cinque, G. (1988). "La frase relativa". Renzi, L. (ed.), *Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione*, vol. 1. Bologna: il Mulino, 443-503.

Cinque, G. (1995). *Italian Syntax and Universal Grammar*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cinque, G. (2008). "Two Types of Nonrestrictive Relatives". Bonami, O.; Cabreț do Hofherr, P. (eds), *Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics* 7. Paris: CNRS, 99-137. http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss7.

Cinque, G. (2020). *The Syntax of Relative Clauses. A Unified Analysis*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Citko, B. (2016). "Types of Appositive Relative Clauses in Polish". *Studies in Polish Linguistics*, 11(3), 85-110. https://www.ejournals.eu/SPL/2016/Issue-3/.

Dobrovie-Sorin, C. (1994). *The Syntax of Romanian. Comparative Studies in Roman*. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Gheorghe, M. (2004). *Propoziția relativă*. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45.

Gheorghe, M. (2013). "Relative Clauses". Pană-Dindelegan 2013, 483-97.

Grosu, A. (1994). *Three Studies in Locality and Case*. London: Routledge.

Grosu, A. (2013). "Relative Clause Constructions and Unbounded Dependencies". Dobrovie Sorin, C.; Giurgea, I. (eds), *A Reference Grammar of Romanian*. Vol. 1, *The Noun Phrase*. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 597-662. http://www.tau.ac.il/~grosua/papers/GR0_2013e.pdf.

Grosu, A.; Landman, F. (1998). "Strange Relatives of the Third Kind". *Natural Language. Semantics*, 6, 125-70.

Grosu, A. (non pubblicato). *Relative Clause Constructions and Unbounded Dependencies*. Tel Aviv: Università di Tel Aviv.

Ionescu, E. (2011). "Abstract Anaphors in Appositive Relative Clauses in Romaa nian". Hendrickx, I.; Lalitha Devi, S.; Branco, A.; Mitkov, R. (eds), *Anaphora Processing and Applications. DAARC 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science*, vol. 7099. Berlin: Springer, 70-81.

Niculescu, A. (2009). *Peregrinări universitare europene – și nu numai –*. București: Editura Logos.

Nilsson, E. (1969). *Les termes relatifs et les propositions relatives en roumain moderne*. Étude de syntaxe descriptive. Lund: Gleerup.

Pană-Dindelegan, G. (2013). *The Grammar of Romanian*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sevcenco, A. (2010). "Romanian Restrictive Relatives: A Head Raising Analysis?". *Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics*, 12(2), 17-28. https://bwpl.unibuc.ro/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BWPL_2010_nr-2_-_Sevcenco.pdf.

Sevcenco, A. (2015). "Restrictive and Appositive Relatives". Hill, V. (ed.), *Formal Approaches to DPs in Old Romanian*. Leiden: Brill, 329-64.

Williams, E. (1977). "Discourse and Logical Form". *Linguistic Inquiry*, 8, 101-39.
<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>
# A Glimpse of the Semantic Structure of the Bulgarian Preposition *na*

Snezha Tsoneva-Mathewson
Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria

**Abstract** This paper demonstrates the applicability of a cognitive lexical semantic analysis to some of the meanings of the highly polysemous Bulgarian preposition *na*. It proposes an account of the various senses of *na* as a radial (conceptual) category with a prototypical sense and various extensions referred to as lexical concepts in the Principled Polysemy Approach developed by Tyler and Evans. Similarly, it is argued that, in addition to the spatio-geometric parameters, the core spatial lexical concept of the Bulgarian *na* includes also functional information from which non-spatial meanings such as ‘active state’ derive.

**Keywords** Bulgarian preposition na. Polysemy. Radial category. Lexical concept. Spatial and non-spatial meaning.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 Problems with the Monosemous View of Meaning. – 3 Polysemy as a Conceptual Phenomenon. – 4 Conclusion.

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>

Edizioni
Ca Foscari

**Peer review**

Submitted 2024-01-24

Accepted 2024-03-04

Published 2024-04-05

**Open access**

© 2024 Tsoneva-Mathewson | 🌐 4.0

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

**Citation** Tsoneva-Mathewson, S. (2024). "A Glimpse of the Semantic Structure of the Bulgarian Preposition *na*". *Balcania et Slavia*, 3(2), [1-12] 195-206.
# 1 Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the application of a cognitive semantic analysis to the most common and highly polysematic Bulgarian preposition na.<fnref n="1" /> To do this, I have stepped on two strands of previous work. The first one is the studies of Bulgarian linguists such as Andreychin (1944), Boyadzhiev (1952) and Mincheva (1973) who accept that the primary meaning of the preposition na is spatial, i.e. locative, and the other senses have sprung from this primary sense. Mincheva writes about the use of the preposition na with the locative case in Old Bulgarian as evidence for the primary meaning of location and mentions that there are other meanings of na, which are somewhat tenuously linked to the primary one. Andreychin points out the metaphorical meaning of the preposition na in expressions such as in (1a) which refers to the emotional state of worry or anxiety and (1b) which expresses the beginning of an intellectual mental process.

(1) a. *lezhi mi na sartseto.*

It is lying heavy **on** my heart (lit).

b. *diode mi na um.*

It came **on** my mind (lit).

Boyadzhiev's fine-grained lexico-semantic classification is the most elaborate attempt to analyse the semantics of this preposition, thus providing a vast amount of linguistic data. Only within the class of the spatial (locative) relations he distinguishes ten subclasses. All in all, he identifies 38 uses of the preposition na. More recent Bulgarian researchers (Kutsarov 2007) have also pointed out the difficulties in providing a semantic classification of prepositions. However, these authors did not dwell on the various links among the multiple senses of this polysemous item and its semantic structure in terms of language cognition and representation.

The second strand is cognitive semantics work, pioneered by George Lakoff and Ronald Langacker in the 1980s and recent refinements of the theory such as Tyler and Evans' (2003) Principled Polysemy Approach and Evans' (2010) Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models (LCCM). Central is the idea that lexical polysemy is an epiphenomenon, resulting from how our conceptual categories are structured (Agustín, Falkum 2017). In other words, it is a conceptual (cognitive) phenomenon. This article examines only a small portion of Boyadzhiev's data focusing on the various image schemas that derive the prototypical spatio-geometric senses of the preposition *on*

<footnote n="1">1 This article is a revised version of "Polysemy of the Bulgarian Preposition NA" (2012) published in *Research Papers, Language and Literature*, 50(1), 152-60.</footnote>
as well as some non-spatial meanings anchored in the functional el-
ement of ‘support’ and ‘active state’ in the lexical concept.

2 Problems with the Monosemous View of Meaning

Structuralists and formal linguists (Ruhl 1989; Pustejovsky 1995) have long recognized the existence of polysemy, but as emerging from monosemy: a rather abstract/underlying semantic representation from which other senses are derived by the fill-in of context or pragmatic principles. On this account a form like the preposition *na* would possess a relatively abstract underlying representation, e.g. the relationship of two entities in space, which is filled in or disambiguated by context, thus ‘generating’ surface interpretations of the meaning of *na*. The monosemous approach can, in principle, account for the various spatial senses of a preposition. However, prepositions also exhibit nonspatial meanings. Consider the example below:

(2) *Mozhesh da razchitash na men.*
You can rely **on** me.

While the meaning of *na* in (2) might be characterized as ‘psychologi-
cal support’, it is difficult to see how a single abstract meaning as the
one mentioned above can derive all the spatial senses as well as the
non-spatial ‘psychological support’ sense illustrated in (2).

3 Polysemy as a Conceptual Phenomenon

Contrary to formal and structuralist approaches cognitive linguistics
have viewed polysemy as a central phenomenon in lexical semantics
and cognition ever since Berlin and Kay's (1969) discovery of focal
colours in colour categorization and Rosch's psychological experi-
ments (Heider 1971; 1972) with colours, shapes, organisms, and ob-
jects. Their work provided evidence for the asymmetry in the struc-
ture of cognitive categories in terms of prototypes or 'best examples'
of the category and peripheral members or 'not-so-good' examples. A
philosophical precursor of these ideas was Wittgenstein (1958) with
his 'family resemblance' network of category members. Drawing on
their insights cognitive linguistics has been able to offer principled
explanations for forms in the lexicon such as prepositions which are
notoriously difficult to analyse.

Cognitive lexical semantics assumes that lexical items (words) are
conceptual categories with a particular structure referred to as ra-
dial. A word represents a conceptual category of distinct yet relat-
ed meanings, with a central (prototypical) concept and the various
category members are related to the prototype by convention. As such, word meanings are stored in the mental lexicon (semantic memory) as highly complex, structured categories referred to as senses or lexical concepts. Radial categories are modelled in terms of a radiating lattice configuration [fig. 1]:

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1
A representation of a radial category</figcaption></figure>

From the above approach to lexical semantics it follows that polysemy is a conceptual phenomenon and it arises via the same general cognitive principles that structure non-linguistic categories. Less prototypical senses are derived from more prototypical (their position is reflected in terms of distance from the central sense) via cognitive mechanisms that facilitate meaning extension, including metaphor, metonymy, and image schema transformations. Such an approach can account for the numerous non-spatial meanings of a preposition. The idea was first demonstrated by Brugman (1988) with the analysis of the preposition 'over'.

Central to such an account is the idea that the senses associated with the preposition are grounded in our spatial experience and relate to spatio-geometric properties such as dimension, axes, or proximity. The spatial senses of *na* most probably would be judged to be the prototypical ones by native speakers. They are listed as primary senses by lexicographers and all three of the Bulgarian linguists mentioned above point out the primary spatial meaning of *na*.

If prepositions exhibit extensive polysemy, how can we identify the distinct meanings or senses? In other words, how do we establish boundaries between the senses as they are stored in semantic memory (the mental lexicon)? How are the various senses related to each other? How do the spatial relations encoded by the preposition *na* give rise to non-spatial meanings? Tyler and Evans' (2003) have suggested a methodology which addresses the above questions, and I shall partly adopt it to analyse the Bulgarian data below. As we shall see, there are very close parallels between the semantic structure of the English preposition 'on' and the Bulgarian preposition *na*. But there are also some differences.
We could argue that the prototypical spatio-geometric sense of *na* is an image schema of CONTACT. Figure 2 represents the basic image schema for *na*. As the term suggests, an image schema is not just an abstract semantic principle but should be understood as a mental picture which is more elementary than both concrete categories and abstract principles. It is a simple and basic cognitive structure which is derived from our everyday interaction with the world. It involves a schematic Trajector (TR), which is the entity to be located and thus is in focus. The TR is represented by the small circle. It is usually smaller and mobile. The other element in the configuration is the Landmark (LM) which serves as a reference point for orientation; it is usually bigger and stationary. The bold horizontal unbroken line represents the LM, which is the orientation point for locating the TR in space, in the case of *na* it is a horizontal surface [fig. 2].<fnref n="2" /> The fact that the TR touches the LM indicates that the spatial relation designated by *na* involves the relation of contact (or proximity) to the surface of a LM. The relationship between the TR and the LM also involves the downward force exerted by the TR and the relationship between the TR and the LM is oriented along the vertical axis in relation to the human canonical position. The horizontal dashed arrow illustrates the possibility of having a moving TR which usually involves concepts such as GOALS and PATHS.

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2
Central image schema for *na*</figcaption></figure>

We can argue that the above schema underlies examples like:

(3) *Knigata e na masata.*
The book is **on** the table.

However, there are two interpretations of what the central image schema of a preposition is. According to Lakoff's full specification approach the central image schema is highly schematic, lacking detail about the nature of the TR and LM. Tyler and Evans' Principled Polysemy Approach (2003), however, introduces the notion of a functional element which relates to the central sense (lexical concept) in a semantic polysemy network and such a lexical concept is called a proto-scene. This position is a radical departure from Lakoff's central image schema.

<footnote n="2">2 TR and LM are derived from Langacker's (1987) theory of Cognitive Grammar.</footnote>
We shall illustrate the idea with the preposition *na*. The central spatial lexical concept (sense unit) for the preposition *na* is directly grounded in a specific kind of recurring spatial scene which is instantiated in a sentence such as (2). This spatial scene relates the TR (book) and the LM (table) in a particular spatio-geometric configuration, which is the proto-scene. It involves the relation of CONTACT with (or proximity to) the surface of a LM but it also contains the functional information about SUPPORT. Our encyclopaedic<fnref n="3" /> knowledge of smaller objects being in contact with the surface of bigger objects tells us that the smaller object is in most cases supported by the bigger objects with larger surfaces. According to Evans this information is also part of the proto-scene. In other words, proto-scenes include a functional element, reflecting the way in which proto-scenes are ordinarily used. Language users typically employ proto-scenes in ways which draw upon the functional consequence of interacting with spatial scenes of certain kinds in humanly relevant ways. Thus, linguistic knowledge associated with proto-scenes appears to involve more than simply knowing the particular spatio-geometric properties encoded by a particular form (Evans 2010, 223). Here are two points that illustrate this idea. The elementary sentence in (3) encodes an elementary locative arrangement but even that raises questions. How do we know that the book is directly in contact with the table? Such a sentence will be felicitous even if the book is on top of another book which is lying on the table (Evans 2009). In addition, there are ‘added constraints’ which apply to prepositions. For instance, in the expression

(4) *Na more sam.*

*On sea I am* (lit).

the relation implied is more specific than 'simple' spatio-geometric relations, i.e. the relation between the TR 'I' and an area in space, the LM 'sea'. Most probably there will be the implication that we are on holiday, spending time on the beach, doing other activities that involve this particular TR and LM and generally having a good time. The point is that we rarely employ prepositions to describe simply spatio-geometric relationship. Spatio-geometric relations have functional consequences from how we interact with our physical environment in our daily lives.

Now I shall provide a short illustration of how some other spa-
tial senses of *na* can be analysed in a principled way involving the
functional parameter *Support*. To begin with, there are two other

<footnote n="3">3 ‘Encyclopaedic’ is used in the sense that Langacker (1987) uses it to refer to lin-
guistic semantics.</footnote>
prepositions in Bulgarian which designate the spatial relation of con-
tact: these are *po* and *varxu*. Yet, only *na* entails the functional con-
sequence of the TR being supported or upheld by the LM. Therefore,
in the linguistic content of *na* there is the geometric parameter Con-
tact and the functional parameter Support and they are both encod-
ed by the lexical concept ‘contact’. Evidence for this comes from the
possibility of applying the preposition *na* to situations in which the
LM is a vertical rather than a horizontal surface such as:

(5) *Kartinata e na stenata.*
The picture is **on** the wall.

(6) *Na shapkite si vsichki nisyat aleni zvezdichki.*<sup>4</sup>
*On* their hats they have small scarlet stars.

This means that the TR (picture, stars) is attached or affixed to the
LM (wall, hats) by some means (glue, hook, pin, etc.). Such an image
schema has been referred to as the rotated image schema (Navarro
i Ferrando 1999) [fig. 3].

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3**
Rotated image schema of *na*</figcaption></figure>

What is interesting is that Boyadzhiev (most probably intuitively)
suggested a separate class/sense for examples such as in (5) and (6)
within his classification of the spatial meanings of *na*. The Support
parameter here comes via 'attachment' since we need something like
a hook, or glue, etc. to hold the TR in place as the LM is not in its ca-
nonical orientation. Thus, the above examples apply when there is
physical contact between the TR and the LM and the latter has the
role of supporting the former especially in the canonical scenario
when the LM is bigger than the TR.

More evidence for the claim that the functional parameter is al-
so encoded in the lexical concept glossed ‘contact’ comes from the
possibility of having felicitous sentences in which the LM is smaller
than the TR as below:

(7) *Nenko se podpira na motikata pred kladenetsa...*
Nenko is propping himself **on** the hoe in front of the well (lit).

<footnote n="4">4 Most of the examples are from Boyadzhiev 1952</footnote>
(8) *Toi se podpira na grubo odyalana toyaga*
He is propping himself **on** a hewn stick (lit.)

What is important here is that there is both physical contact between
the TR and the LM and the latter supports the former (with the ad-
ditional help of the hand and a balancing force).

There is yet another spatial scene involving Contact in which Sup-
port is also encoded by the examples below:

(9) *prasten na prasta, kolan na krasta.*
ring **on** finger, belt **on** waist (lit).

This can be referred to as the axial image schema (Navarro i Fer-
rando 1999) although in Bulgarian it is also often instantiated by the
preposition okolo (round).

One more set of examples will suffice. Consider the relations illus-
trated in the sentences below:

(10) *Smehat na Minka beshe na ustata i.*
The laughter of Minka was **on** her mouth (lit).

(11) *Usmivka tsafne na litseto i.*
Smile flowers **on** her face (lit).

The examples in (10) and (11) illustrate a configuration in which the im-
age schema can be identified as the TR is part of the LM, more specif-
ically the TR is understood as part of the external side of something.

There is also the other possibility where a part of the TR is the
LM as in:

(12) *Hodya na 4 kraka/prasti.*
I walk **on** 4 legs/toes.

In most of the above examples the literal translations in English re-
veal very close parallels between the uses of *na* and ‘on’ in Bulgar-
ian and English.

Similarly to English (Evans 2010), in Bulgarian there are other
distinct ‘support’ lexical concepts which are non-spatial and have
derived from the Support parameter as illustrated by the following
examples:

Subsistence support

(13) *Trima dushi sa mi na ratsete.*
Three people are **on** my arms (lit).
I look after three people.
**Drug dependency**

(14) Na hapcheta li si ili na insulin?
Are you **on** pills or insulin?

**Psychological support**

(15) Mozhesh da razchitash na men.
You can rely **on** me.

**Rational/epistemic support**

(16) Na kakvo osnovanie?
**On** what ground?

In addition, there seems to be yet another 'abstract' meaning of the preposition *na*, the so called 'active state' lexical concept (Evans 2010). It does not derive directly from the Support parameter but from another functional category which can be called 'functionality' or 'activity'. In many spatial scenes when the TR comes in contact with a particular surface, or is in its proximity, the TR becomes functional. Such a possible scenario might be a lightning coming in contact with an object and setting light to it or any physical transmission of energy from objects coming in contact. Subsequently, functionality can involve a range of activities associated with the point of space which the TR is at. As pointed out previously, the expression *na more* (lit. 'on sea') licenses the interpretation that, when one is at the seaside, they are involved in activities such as lying on the beach, swimming in the sea, partying, etc. Here are some more examples from Boyadzhiev's classification:

(17) a. na rabota
**on** work (lit)/ at work.
b. na pat.
**on** road (on the road in the sense of travelling).
c. na svoboda.
**on** liberty (lit)/ at liberty.
d. na strazha.
**on** watch.
e. na sabranie.
**on** meeting (lit).

Apparently, the 'active state' lexical concept associated with *na* relates to adjectives or nouns of action which involve a particular state which can be construed as 'active'. Such states seem to hold for a prescribed or limited period. In English such states are more often conceptualized by the preposition 'at', which is the most general expression of localisation in space in English, marking that a TR is relative to a proximal point in space. Boyadzhiev (1952, 100) described
these uses of *na* as referring to “activity, position, state or conditions” as well as “occupation, or participation at a particular place”.

4 Conclusion

Although Boyadzhiev claims that his classification of the uses of the preposition *na* is syntactic as he looks at the preposition *na* as a Prepositional Phrase (PP) in a sentential context thus involving the Verb Phrase (VP), at several points it overlaps with a possible cognitive semantic analysis which shows that the cognitive linguistic approach addresses the intuitions of serious traditional linguists. As far as the theory goes, Evans (2010), with his latest refinement of the Principled Polysemy Approach, has managed to show that we do not always need conceptual metaphors to explain abstract, i.e. non-spatial senses of prepositions or account for the variety of spatial senses of a polysemous form. The idea of the proto-scene, which in addition to the prototypical spatio-geometric configuration contains functional elements which are consequences of this particular configuration, allows a principled account of the numerous senses of the highly polysemous preposition *na*. Thus, the spatio-geometric relation CONTACT of the TR with (or proximity to) the surface of a LM also contains the functional information about SUPPORT. They can both account for spatial senses of *na*, in which the preposition licenses various configurations between the TR and LM, which differ from the canonical one, i.e. the TR is smaller than the LM and the LM is horizontal. The functional element of SUPPORT sanctions configurations in which the LM is vertical as in (6), the TR is smaller as in (7) and (8), the TR is part of the LM as in (10) and (11), a part of the TR is the LM as in (12). The non-spatial senses of *na* listed above, such as Subsistence support, Drug dependency, Psychological support, and Rational/Epistemic support can also be accounted for as deriving from the Support parameter as illustrated by the examples in (13), (14), (15) and (16). Finally, an abstract sense such as ‘active state’ can derive from a functional element in the lexical concepts. In the case of *na* it goes back to the central spatio-geometric sense of CONTACT which entails a functional element. In this way all of the senses of the preposition *na* presented above have received a principled account.
Bibliography

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<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>
# The Diachrony of Subjunctive-Infinitive Competition in Balkan Slavic Typological vs. Sprachbund Phenomena

Tomislav Sočanac

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

**Abstract** The paper analyses the phenomenon of infinitive loss in Balkan Slavic in the context of the broader cross-linguistic process of subjunctive-infinitive competition (SIC). I adopt a diachronic perspective, analysing the historical developments pertaining to SIC in languages ranging from Old Church Slavonic to present-day Bulgarian and Serbian. The main goal of the paper is to distinguish between those instances of Balkan-Slavic infinitive loss that are a result of broader typological processes and those that can be viewed as genuine Balkan-sprachbund innovations. The specific Balkan innovation in this context was the replacement of infinitives by finite subjunctives in obligatory subject-control environments. I analyse this diachronic development as the result of a formal reanalysis affecting the syntactic status of the Balkan-Slavic subjunctive marker, which allowed it to spread to obligatory-control structures.

**Keywords** Infinitive. Subjunctive. Balkans sprachbund. Old Church Slavonic. Bulgarian. Serbian.

**Summary** 1. Introduction. – 2. SIC from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective. – 3. SIC in Balkan Slavic: Infinitive loss. – 4. Inf>Subj Replacement in Balkan Slavic: Formal Analysis. – 5. Conclusion and broader implications.

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /></figure>

Edizioni
Ca' Foscari

**Peer review**

Submitted 2024-02-12

Accepted 2024-03-04

Published 2024-04-18

**Open access**

© 2023 Sočanac | ⚙️ 4.0

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /></figure>

**Citation** Sočanac, T. (2024). "The Diachrony Of Subjunctive-Infinitive Competition in Balkan Slavic: Typological vs. Sprachbund phenomena". *Balcania et Slavia*, 3(2), 207-228.
# 1 Introduction

One of the main issues in the study of Balkan languages has been to distinguish between those grammatical phenomena that can be considered as areal innovations in the context of Balkan sprachbund and those that are the result of broader cross-linguistic typological processes. This question has been extensively debated in the Balkan literature in relation to different Balkanisms observed across various languages of the region.<fnref n="1" /> The present paper contributes to this broader debate in relation to the phenomenon of infinitive loss.<fnref n="2" /> As exemplified below, languages within the Balkan-sprachbund area largely replaced their infinitives with finite subjunctive-type complements introduced under a separate mood marker (marked in bold in the examples below).<fnref n="3" />

(1) a. Thelo **na** kerdisi o Janis. (Greek)
want<sub>1.SG</sub> **SUBJ** win<sub>3.SG</sub> the J.
'I want Janis to win.'
(Giannakidou 2009, 1886-7)

b. Maria vrea **sa** plece Ion. (Romanian)
M. want<sub>3.SG</sub> **SUBJ** leave<sub>3.SG</sub> I.
'Maria wants Ion to leave.'

c. Iskam tja **da** dojde. (Bulgarian)
want<sub>1.SG</sub> she **SUBJ** come<sub>3.SG</sub>
'I want her to come.'

d. Želim **da** dode. (BCMS)
want<sub>1.SG</sub> **SUBJ** come<sub>3.SG</sub>
'I want him/her to come.'

<footnote n="1">1 See Friedman, Joseph 2024 for a detailed discussion of Balkan sprachbund features as well as an extensive overview of the previous literature on the subject.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 See Joseph 1983 for a detailed synchronic and diachronic account of Balkan infinitive loss.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Balkan subjunctive is realized differently than subjunctive complements in most other languages, such as those belonging to the Western Romance group, like French or Italian. While the latter realize their subjunctive via distinctive verbal morphology, Balkan languages mark their subjunctive through separate syntactic items (such as those given in [1]), which are typically analysed as mood particles. The issue of Balkan subjunctive realization, which is beyond the scope of the present paper, has been extensively dealt with in the Balkan literature (Terzi 1992; Krapova 2001; Giannakidou 2009; Roussou 2009).</footnote>
The infinitive loss in the Balkans will be analysed in relation to the broader phenomenon of subjunctive-infinitive competition (SIC), which has been long observed on a cross-linguistic basis (Bouchard 1984; Hock 1988; Farkas 1992). The goal of this paper is to distinguish between those instances of Balkan infinitive loss that are a result of broader typological processes and those that can be viewed as genuine sprachbund innovations.

The paper will focus on Balkan Slavic languages such as Bulgarian (Bg), Macedonian (Mk) and BCMS.<fnref n="4" /> I will use the label Serbian (Sr) instead of BCMS here, as Sr has been more affected by the phenomenon of infinitive (Inf) loss than other varieties of BCMS (Sočanac 2011, 2017). The analysis I develop takes into account the SIC-related diachronic developments from Old Church Slavonic (OCS) to the present-day Balkan-Slavic languages. We will see that these developments were affected both by broader typological language processes, as well as by some more specific constraints related to Balkan-sprachbund.

Section 2 will outline the cross-linguistic situation pertaining to SIC, focusing in particular on (non-Balkan) Romance and Slavic languages in this context. First I will present the synchronic manifestations of SIC and the present-day distributions of Subj and Inf in these languages, and then I will briefly expound on the diachronic developments that led to the present-day situation. Section 3 will provide a synchronic and diachronic overview of the Balkan-Slavic developments pertaining to SIC. Section 4 will address the central question of this paper, i.e. distinguishing between the more specific sprachs bund-related phenomena and the broader typological phenomena that led to the present-day SIC patterns in Balkan Slavic languag es. I will argue that only those instances of infinitive loss that took place in obligatory-control environments can be considered as a gen uine Balkan-sprachbund innovation, resulting from a specific formal development that took place in Balkan Slavic languages (and possi bly other Balkan languages, too). The formal development in ques tion was a syntactic reanalysis of the mood marker *da* from a higher subordinator to a lower particle, which allowed it to spread to oblig atory-control structures with an impoverished left periphery. In ad dition to shedding more light on the Balkan situation pertaining to SIC, the analysis presented here also provides more general insights

<footnote n="4">4 Note that BCMS is not typically viewed as a Balkan-Slavic language per se, given that it does not exhibit as many features of Balkan sprachbund as some other Slavic lan- guages of the Balkan region, such as Bulgarian and Macedonian (Joseph 1983; Fried- man, Joseph 2024). Nevertheless, Serbian will be grouped here alongside other Balkan Slavic languages because it has also been affected by the infinitive loss phenomenon (although not to the same extent as languages like Bulgarian or Macedonian, as will be explained in more detail in § 3).</footnote>
into some broader processes and principles of grammaticalization
and language change. Section 5 concludes the paper and outlines
some avenues for future research.

2 SIC from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Here I will briefly outline the present-day manifestations of SIC in Romance and Slavic languages that are situated outside of the Balkans (i.e. Western Romance, Western and Eastern Slavic),<fnref n="5" /> as well as some of the broader diachronic processes that led to the present-day situation.

2.1 Synchrony

Subj and Inf distribution in present-day Romance and Slavic lan-
guages has largely stabilized in complementation environments of
the type exemplified in (2-3). Inf is used in cases where the subjects
of the main clause and the embedded clause are the same (subject
control), while Subj appears in cases where the subjects are differ-
ent (subject obviation), as illustrated in the French and Russian ex-
amples below.<fnref n="6" />

(2) a. Je veux {venir/ *que je vienne}. (Fr)
I want<sub>1.SG</sub> come<sub>INF</sub> that I come<sub>1.SG.SUBJ</sub>
'I want to come.'

b. Je veux {que tu viennes/ *tu venir}. I want<sub>1.SG</sub> that you come<sub>2.SG.SUBJ</sub> you come<sub>INF</sub> 'I want you to come.'

(3) a. Ja choču {prijti / *čtoby ja prišel}. (Rus)
I want<sub>1.SG</sub> come<sub>INF</sub> that<sub>SUBJ</sub> I come

<footnote n="5">5 For ease of exposition, whenever Romance and Slavic are mentioned from here onwards (without any additional regional qualifier), I will be referring to the non-Balkan variants of these languages.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6 Note that Slavic languages in general (both Balkan and non-Balkan) differ from Romance in that they do not realize their Subj mood on the verb but via separate left-periphery items (in this case the Russian čtoby). Once again, the issue of Subj realization will not be addressed in this paper, but see Antonenko 2008; Tomaszewicz 2012 or Sočanac 2017, among others, for more on the morpho-syntactic properties of Subj across different Slavic languages.</footnote>
b. *Ja choču* {čtoby ty *prišel/* *ty prijti*}.
I want *t̂o SG* that *t̂o SUBJ* you come you come *t̂o INF*

While Inf vs Subj distributions stabilized in complements to pred-
icates such as volitionals, as in (2-3), other types of syntactic con-
texts may still allow for a degree of variability in the use of these
two grammatical categories. Thus, for instance, adjunct clauses (typ-
ically purposives or resultatives), such as the one in the French (Fr)
example in (4), can alternate between Inf and Subj more freely. The
same goes for directive object-control clauses in certain languages,
such as Spanish (Sp) in (5).

(4) *Je me suis depeché {pour pouvoir te}
I *REFL* be-LSG hurry-PAST,PTCP in-order-to-
rejoindre/ pour que je puisse} te
join-INF so that I can-LSG,SUBJ you,ACC
' I hurried up in order to join you/so that I can join you.'

*be-able-INF you,ACC
rejoindre.
join,INF

(5) *Te dijo { de venir/ que vengas}.*
*you_DAT tell 3.SG,PST PART come,INF that come 2.SG,SUBJ*
'He told you to come.'

Taking all the data in (2-5) into consideration, we can conclude that, for the types of complements we have in (2-3) (i.e. subject-control vs. obviation), the period of grammatical competition between Inf and Subj has essentially ended and the distributional patterns illustrated in (2-3) have largely stabilized throughout (non-Balkan) Romance and Slavic languages. As for the syntactic environments exemplified in (4-5), we can see that SIC is still underway in this context at least in certain languages.

2.2 Diachrony

The diachronic developments pertaining to SIC in Romance and Slav-
ic languages can be viewed as part of a broader shift from paratactic
to hypotactic structures, which led to the development of embedded
structures of increasing syntactic complexity and articulation (Givón
1979; Harris, Campbell 1985; Karlsson 2009). In this sense, Inf repre-
sents an intermediate stage in the diachronic development of certain
types of syntactic constructions found across various Indo-European
(IE) languages. Inf itself was derived from deverbal nouns which be-
came fixed in certain case forms (typically dative) in earlier IE var-
iants (Meillet 1934; Jeffers 1975; Disterheft 1980). The resulting Inf
construction was widely distributed across a range of different syntactic contexts (both control and non-control) in languages like Latin or OCS (i.e. the historical antecedents of modern Romance and Balkan Slavic) (József 1963; MacRobert 1980; Joseph 1983). Inf then progressively gave way to finite complements (most prominently Subj) in a certain number of these syntactic contexts during the diachronic evolution of present-day Romance and Slavic languages.

The cross-linguistic shift from Inf to Subj (referred to here as ‘Inf>Subj replacement’) has been most pervasive in non-control environments where the subjects of the matrix and the embedded clauses are different. For instance, if we look at complements to volitional verbs in this context, we can note that Latin used Inf more extensively than the present-day Romance languages in this type of syntactic environment.

(6) Volo (te) venire. (Lat)
want<sub>1.SG</sub> you<sub>ACC</sub> come<sub>INF</sub>
'I want (you) to come.' (Joseph 1983, 150)

(7) a. Je veux que {tu viennes/ *tu venir}. (Fr)
I want<sub>1.SG</sub> that you come<sub>2.SG.SUBJ</sub> you come<sub>INF</sub>

b. Quiero que {tu vengas/ *tu venir}. (Sp)
want<sub>1.SG</sub> that you come<sub>2.SG.SUBJ</sub> you come<sub>INF</sub>

As we can see in (6), Latin used the so-called *accusativus-cum-in-finitivo* construction in the non-control variants of complements to volitional verbs, where the subject of the embedded Inf clause appeared in the matrix object position and was marked for accusative case (similarly as in the equivalent ECM-type constructions used in present-day English). On the other hand, modern Romance languages like Fr and Sp can only employ Subj in these types of clauses, as shown in (7). This is just one instance of the broader Inf>Subj replacement observed across a range of different (primarily non-control) syntactic contexts during the historical evolution of Romance languages. A similar diachronic development affected Slavic as well, given that Inf had a wider distribution in OCS than in present-day Slavic languages (Joseph 1983; Madariaga 2015). This tells us, therefore, that the replacement of Inf by Subj in the context of SIC is not a specifically Balkan phenomenon. Nevertheless, as we will observe in the next section, Balkan languages did undergo some specific diachronic developments in this context.
3 SIC in Balkan Slavic: Infinitive loss

3.1 Synchrony

As briefly mentioned before (see fn. 4), Slavic languages of the Balkan
region differ in the extent to which they exhibit linguistic features
typical of Balkan sprachbund. Certain languages, like Bg or Mk, fea-
ture a greater amount of Balkanisms than a language like Sr, and in
this sense they are considered as more ‘core’ Balkan Slavic languag-
es (Mišeska Tomić 2006; Friedman, Joseph 2024). The same situation
obtains when it comes to SIC as well: core Balkan Slavic languages
have all but completely lost Inf across all syntactic contexts. Thus,
even with subject-control verbs like *trjabva* (must) or *počna* (begin)
(i.e. the canonical environments of Inf use cross-linguistically), lan-
guages like Bg or Mk introduce Subj *da*-complements instead of Inf.<fnref n="7" />

(8) a. Ivan trjabva da dojde. (Bg)
I. must<sub>.3.SG</sub> SUBJ come<sub>.3.SG</sub>
‘Ivan must come.’

b. Toi počna da studira pravo. (Mk)
he begin<sub>.3.SG.AOR</sub> SUBJ study<sub>.3.SG</sub> law
‘He began to study law.’

Sr, on the other hand, being a less ‘Balkanized’ language than Bg
or Mk, exhibits a different distributional pattern in relation to SIC.
Sr Inf was lost in most syntactic environments that do not involve
subject control (e.g. directive object-control complements or adjunct

<footnote n="7">7 As noted by an anonymous reviewer, a verb like *trjabva* (must) can appear in several different guises, including as an impersonal verb (in which case it does not involve subject control). In Sočanac 2017, I argued that this verb corresponds to (at least) two separate homophonous lexical entries, only one of which brings about obligatory subject control. There are several arguments that can be put forward in favor of this view: (i) the two instances of the verb differ semantically, because the control variant of *trjabva* can only denote deontic modality, while the non-control variant is compatible with episodic readings as well; (ii) the control variant of the verb selects temporally anaphoric complements only compatible with (semantically vacuous) present tense, whereas the non-control variant selects a complement with more independent tense; (iii) control variants exhibit matrix-embedded locality phenomena with respect to their complements that are characteristic of mono-clausal structures, whereas the non-control variants behave like biclausal structures. The verb featured in (8a) exhibits all the properties of the control variant of *trjabva*, thus it is classed here as a subject-control verb. A similar contrast obtains with respect to the verb ‘want’ as well: the control variant of the verb exhibits mono-clausal properties in relation to its complement, whereas the non-control variant exhibits biclausal properties (including, most obviously, two separate subjects).</footnote>
clauses in [9]), but it can still be used (interchangeably with Subj) in
obligatory subject-control structures (10).

(9) a. Rekao mu je {da dođe / *doći}.
tell<sub>PAST.PTCP</sub> he<sub>DAT</sub> be<sub>.3.SG</sub> subj come<sub>.3.SG</sub> come<sub>INF</sub>'He told him to come.'

b. Požurio je {da stigne / *stići} na vrijeme.
hurry<sub>PAST.PTCP</sub> be<sub>.3.SG</sub> subj arrive<sub>.3.SG</sub> arrive<sub>INF</sub> on time
'He hurried to arrive on time.'

(10) a. Mora { da požuri / požuriti}.
must<sub>.3.SG</sub> subj hurry<sub>.3.SG</sub> hurry<sub>INF</sub>'He must hurry.'

b. Počeo je { da uči / učiti}.
begin<sub>PAST.PTCP</sub> be<sub>.3.SG</sub> subj study<sub>.3.SG</sub> study<sub>INF</sub>'He began to study.'

In Section 4, I will formally account for the SIC-related contrasts be-
tween Balkan Slavic languages observed in (8-10).

3.2 Diachrony

If we look at some of the oldest available textual data from OCS (the
earliest historical antecedent of modern-day Balkan-Slavic languag-
es for which we have written evidence), Inf still predominates across
most of the syntactic contexts we looked at so far, i.e. adjunct claus-
es (11a), object-control complements (11b), as well as subject-control
complements (11c).

(11) a. isplъnišę oba korablja jako pogrōžati sę ima.
fill<sub>.3.PL.AOR</sub> both boats so-that sink<sub>INF</sub> refl have<sub>.3.SG</sub>'They filled both boats so that they would sink.'

b. njestь namъ ubiti.
NEG.<sub>be</sub><sub>.3.SG</sub> we.<sub>DAT</sub> kill.<sub>INF</sub>'We are not to kill/ought not kill.'
(Cod.Supr., cit. in Lunt 2001, 159)
<table><tr><td>c.</td><td>onb</td><td>že</td><td>hotę</td><td>opravbditi</td><td>sę...</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>he</td><td>PART</td><td>want<sub>3.SG</sub></td><td>justify<sub>INF</sub></td><td>REFL</td></tr><tr><td></td><td colspan="5">'he, wanting to justify himself...'</td></tr><tr><td></td><td colspan="5">(Cod.Zogr., cit. in Joseph 1983, 102)</td></tr></table>

Nevertheless, we begin to observe a degree of SIC and Inf>Subj replacement already in some of the earliest OCS manuscripts (e.g. *Codex Zographensis*, *Codex Suprasliensis*, *Vita Constantini* etc.). It is difficult to track the exact diachronic trajectory of this development at this early historical stage (given the paucity of textual evidence), but we can roughly determine in which syntactic contexts SIC first began to emerge. While Inf still predominated to the exclusion of Subj in subject-control complements such as the one in (11c), clauses of the type exemplified in (11a-b) (i.e. adjuncts and object-control complements) began to exhibit SIC already in some of the earliest OCS sources (Mirčev 1978; MacRoberts 1980; Joseph 1983). Examples given below in (12-13) are particularly illuminating in this context, because they show Inf and Subj competing for clauses that are syntactically identical.

(12) a. *isplbnišę* sę dbnbe roditi ej
fill<sub>3.PL.AOR</sub> REFL days give-birth<sub>INF</sub> she<sub>DAT</sub>
(Cod.Zogr.)

b. *isplbnišę* sę dbnije da roditb
give-birth<sub>3.SG</sub>
fill<sub>3.PL.AOR</sub> REFL days SUBJ
'the days arrived for her to give birth'
(Cod.Supr., cit. in Mirčev 1978, 233)

(13) *Moljaaxo* i da ne povělitb imb vb bezdbnọ iti.
beg<sub>3.PL.IMP</sub> he<sub>DAT</sub> SUBJ NEG tell<sub>3.SG</sub> they<sub>DAT</sub> in abyss go<sub>INF</sub>
'They begged him not to tell them to go into the abyss.'
(Lunt 2001, 161)

In the example (12), we have an instance where different manuscripts employ Inf vs Subj within the exact same clause, with Codex Zographensis using Inf (12a) and Codex Suprasliensis using Subj (12b) to render the clause-final adjunct.<fnref n="8" /> In (13), on the other hand, we have

<footnote n="8">8 Given that Zographensis was composed at an earlier date (late nineth-early tenth century) than Suprasliensis (tenth century), it is not surprising that the former exhibits a more conservative pattern of Inf use in this context than the latter, as already noted in Cinque, Krapova 2019.</footnote>
both Inf and Subj appearing within the same complex clause, each
embedded under a directive predicate taking an overt object control-
ler.<fnref n="9" /> The fact that Inf and Subj were used interchangeably in contexts
such as those in (12-13) already in the earliest OCS sources strong-
ly suggests that these were some of the first environments of SIC in
this language. This is further confirmed by the fact that clauses such
as those in (12-13) completely lost the Inf option by the time when the
latter was still available in subject-control complements, such as the
one in (11c) (MacRobert 1980; Joseph 1983).

Nevertheless, these instances of Inf loss cannot be seen as Bal-
kan-specific sprachbund innovations, because they can be couched
within the broader diachronic move towards more articulated hypo-
tactic structures discussed in § 2. The more specific Balkan-sprach-
bund development in this context is Inf loss in subject-control envi-
ronments. As we saw earlier in (2-3), non-Balkan Romance and Slavic
languages exclusively use Inf in this context. This was also the case
in OCS (according to the best available textual evidence from the
time), where Inf still largely predominated in complements to sub-
ject-control verbs such as those in (14):

(14) a. možaaše bo si xrisma prodana byti.
      can_3.SG.IMPF for this ointment sell_ PAST.PTCP be_Inf
      ‘For this ointment could have been sold.’
      (Cod.Zogr., cit. in Joseph 1983, 103)

b. čbto mi xoštete dati?
what l_DAT want_2.PL give_Inf
‘What do you want to give me?’

c. čbto to mogot dati?
what you_DAT can_3.PL give_Inf
‘What can they give you?’

(Cod.Supr., cit. in Cinque, Krapova 2019, 28-9)

Balkan-Slavic languages like Bg or Mk then first underwent a period
of competition between Inf and Subj, where we could observe both of
these constructions used in control complements of the type exempli-
fied in (14).<fnref n="10" /> This is apparent in some of the later medieval sources

<footnote n="9">9 The clause in (13) appears in this same form across various different OCS codices.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10 It is difficult to precisely track the historical stages of Inf loss in languages under study due to paucity of data and the type of language used in the primary sources we rely on, which was more formal and conservative than the spoken language of the time (given that the main available sources from OCS are religious or legal texts). This likely meant that Inf was overrepresented in those primary sources, given that it</footnote>
such as the Tale of Troy (dating from the fourteenth century) or Wal-
lachian letters (fifteenth-sixteenth century), where Subj began to ap-
pear in subject-control environments as well, as in the example below.

(15) i xotěxọ da pogubitb Acileeša
and wanted. 3.SG.AOR SUBJ kill. 3.SG Achilles. ACC
‘and he wanted to kill Achilles’
(Tale of Troy, cit. in MacRobert 1980, 162)

Inf was all but lost in Bg and Mk by the end of the Early-Modern pe-
riod, which is why control complements such as the ones above on-
ly feature Subj in the present-day variants of these languages, as we
already observed in § 3.1. Sr, on the other hand, still exhibits SIC in
control complements of this type, as shown earlier in (10). These dif-
ferent SIC-related patterns in Balkan Slavic will be formally account-
ed for in the next section.

4 Inf>Subj Replacement in Balkan Slavic:
Formal Analysis

The main goal of this section will be to provide a formal analysis that broadly accounts for the historical and synchronic patterns related to SIC that we observed in Balkan Slavic languages. I will claim that the phenomenon of Inf>Subj replacement in these languages was related to an underlying formal development which affected the syntactic status of the Balkan-Slavic Subj marker *da*. As we will see in more detail in 4.1, *da* was reanalysed and re-merged from a higher to a lower syntactic position within the clause structure. This, in turn, allowed the Subj marker to spread to obligatory-control environments as well, which are analysed here as small structures lacking a higher CP clausal layer.

4.1 Subj Marker *da* from a Historical Perspective

Another relevant synchronic property of the subjunctive marker *da*
(and its equivalents in other, non-Slavic Balkan languages) is the fact
that it has to be contiguous to the embedded verb (Krapova 2001;
Roussou 2009; Cotfas 2011).<fnref n="11" />

constitutes a more conservative linguistic form than Subj in most contexts of its use. Nevertheless, when we take a broader historical view spanning several centuries, we can clearly observe the main tendencies related to SIC and Inf loss in Balkan Slavic.

<footnote n="11">11 Only ‘light’ syntactic items such as clitics or negation can intervene between *da* and the embedded verb in this context, since they do not violate their syntactic locality.</footnote>
(16) a. *Iskam* (*Ivan*) *da* (*Ivan*) *dojde* (*Ivan*). (Bg)
want<sub>1,SG</sub> I. SUBJ I. come<sub>3,SG</sub> I.
'I want Ivan to come.'

b. *Thelo* (*o Janis*) *na* (*o Janis*) *kerdisi* (*o Janis*). (Gr)
want<sub>1,SG</sub> the J. SUBJ the J. win<sub>3,SG</sub> the J.
'I want Janis to win.'

As we can see in (16), constituents such as the embedded subject can either be realized pre-verbally at the beginning of the embedded clause (in which case the subject has a more focalized interpretation), or post-verbally, but it never intervenes between the Subj marker and the embedded verb. As a result, Balkan Subj markers have typically been analysed in the literature not as complementizers inserted under a high C head but as particles merged lower down in the structure (Terzi 1992; Giannakidou 2009; Cinque, Krapova 2019).

The standard analysis in the Balkan literature tends to put the Subj marker under the dedicated mood/modality head (labelled here as Mod), couched between TP and CP.

(17) [CP C [ModP Mod<sub>da</sub> [TP T [vP]]]]

I claim that the *da*-item is situated even lower than in the structure in (17), under a polarity head couched between TP and vP:

(18) [CP C [TP T [PolP Pol<sub>da</sub> [vP]]]]

There are several reasons why I adopt the analysis in (18) as opposed to the more standard one in (17). Firstly, Subj markers such as those featured in (16) (e.g. Slavic *da*, Greek *na*) have been shown to exhibit some polarity-sensitive properties. For instance, they can license certain NPIs that cannot appear in other types of embedded clauses.<sup>12</sup> Another argument in favour of treating *da* as a polarity (as opposed to a modal) head has to do with the distribution of this item. In particular, certain complements where *da* appears do not denote any modality on a semantic level, such as those selected by phasal aspectual verbs (e.g. *počna* 'begin' in [8b], for instance). It is therefore unlikely that this item is inherently endowed with modal properties, which presents a problem for the analysis in (17) but is unproblematic given the analysis in (18). Finally, the formal approach to the item *da* proposed here is also better able to account for the syntactic

<footnote n="12">12 See Giannakidou 1998; 2009 or Progovac 1993, among others, for more on the interaction between Balkan Subj markers and polarity.</footnote>
contiguity between *da* and the verb observed in (16), given that the Pol head in (18) is lower, and closer to V, than the Mod head in (17).

The only exception among present-day Balkan Slavic languages when it comes to the syntactic contiguity between the Subj marker *da* and the embedded verb is, once again, Sr. This language allows for syntactic material to intervene between *da* and the verb, but only in non-control (19a), not in control environments (19b).

(19) a. želim da Ivan dode.
want<sub>1.SG</sub> SUBJ I. come<sub>3.SG</sub>
'I want Ivan to come.'

b. *Mora da Ivan dode.
must<sub>3.SG</sub> SUBJ I. come<sub>3.SG</sub>
'Ivan must come.'

Core Balkan Slavic languages like Bg or Mk also allowed the syntactic configuration of the type exemplified in (19a) during some of the earlier stages of their diachronic development. This is evidenced by the fact that OCS sources regularly feature clauses such as those in (20), where different types of syntactic constituents can intervene between the Subj marker *da* and the embedded verb.

(20) a. priněsę. děti da rócě vbzložitb na nję
bring<sub>3.PL.AOR</sub> children SUBJ hands put<sub>3.SG</sub> on them
'They brought children so that he may put his hands on them.'

b. něsmb bo dostoinb da podb krovb moj vbnideši.
NEG<sub>1.SG</sub> for worthy SUBJ under roof my enter<sub>2.SG</sub>
'I am not worthy for you to enter under my roof.'
(Lunt 2001, 161)

As we can see in (20b) in particular, *da* in OCS preceded even left-extracted focalized constituents that occupy very high structural positions within the left periphery of the clause. It thus makes sense to argue that *da* in OCS occupied the highest C-position selected by the matrix predicate.<sup>13</sup>

<footnote n="13">13 In response to a question from an anonymous reviewer, the ‘high C position’ in this context refers to the syntactic head within the left periphery where *da* used to be merged, which likely corresponds to Force from Rizzi 1997. Given that the paper does</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>

Over time, then, this item got reanalysed, shifting its status from a higher complementizer to a lower particle and switching its locus of merger from the high C to a lower Pol(arity) head, as in (22) below.

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

One of the direct consequences of the reanalysis in (22) was the greater contiguity between *da* and the embedded verb, explaining the Balkan-Slavic data in (17).

The difference between Sr, on the one hand, and Bg and Mk, on the other, in this context is the fact that Sr still features both the high *da* and the low *da* in its grammar, using the former in non-control (19a) and the latter in obligatory-control environments (19b).¹⁴ As for Bg and Mk, their grammar no longer features the high *da* variant in

not employ a cartographic approach of the type developed by Rizzi, I will not further pursue this line of enquiry here.

14 In fact, Sr contains two separate homophonous *da*-items, each inserted under its own syntactic head within the structure, which is best observed in clauses such as the one below.

(i) *Kaže da će da dode.*

say<sub>3.SG</sub> that<sub>COMP</sub> fut subj come<sub>3.SG</sub>

‘He says that he will come.’
(22), which is why the Subj marker is always adjacent to the embed-
ded verb in these languages, regardless of the type of syntactic en-
vironment it appears in. In the next section, I explain how the rea-
nalysis in (22) also brought about the broader Inf>Subj replacement
observed in Balkan Slavic.

4.2 Inf>Subj replacement in obligatory control environments

As already noted in Section 3, the diachronic development pertain-
ing to SIC which can be viewed as a specific Balkan-sprachbund in-
novation is the one where Subj replaced Inf in subject-control com-
plements and obligatory control structures in general. There are two
main arguments in favour of this view: from a distributional perspec-
tive, Subj use in such contexts is largely restricted to Balkan languag-
es, while non-Balkan languages typically feature Inf there;¹⁵ from a
diachronic perspective, the earlier historical variants of the present-
day Balkan languages (e.g. OCS or Ancient Greek) featured Inf, not
Subj in these types of environments (Joseph 1983). This all points to
the conclusion that Inf>Subj replacement in obligatory-control struc-
tures is a specific Balkan-sprachbund innovation.

I will argue that Inf>Subj replacement in Balkan Slavic was en-
abled by the diachronic reanalysis of *da* outlined in (22). I adopt
an approach that views subject-control infinitivals (as well as oth-
er obligatory control constructions) as anaphoric structures lack-
ing an embedded CP projection. This type of syntactic approach
to obligatory-control structures is not new to this paper but has
been widely proposed in the existing literature (see Kempchinsky
1986: Watanabe 1992; Wurmbrand 2013, among others). This ex-
plains, for instance, why obligatory-control complements tend to
exhibit single-event readings, as shown below in the example of
Balkan Slavic.

The clause in (i) features two distinct *da* items merged within the same embedded struc-
ture: the higher *da* appears in the C-head selected by the matrix predicate, while the
lower *da* (which is used to introduce the future-tense construction in [i]) appears un-
der the Pol-head in (22). The higher *da* was used in (19a), hence the lack of contiguity
between the Subj marker and the embedded verb, whereas (19b) featured the lower *da*,
which is thus syntactically contiguous to the verb. The issue of the two *da*-items in Sr
was treated at length in Todorović 2012 and Sočanac 2017, among others.

15 A Balkan-like complementation pattern was also noted in this context in some South-Italian varieties, such as Calabrian or Salentino, which also use finite Subj-type complements in control environments (Calabrese 1993; Ledgeway 1998; Lombardi 1997). In fact, some have argued that these South-Italian varieties may have themselves been affected by Balkan-sprachbund phenomena, due to the long-standing contacts with Greek in the region. I do not further pursue this question here.
(23) a. *Trjabvaše da dojda utre. (Bg)
must<sub>1.SG,IMPF</sub> SUBJ come<sub>1.SG</sub> tomorrow

b. *Počeo je da uči sutra. (Sr)
begin<sub>PAST,PTCP</sub> be<sub>3.SG</sub> SUBJ study<sub>3.SG</sub> tomorrow

c. *Počeo je učiti sutra.
begin<sub>PAST,PTCP</sub> be<sub>3.SG</sub> study<sub>INF</sub> tomorrow

In (23), we can see that neither control Subj (23a-b), nor control Inf complements (23c) can feature conflicting tense marking in the matrix and the embedded clause (past vs. future in this case), which is indicative of their single-event semantic status. In this sense, clauses in (23) pattern with simple mono-clausal structures, which are also incompatible with such conflicting tense marking. From a syntactic standpoint, complements such as those in (23) were shown to exhibit matrix-embedded locality phenomena in relation to operations such as NPI binding, pronoun vs anaphor binding or clitic climbing, among others (Krapova 2001; Sočanac 2017; Krapova, Cinque 2019). Locality phenomena of this type are, once again, typical for simple clauses. It thus makes sense to claim that obligatory subject-control complements of the type exemplified in (23) are syntactically encoded within mono-clausal structures featuring a single, matrix CP.

Given that Subj *da* used to occupy a higher C-head in OCS, it could not be used in control structures that lack CP altogether, explaining the prevalence of Inf in these types of clauses in OCS. The spread of Subj *da* marking to these obligatory-control environments became possible once the reanalysis in (22) took place. This explains why the increased contiguity between *da* and the verb, which directly resulted from the reanalysis in (22), followed a similar historical trajectory as the broader Inf>Subj replacement observed in Balkan Slavic. The period where both Inf and Subj were used in these control contexts (roughly ranging from tenth-sixteenth century in languages like Bg or Mk)<fnref n="16" /> corresponds to a period of grammatical competition between the structure containing the higher C-*da* and the one with the lower Pol-*da*. Eventually, the lower Pol-*da* structure won out in core Balkan Slavic languages like Bg or Mk, which paved the way to full Inf>Subj replacement. When it comes to Sr, on the other hand, it makes sense to claim that the grammatical competition outlined above is still underway, which is why Inf was not fully replaced by Subj in this language. Once again, when *da* is used in non-control environments in Sr, we

<footnote n="16">16 See MacRobert 1980 or Joseph 1983 for a more detailed chronological account in this context.</footnote>
are still dealing with the 'old' *da*, situated under the high C-head, as in (21), hence the possibility for syntactic material to intervene between *da* and the lower verb, as we saw in (19a). In control complements, on the other hand, we are dealing with the lower *da* which is contiguous to the verb. In this latter type of context, therefore, there is no difference between Sr, on the one hand, and Bg and Mk, on the other, since they all feature the lower *da* and consequently ban any syntactic material from intervening between *da* and the embedded verb:

<table><tr><td>(24)</td><td>a.</td><td>*Trjabva da Ivan dojde. (Bg)</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>must<sub>.3.SG</sub> SUBJ I. come<sub>.3.SG</sub></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>b.</td><td>*Počinje da Ivan vozi. (Sr)</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>begin<sub>.3.SG</sub> SUBJ I. drive<sub>.3.SG</sub></td></tr></table>

The analysis put forward here thus presents us with a formal mechanism that can explain how Inf>Subj replacement took place in Balkan Slavic. Nevertheless, the account developed so far has little to say as to why this development took place specifically in the Balkans. In the next section, I outline some tentative answers to this question.

## 4.3 Inf loss in the context of Balkan sprachbund

I will argue that the Inf-loss phenomenon in Balkan Slavic was likely caused by a confluence of several different factors (in addition to the formal development outlined in § 4.1). One of these factors was a phonetic weakening of Inf morphology that affected core Balkan-Slavic languages like Bg or Mk, which ultimately led to the complete loss of the Inf suffix -ti (Mirčev 1983; Friedman, Joseph 2024). The resulting bare infinitival form became homophonous with certain person/number inflections within the finite verbal paradigm. Certain authors (e.g. Togeby 1962) posited the idea that this type of homophony may have eventually led to the broader reanalysis of Inf as a finite clause.

Nevertheless, the homophony between Inf and certain finite verb forms is not sufficient to provide the full explanation for Inf loss *da* in Balkan Slavic. As noted by Joseph (1983), for instance, similar homophony involving Inf is observed to an even greater degree in present-day English. In particular, English Inf morphologically overlaps with the present tense in all persons except 3rd person singular, and yet we did not observe Inf being replaced by finite complements in English in the same way as it was in Balkan languages. As a result, the phonological developments described above should not be seen as the sole or decisive trigger behind Inf loss, but as one of several factors that led to this development.
On the other hand, authors such as Rozentsveig (1976) or Hauge (1977) claimed that the main Balkan-specific factor behind the formal and diachronic developments pertaining to SIC had to do with the broader socio-linguistic context that was historically prevalent in the Balkans. As described by Friedman and Joseph (2014; 2024), among others, the linguistic situation in the Balkans was characterized, during long historical periods, by pervasive multilingualism and extensive borrowings on all linguistic levels, resulting from intense social interactions between speakers of different native languages. Some have argued that the historical developments pertaining to Inf loss were crucially affected by this broader socio-linguistic context. First of all, the reason why Inf was not cross-linguistically supplanted by Subj can be explained in terms of the principle of language economy, specifically eliminating redundancy. In effect, the use of Subj in subject-control environments leads to redundant representation of subject-related φ-features both on the matrix and on the embedded verb (see [8], for instance), which is an undesirable result from the point of view of language economy. Nevertheless, Hauge (1977) argued that the specific socio-linguistic context in the Balkans may have led to a situation where redundant linguistic representations became useful from a communicative perspective. This is because such redundancy facilitated language processing and comprehension for non-native speakers, given that any linguistic information that is redundantly expressed more than once (such as the subject's φ-features in the case of control Subj) is more likely to be correctly parsed by the addressee.

Some circumstantial evidence in favour of this approach can be gleaned if we look at the distributional data pertaining to SIC across Balkan Slavic. In effect, the languages in which Inf was lost to the greatest degree (i.e. Bg and Mk) are situated in the area within the Balkans (encompassing roughly the present-day Macedonia and the neighbouring territories around it) where the social interactions described above were the most intense and long-lasting (Friedman and Joseph 2024). Sr, on the other hand, occupies a more peripheral position within the Balkan-sprachbund area, since the bulk of its speakers are situated more to the North or to the West of the core Balkan-sprachbund area where linguistic interactions were the most intense. As a result, Sr did not lose its Inf to the same degree as the core Balkan-Slavic languages like Bg or Mk. Nevertheless, those dialects of Sr that are closer to the core Balkan-sprachbund area, in particular the Torlak dialect spoken in south Serbia, almost completely lost Inf as well, which is expected under the approach outlined here (Belić 1905; Pavlović 1960).

Nevertheless, the socio-linguistic approach described above also received a fair deal of criticism in the literature (see MacRobert 1980 or Joseph 1983, among others). I therefore agree with the anonymous reviewer who suggested that Hague's proposal should be viewed as a hypothesis that still needs to be confirmed. In any case, my paper
here does not make a strong claim that any single factor (whether it
be language-internal or extra-linguistic) is responsible for the histor-
ical developments pertaining to Balkan Inf loss. Those developments
were, once again, likely caused by a confluence of different factors,
including some that were outlined here. The broader socio-historic
context and language contacts certainly played a role in the Balkan
SIC developments described here, but the exact way in which these
different factors interacted to bring about the present-day situation
still needs to be more precisely determined.

5 Conclusion and broader implications

In this paper, I provided a formal account that explained the dia-
chronic developments pertaining to SIC observed in Balkan Slavic.
The progressive loss of Inf and its replacement with Subj over time
was accounted for by positing a formal reanalysis in the underlying
syntax of the Subj marker *da*, whereby the latter changed its status
from a high C-item to a lower particle merged under a Pol-head adjax-
cent to the verb. This, in turn, allowed the *da*-item to spread to oblig-
atory control complements that contain a small structure lacking a
CP layer. This formal development, in conjunction with several other
factors (some of which were outlined in § 4.3), eventually led to broad-
er Inf>Subj replacement (either full or partial) across Balkan Slavic.

The argument developed in this paper also opens up some broad-
er questions in relation to diachronic linguistic analysis. In particu-
lar, the formal account provided in § 4.1 seems to go against certain
cross-linguistic diachronic principles that have been previously pro-
posed in the literature. For instance, Roberts and Roussou (2003) ar-
gued in favour of the idea of ‘upward grammaticalization’, the main
claim being that syntactic items such as mood particles can only be
reanalysed to occupy a higher node in a syntactic structure, not a
lower one (as proposed here). Such an approach is also compatible
with some broader principles of economy, such as ‘Merge-over-Move’
proposed by Chomsky (1995). If the account provided here is correct,
then the principles described above are not to be viewed as inviola-
ble laws but rather as strong cross-linguistic tendencies which will
obtain typologically unless overridden by some other factors in lo-
cal linguistic contexts. The reanalysis of *da* from a higher C-item to
a lower Pol-item, which goes against Roberts and Roussou (2003),
could therefore represent an instance where local linguistic factors
related to Balkan sprachbund (some of which were outlined here)
overrode some of the broader typological principles that operate on
a cross-linguistic level.

Finally, the analysis presented here also opens up some ave-
nues for future work. The main challenge in this context will be to
provide a fuller and more principled account of the interaction be-
tween broader typological principles and the more languages-specif-
ic constraints in the diachronic development of linguistic phenome-
na such as Balkan Inf loss. Such a principled account will be pursued
by confronting the broader conclusions reached in this paper with
cross-linguistic data, especially those found in various sprachbund
situations, not just in the Balkans but across the world.

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Rivista semestrale | Semestral journal

Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici

e Culturali Comparati

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia

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Università
Ca'Foscari
Venezia