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A Comparison of Slavic Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5060 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 9 of 10 10 June 2012 at 6:54pm | IP Logged |
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Is Bulgarian word order really less flexible than Russian? How can it be proved?
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| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5070 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 10 of 10 10 June 2012 at 8:33pm | IP Logged |
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Optional clitic doubling in Bulgarian can clear up discrepancies between the subject and direct object of the same
number and person despite a lack of declension in differentiating them. Indirect objects can be clearly defined through prepositional use. These two factors allow for a pretty flexible arrangement of sentence parts in strict grammatical use although certain word orders may not be colloquially common. As in other Slavic languages, the word order places a certain stress on part of the sentence. For example (The bear ate the rabbit): Мечката изяде (го) заяка. Мечката заяка (го) изяде. Заяка (го) изяде мечката. Заяка мечката (го) изяде. Изяде (го) мечката заяка. Изяде (го) заяка мечката. Заяка (the rabbit) is masculine and мечката (the bear) is feminine. Изяде means he/she/it ate (3rd person singular imperfective aorist) To clarify that the bear is eating the rabbit and not the other way around, 'го' is used next to the verb to indicate that the rabbit is the definite object. In all of these permutations, 'го' is optional because it's quite clear that bears eat rabbits and never the other way around. However, if you were writing some sort of horror thriller in which rabbits could eat bears and you wanted to preserve the meaning in which the bear ate a rabbit, the 'го' clitic would be obligatory in all but the first example. In reference to an indirect object being introduced, an example would be (Maria gave the newspaper to me): Мария (го) даде вестника на мене. Мария (го) даде на мене вестника. Мария на мене (го) даде вестника. Мария вестника (го) даде на мене. Мария вестника на мене (го) даде. Мария на мене вестника (го) даде. На мене (го) даде вестника Мария. На мене (го) даде Мария вестника. На мене вестника (го) даде Мария. На мене Мария (го) даде вестника. На мене вестника Мария (го) даде. На мене Мария вестника (го) даде. Вестника (го) даде на мене Мария. Вестника (го) даде Мария на мене. Вестника Мария (го) даде на мене. Вестника на мене (го) даде Мария. Вестника Мария на мене (го) даде. Вестника на мене Мария (го) даде. Даде (го) Мария вестника на мене. Даде (го) Мария на мене вестника. Даде (го) на мене вестника Мария. Даде (го) на мене Мария вестника. Даде (го) вестинка на мене Мария. Даде (го) вестника Мария на мене. Даде - (3rd. person singular imperfective aorist), Мария - (Maria - feminine singular), На мене - (to me - indirect object), and Вестника - (the newspaper - masculine singular). In this case, as in above, 'го' indicates that the newspaper is receiving the action and not giving it, although its optional again from the context of the sentence. 'На мене' is clearly the indirect object so there is no confusion there. All of these sentences are technically grammatically correct although they don't all sound quite natural to native speakers. The emphasized part of the sentence is usually the one preceding the verb (or following if the verb comes first). The only neutral sentence here is the first one. I'm not sure as to how this compares to Russian but as you can see the word order is flexible enough in Bulgarian. The only type of sentence where clitics wouldn't be able to clear up uncertainty in the subject or direct object of a sentence would be if both were 3rd person plural or both were 3rd person singular of the same gender (feminine or masculine and neuter). Note that my examples don't include subject pronouns or indirect object pronouns since subject pronouns immediately clear up any discrepancy in who/what is the subject and who/what is the object in a sentence while indirect object pronounce have their own set of rules in word ordering. In general, I'd say that clitics are the words in the sentence with the strictest word order rules which imparts some flexibility in the order of the rest of the sentence. Edited by Kartof on 10 June 2012 at 8:38pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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