Bulgarian grammar is the grammar of the Bulgarian language. Bulgarian is a South Slavic language that evolved from Old Church Slavonic—the written norm for the Slavic languages in the Middle Ages which derived from Proto-Slavic. Bulgarian is also a part of the Balkan sprachbund, which also includes Greek, Macedonian, Romanian, Albanian and the Torlakian dialect of Serbian. It shares with them several grammatical innovations that set it apart from most other Slavic languages, even other South Slavic languages. Among these are a sharp reduction in noun inflections—Bulgarian has lost the noun cases but has developed a definite article, which is suffixed at the end of words. In its verbal system, Bulgarian is set apart from most Slavic languages by the loss of the infinitive, the preservation of most of the complexities of the older conjugation system (including the opposition between aorist and imperfect) and the development of a complex evidential system to distinguish between witnessed and several kinds of non-witnessed information.
Nouns
Bulgarian nouns have the categories grammatical gender, number (including count form), definiteness and vocative form.
Gender A noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter).
Number A noun has two numbers (singular and plural), plus a numerical plural form. The plural is formed by adding to or replacing the singular ending, most commonly in the following ways: sing.plur.masc. -conson. +и +ове (monosyl.)fem. -а / -я -иneut. -о -е -а +та With cardinal numbers and some adverbs, masculine nouns use a separate numerical plural form (). It is a vestige of the grammatical dual number, which disappeared from the language in the Middle Ages. The numerical form is used in the masculine whenever there is a precise amount of something, regardless of the actual number, e.g. –
sg. ( ) → general plural ( ) → numerical plural / ( / ).See Bulgarian nouns#Count form for more details.The forms the words take in the numerical plural and in the incomplete definite are often identical to each other – e.g. dva stola/pod stola, as above, or dva konya/na konya – "two horses/on the horse", but not always – e.g. grad (city) → dva gràda (two cities), but v gradà (in the city), or svyat (world) → dva svyàta (two worlds), but na svetà (in the world).
Definiteness Definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun: masc.fem.neut.sing. -ът / -ят (subject) -a / -я (object) -та -тоplur. -те -та after а/я or -те after и/еZagorchev, Marin, 2015. A practical Bulgarian Grammar for English Speakers. Стр.37. The definite article comes after plural ending:When a noun is accompanied by one or more modifiers and/or determiners, only the first element of the noun phrase takes the definite article suffix – e.g. priyatelite (the friends) → dobrite priyateli (the good friends) → moite dobri priyateli (my good friends). стол [stol] (chair)столът [stolat] (subject) стола [stola] (object)
(the chair)столове [stolove] (chairs)столовете [stolovete] (the chairs)маса [masa] (table)масата [masata] (the table)маси [masi] (tables)масите [masite] (the tables)копче [kopche] (button)копчето [kopcheto] (the button)копчета [kopcheta] (buttons)копчетата [kopchetata] (the buttons)
Vocative form Vocative form is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed.
for family members – e.g. ( ) for masculine names – e.g. → ( → ) in social descriptors – e.g. → ( → ), → ( → )
From the first decades of the 20th century, there is a tendency to avoid vocative forms. This is true for many personal names, as the use of feminine name forms in -[ь/й]oКръстев, Боримир, 1992. Граматика за всички. Стр.61. and of the potential vocative forms of foreign names has come to be considered rude or rustic. Thus, Любомире means 'hey, Lyubomir', while the corresponding feminine forms Елено ('hey, Elena'), Маргарито ('hey, Margarita') are today seen as rude or unceremonious, and declining foreign names as in *Джоне ('hey, John') or *Саймъне ('hey, Simon') is considered humorous.
The tendency to avoid vocative forms for foreign names does not apply to names from Classical Antiquity, with the source languages having the vocative case as well: cf. Цезаре' ('O Caesar'), Перикле ('O Pericles'), Зевсе ('O Zeus'), etc.
Vocative is still in full and regular use for general nouns such as ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ).See Bulgarian nouns#Usage for more usage notes
Remnants of grammatical cases Old Bulgarian had an extensive system of declension which included seven grammatical cases: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, locative, instrumental and vocative; of these, only what used to be nominative and vocative cases survive in modern Bulgarian. Though Bulgarian has lost its old declensional system, pronouns still have grammatical case; also, some nouns in indirect cases became fossilized and were reanalyzed as other parts of speech.
Remnants of grammatical cases in pronouns Personal pronouns still have different subject, direct object and indirect object forms. Personal pronounsNumberPersonsubject (nominative case)direct object (accusative case)indirect object (dative case)with prepositionlongshortlong, obsoletelongshortSingularFirstазмене / менмеменена мене / на менмис мене / с менSecondтитебе / тебтетебена тебе / на тебтис тебе / с тебThirdMasculineтойнегогонемуна негомус негоFeminineтянеяянейна неяѝ*с неяNeuterтонегогонемуна негомус негоPluralFirstниенаснинамна наснис насSecondвиевасвивамна васвис васThirdтетяхгитямна тяхимс тях The set of pronouns in italic is obsolete and is nowadays substituted by + long direct object pronouns: .See Bulgarian pronouns#Personal pronouns for more details.
Interrogative, indefinite, negative, relative and universal pronouns have different subject and object forms, but only if some conditions are met:
they are different only for masculine singular pronouns; only if pronoun refers to a male human being: e.g. ; note that can be replaced with in spoken language; but, e.g. . only if the pronoun is used alone, not attributively.
Otherwise, the subject and object pronouns are the same. The complete declension is summed up in the table below: +masculine singular pronounspronoun typesubject (nominative case)direct object (accusative case)direct object (accusative case)*indirect object (dative case)indirect object (dative case)*indirect object (dative case),
obsoleteinterrogativeкойкойкогона койна когокомуindefiniteнякойнякойнякогона някойна някогонякомуnegativeникойникойникогона никойна никогоникомуrelativeкойтокойтокоготона койтона коготокомутоuniversalвсекивсекивсекигона всекина всекиговсекиму *These sets of pronouns are falling out of use, especially in spoken language. Instead of object forms, the subject ones tend to be used in more instances, e.g. is used instead of and instead of and so on.
Single-word indirect object pronouns are obsolete.
Definite article The grammarians who standardised the Bulgarian literary language introduced the subject definite article () and the object definite article () . Both of these forms existed in Bulgarian dialects of the time, but they were regional rather than grammatical variants. Their redistribution to express case distinctions was entirely artificial.Wahlström, pp. 45—46. The subject definite article is used with definite masculine singular nouns which are the subject of a sentence, otherwise the object definite article is used. For example:
( ) → ( , subject) → ( , object).
Formerly inflected nouns as other parts of speech
Remnants of the accusative case Adverbs: , , , , , , , ,
Remnants of the dative case Adverbs and prepositions:
Personal pronouns:
masc (, long and short form), ! (remnant, = )
fem (, long and short form); ѝ not to be confused with й
neuter (, long and short form)
Remnants of the genitive case Adverbs: , , , ,
Remnants of the instrumental case Adverbs and prepositions: ( , from ( )); ( , from ); ( from ( )), , , , , , , , , , ,
Remnants of the locative case Adverbs and prepositions: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Adjectives A Bulgarian adjective agrees in gender, number and definiteness with the noun it is appended to and is usually put before it. The comparative and the superlative form are formed with the (hyphenated) prefixes and respectively.
Pronouns
Nicolova distinguishes the following types of Bulgarian pronouns:
personal reflexive possessive reflexive possessive demonstrative universal interrogative relative negative indefinite.
Verbs
Word order Although Bulgarian has almost no noun cases its word order is rather free. It is even freer than the word order of some languages that have cases, for example German. This is due to the agreement between the subject and the verb of a sentence. So in Bulgarian the sentence "I saw Lyubomir" can be expressed thus: Видях Любомир. saw-1pSg Lyubomir
Любомир (го) видях. Lyubomir (him) saw-1pSg
It is clear that the subject is (it has been dropped), because the verb is in the first person singular.
Other examples – "Lyubomir greeted the girls": Любомир поздрави момичетата. Lyubomir greeted-3pSg girls-the. Момичетата (ги) поздрави Любомир. Girls-the (them) greeted-3pSg Lyubomir. Любомир момичетата поздрави. Lyubomir girls-the greeted-3pSg. Момичетата Любомир (ги) поздрави. Girls-the Lyubomir (them) greeted-3pSg. Поздрави Любомир момичетата. Greeted-3pSg Lyubomir girls-the. Поздрави (ги) момичетата Любомир. Greeted-3pSg (them) girls-the Lyubomir. Theoretically all permutations are possible but the last one sounds rather odd.
"The girls greeted Lyubomir": Момичетата поздравиха Любомир. Girls-the greeted-3pPl Lyubomir. Любомир (го) поздравиха момичетата. Lyubomir (him) greeted-3pPl girls-the. Момичетата Любомир поздравиха. Girls-the Lyubomir greeted-3pPl. Любомир момичетата (го) поздравиха. Lyubomir girls-the (him) greeted-3pPl. Поздравиха момичетата Любомир. Greeted-3pPl girls-the Lyubomir. Поздравиха (го) Любомир момичетата. Greeted-3pPl (him) Lyubomir girls-the.
The clitic doubling () is obligatory only when the subject and the object are both in third person, and they are either both singular or both plural, but when the meaning is clear from the context it can be omitted. Examples: Любомир го поздрави Мария. Lyubomir him greeted-3pSg Maria. Maria greeted Lyubomir. Мария я поздрави Любомир. Maria her greeted-3pSg Lyubomir. Lyubomir greeted Maria. but Ролите озвучиха артистите... Roles-the sound-screened-3pPl artists-the... The artists...(their names) sound-screened the roles. (They made the soundtrack for the film.) In the compound tenses, when a participle is used, and when the subject and the object are of different gender or number, the clitic doubling can also be left out. So the first two of the above examples can be expressed in a compound tense thus: Любомир (го) е поздравила Мария. Lyubomir (him) has greeted-3pSgFem Maria. Maria has greeted Lyubomir. Мария (я) е поздравил Любомир. Maria (her) has greeted-3pSgMasc Lyubomir. Lyubomir has greeted Maria. The above two examples sound a bit odd without the doubling, unless it is a case of topicalization and special stress is put on the first word.
Syntax Bulgarian employs clitic doubling, mostly for emphatic purposes. For example, the following constructions are common in colloquial Bulgarian:
The phenomenon is practically obligatory in the spoken language in the case of inversion signalling information structure (in writing, clitic doubling may be skipped in such instances, with a somewhat bookish effect):
Sometimes, the doubling signals syntactic relations, thus:
i.e.,
This is contrasted with:
i.e., .
In this case, clitic doubling can be a colloquial alternative to the more formal or bookish passive voice, which would be constructed as follows: