FABL Invited talks – Класичне науке

*_{^{FABL 2023 photo by Vladimir Opsenica}}*

Eleni Bužarovska (Skopje)

Balkanization vs de-Balkanization in grammar: Macedonian conditional system

This presentation examines how language contact can exert opposing influences on the same grammatical structure, using the Macedonian conditional system as a case study. The system reflects multiple layers of contact-induced change across different historical periods. During the Ottoman period, due to the contact with other Balkan languages, the inherited Slavic conditional bi-construction fell out of use in almost all Macedonian dialects, surviving only in the northern periphery. It was replaced by a Balkan conditional pattern modeled on Greek, which combines a future marker with a past tense form (the imperfect) to express counterfactual situations. This system had two core patterns—one for realizable and one for counterfactual events—and allowed for encoding increased hypotheticality through the use of the subjunctive marker da (na in Greek) functioning as ‘if.’ In the first half of the 20^th century, under Serbo-Croatian influence during the Yugoslav period, bi-based constructions were reintroduced into the Macedonian conditional system through the borrowed Serbian patterns with ukoliko and kad. The new dokolku and koga bi patterns triggered the restructuring of the system, enriching it with new forms and enabling the development of mixed models. This process of partial de-Balkanization not only expanded the system but also introduced a range of subtle semantic distinctions. The new forms, including hybrid ones, made it possible to express a more nuanced gradation of hypotheticality. This development is explored through an empirical investigation of conditional clauses in spoken Macedonian, particularly among younger speakers. It aims to show that these changes are part of a broader tendency in Macedonian toward transparency, that is, a greater degree of correlation between form and meaning.

Bilyana Mikhaylova (Sofia)

The Paleo-Balkan world

The presentation will attempt to outline the picture of the Paleo-Balkan world based on the attested linguistic material in Phrygian, Thracian, Daco-Moesian, Macedonian, and Illyrian, as well as on some elements of the pre-Greek Indo-European linguistic substrate (the so-called Pelasgian).

The linguistic material is derived from both glosses and onomastic data. The attestations from the Paleo-Balkan languages will be examined from an etymological perspective, categorized into thematic areas, largely following J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams, The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Indo-European World (2006):

Anatomy
The Physical world: earth, fire, water, air, landscape
Architecture and Home
Clothing
Family and Kinship
Drinking and Foods
Material culture (tools, weapons, metals)
Flora and Fauna
Colors

Although the Paleo-Balkan languages are attested fragmentarily, this approach will allow us to trace how the data from them relates to the overall picture of the Indo-European world.

Andrey N. Sobolev (St. Petersburg/Marburg)

Functional Grammar of the Balkan Sprachbund: Presentation of a project

The aim of the project is to create, for the first time in global scholarship, a theoretically grounded grammar of the Balkan Sprachbund (BSB) based on the theory of a linguistic union as a group of languages united by regular functional correspondences. Adhering to the heuristic paradigm of the humanities, the project addresses all classical structural levels of language and seeks to apply a range of the most suitable – both theoretical and experimental – methods for their investigation, utilizing digital technologies, including corpus-based approaches. The theoretical, synchronic-descriptive, functional grammar of the entire convergent group of languages, which includes Indo-European languages from four genealogical groups – Albanian, Romance, Slavic, and Greek – will engage with both standard (literary) and non-standard (dialectal and historical) language forms. This grammar will significantly expand our understanding of linguistic unions, the specific properties of Balkan languages, and the regularity of relationships among them, as well as the functional ranges of categories and units. In the first stage of the project’s implementation, a targeted selection of a limited set of polyfunctional linguistic categories and units from the Balkan languages will serve to substantiate the research hypothesis regarding the existence of the BSB as a convergent group. In the second stage, a necessary and sufficiently broad set of categories and units will be examined, resulting in the creation of a comprehensive grammar and the formulation of an extended theory of the BSB. The project aims to become a model for subsequent research into the identification and study of groups of distantly related languages, and in the long term, to influence related fields such as history, cultural theory, and social theory. By applying a categorical approach to the understanding of linguistic phenomena, the project demonstrates the heuristic potential of methodologies specific to the humanities and aims to advance linguistic theory. The scholarly novelty of the project lies in its proposal to: (a) offer a rigorous definition of convergent language groups (linguistic unions), (b) place a primary focus on the functional aspect of linguistic units and categories, and (c) establish regular correspondences among them.

Matej Šekli (Ljubljana)

The hypothesised Central European Convergence Linguistic Area: The case of Slovene

In genealogical linguistic research within the framework of Slavic comparative linguistics, the geneses of the individual Slavic languages and their dialect macro-areas are relatively well researched. Questions that still remain unanswered, however, concern the formation of the Slavic languages within the different hypothesised convergence linguistic areas (German Sprachbund, Russian jazykovoj sojuz). Apart from their evolution within the Slavic dialect continuum, the Slavic languages allegedly form a part of different convergence linguistic areas. As far as the “major” linguistic areas are concerned, Slavic is supposed to belong to the so-called European linguistic area or Standard Average European (SAE). Regarding “minor” European linguistic areas involving Slavic, at least two have found their way into scholarly discussion, namely the Balkansprachbund ‘Balkan linguistic area’ and the mitteleuropäischer Sprachbund ‘Central European convergence area’ (also the Donausprachbund ‘Danube convergence area’). The latter is traditionally said to include German, the so-called Central European Slavic languages, and Hungarian. As it turns out, the individual languages that form the alleged linguistic area do, in fact, display some common morphosyntactic features, for instance, the loss of synthetic past tense forms. According to the linguistic criteria for the definition of convergence linguistic areas, these are characterised, among other things, by a multidirectional linguistic influence as well as common contact-induced linguistic innovations in the domain of syntax and morphology. Using the theoretical approach and the methodology of historical linguistics as well as the linguistic material from Slovene, the contribution answers the question whether such linguistic commonalities are indeed the consequence of a multidirectional linguistic influence and can, consequently, be seen as a bundle of convergent linguistic changes within the hypothesised convergence area, or they are purely coincidental.

_{Selected bibliography}
_{Haspelmath, Martin. 2001. The European linguistic area: Standard Average European. In Haspelmath, Martin & König, Ekkehard & Oesterreicher, Wulf & Wolfgang Raible (eds.), Sprachtypologie und sprachliche Universalienforschung. Ein internationales Handbuch, 1492–1510. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.}
_{Januška, Jiří. 2020. Central European Languages as a Complex Research Issue: Summarising and Broadening the Research Foci. In Szucsich, Luka & Kim, Agnes & Uliana Yazhinova (eds.), Areal Convergence in Eastern Central European Languages and Beyond, 55–93. Berlin: Peter Lang.}
_{Kurzová, Helena. 1996. Mitteleuropa als Sprachareal. Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Philologica 5/Germanistica Pragensia 13. 57–73.}
_{Kurzová, Helena. 2019. Defining the Central European convergence area. In Danylenko, Andrii & Motoki Nomachi (eds.), Slavic on the Language Map of Europe. Historical and Areal-Typological Dimensions, 261–289. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter.}
_{Šekli, Matej. 2018. Tipologija lingvogenez slovanskih jezikov. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC – ZRC SAZU.}
_{Šekli, Matej. 2023. Central European Convergence Area: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations. Studia universitatis hereditati 11(1). 61–72.}
_{Šekli, Matej. 2024. The loss of synthetic past tense forms in Slovene in the context of the hypothesised Central European convergence area. Zeitschrift für Slawistik 69(2). 341–361.}