Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article∗
Ljudmila Geist
University of Stuttgart
Abstract
In many languages, the indefinite article emerges from the numeral ONE. In the course of its
diachronic development it acquires additional functions such as marking of specificity and
genericity. Thus, different functions of indefinite articles can be seen as stages in the process
of grammaticalization. This paper examines the use of edin in Bulgarian as a marker of
indefiniteness. It shows that it has reached the stage of a specificity marker and is developing
the predicative and the generic use. This leads to the conclusion that edin has not yet entirely
achieved the stage of indefinite article but merely has the intermediate status, the status of an
indefinite determiner. The findings concerning the current functions of edin in this paper lead
to a modification of the implicational scale of functions of indefinite articles proposed in the
literature.
1 Introduction
It has commonly been assumed that Slavic languages have no indefinite articles.
However, there are hints that the counterpart of the numeral ONE in Bulgarian
can serve as a marker of indefinite reference. Consider example (1).
(1)
Marija se
omâži
za
edin lingvist.
Mary
refl married prep one
‘Mary married a linguist.’
linguist
Here edin does not highlight the cardinality (the sentence is not understood
as being an answer to “How many linguists did she marry last year?”) but
indicates indefinite reference, i.e., it is used to contribute an existential claim
and to introduce a new referent into the discourse. Besides this function edin has
some other functions typical of markers of indefinite reference. This led
Friedman (1976) to hypothesize that Bulgarian edin has the status of an
indefinite article.
It is a well-known fact that in many languages the counterpart of the
numeral ONE has given birth to indefinite articles. In many languages indefinite
∗
This research was funded by the German Science Foundation (project C2 Case and
Referential Context, SFB 732 Incremental Specification in Context), which I gratefully
acknowledge. I would like to thank Klaus von Heusinger, Uwe Junghanns, Elena
Karagjosova, and Svetlana Petrova for very helpful discussions. I also thank two
anonymous reviewers for critical comments and the editors for including the paper in the
volume.
Erschienen 2013 in: Junghanns, U. , Fehrmann, D., Lenertová, D. & Pitsch, H. (eds.): Formal Description of Slavic Languages:
The Ninth Conference. Proceedings of FDSL 9, Göttingen 2011 Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 125-148.
Ljudmila Geist
articles have the same root as the numeral in the respective language, cf.
German ein, Turkish bir, and Spanish un. Hence, it would not be a surprise if
Bulgarian edin also had the function of an indefinite article in addition to its
numeral function. The aim of this paper will be to test the hypothesis of
Friedman (1976) that Bulgarian edin can be used as an indefinite article. In
particular, the questions that I want to answer are:
• What functions can edin as a marker of indefinite reference cover and how
are they related?
• What is the contribution of edin to the meaning of the noun phrase?
• What might be the outlines of its further development?
To determine the functions of edin and its semantic contribution I will turn
to the work on the grammaticalization of indefinite articles in Givón (1981) and
Heine (1997). The main idea going back to Givón is that numerals on the way of
developing into indefinite articles undergo a process of semantic bleaching, for
which a scale like in (2a) can be assumed. I will call the corresponding
grammaticalization stages as in (2b).
(2)
Grammaticalization of indefinite articles
a. quantification > referentiality
b. numeral
Stage I
> non-referentiality1
> indefinite determiner > indefinite article
Stage II
Stage III
The function as numeral (Stage I) is the starting point on the scale. The
indefinite article (Stage III) represents the terminal point with the highest degree
of grammaticalization. But besides the starting stage numeral and the terminal
stage indefinite article there is an intermediate stage called indefinite
determiner, where the numeral loses its function of indicating cardinality or
quantity and acquires the function of indicating indefinite reference. At this
stage the indefinite marker is used only with referential indefinite phrases; at the
last stage the indefinite marker can be used with non-referential NPs as well.
This scale will be more finely differentiated in Section 2.
Although I will focus on synchronic functions of edin in modern Bulgarian,
the work on grammaticalization of indefinite articles by Givón (1981) and Heine
(1997) will be helpful in this discussion since different stages in the diachronic
process of grammaticalization of indefiniteness markers can be seen as their
synchronically attested functions.
1
Givón uses the term genericity instead of non-referentiality.
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 criteria for distinguishing the
numeral from the marker of indefinite reference will be discussed. In Section 3
we concentrate on the intermediate status of edin as an indefinite determiner,
and in Section 4 we test whether formal and semantic criteria for the terminal
stage, the stage of indefinite articles, apply to edin. To illustrate the numeral and
indefinite functions of edin I will use examples from the linguistic literature and
complement them with constructed examples that I tested with informants.2
2 Distinguishing the numeral from the marker of indefinite
reference
The original function of edin in Bulgarian is to indicate the cardinality of one,
which is the numeral function. In this section I will introduce some tests for
singling out the numeral function3 from other functions of edin partly known
from the literature (e.g. Nikolaeva 1979, Šmelev 2002 for Russian odin, Weiss
2004 for Macedonian eden):
(i) Combination with focus particles and numeral modifiers
The numeral edin can be combined with focus particles such as samo ‘only’, or
modifiers such as točno ‘exactly’ or naj-malko ‘at least’, which emphasize the
cardinality.
(3)
Samo edin telefon
li
imate?
only
one
telephone Q.part you-have
‘Do you have only one telephone (or two)?’
2
3
I would like to express my gratitude to Elena Karagjosova, Milena Kühnast, Svetlana
Petrova, Zorica Trpcevska, Boryana Max Bincheva Bittner and Nadia Varley for
evaluating and commenting on my Bulgarian examples.
Although edin, like its counterparts in other Slavic languages, can semantically serve as a
numeral, it differs morphologically from other numerals. It agrees with the noun in
gender and resembles adjectives in this respect. Three gender forms have to be
distinguished in the singular: the masculine edin ‘one.masc’, the neuter edno ‘one.neut’,
and the feminine form edna ‘one.fem’. In Slavic languages with morphological case
forms, the counterpart of ONE agrees with nouns not only in gender but also in case; cf.
Russian Ja govoril s odnim sosedom ‘I spoke with one.inst neighbor.inst’. Hence, it
differs from numerals like TWO, THREE and FOUR, which govern the genitive case on
the quantified noun; cf. in Russian the example of genitive government in dva soseda
‘two.nom neighbor.gen’ with the example of the case agreement in odin sosed ‘one.nom
neighbor.nom’.
Ljudmila Geist
The indefiniteness marker edin cannot be combined with focus particles and
numeral modifiers; cf. (4), where edin is used as an indefiniteness marker and
the use of the focus particle točno is excluded.
(4)
Marija se
omâži
za
(*točno) edin lingvist.
Mary
refl married prep
exactly one
‘Mary married exactly one linguist.’
linguist
(ii) Contrast in cardinality
A typical characteristic of numerals in general and of the numeral edin in
particular, which follows from characteristic (i), is that they can be contrasted
with other numerals. In (5) the numeral function of edin is singled out by
placing it in opposition to the numeral for two.
(5)
Ivan ima edin sin (, а
nе
Ivan has one
son
and not
‘Ivan has one son (and not two).’
dvama).
two
Sentence (5) can be understood as an answer to the question “How many
sons does Ivan have?” Here edin unambiguously indicates the number of sons.
(iii) Restrictions on the morphological form
Besides the meaning difference and the difference in the compatibility with
focus particles, there is another formal property of the indefiniteness marker
edin which distinguishes it from the corresponding numeral. The numeral edin
can occur with count nouns such as amerikanec ‘an American’ only in the
singular. However, edin can be combined with count nouns in the plural too
(Friedman 1976). Since edin in the plural cannot indicate a cardinality of ONE,
it is not a numeral in this use. Edin in the plural also cannot be combined with
numeral modifiers. The use of edin as an indefiniteness marker in the plural is
demonstrated in (6).
(6)
Včera
vidjax
edni
amerikanci, koito poznavam.
Yesterday I-saw
one.pl Americans
whom
‘Yesterday I saw some Americans whom I know.’
I-know
One remark should be made concerning the plural use of the numeral edin.
Morphologically plural forms for the numeral edin do exist, however these
forms are semantically singular and can be used only with pluralia tantum (cf.
edni očila ‘one.PL glasses = one pair of glasses’). The numeral edin is
incompatible with count nouns in the plural, since it semantically indicates a
cardinality of one while plural count nouns indicate reference to more than one
individual. Hence, in (6) edin clearly has an indefinite rather than a numeral
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
function. Note that from a cross-linguistic point of view, the availability of a
plural form for one for pluralities of objects is not an obligatory but a sufficient
property of edin as an indefiniteness marker. For example, in Spanish the
indefiniteness marker un, which is related to the numeral, has a plural form
unos, which can be used with plural count nouns (Le Bruyn 2010). The
indefiniteness marker un has the status of an indefinite article. In English and
German, by contrast, the indefiniteness markers a(n)/ein have no
morphologically plural form, but still have the status of indefinite articles
because of other characteristics that I will discuss in Section 4.
3 The indefinite determiner as an intermediate stage
Heine (1997) and Givón (1981) have assumed that the development of indefinite
articles from numerals is a continuous process which goes through different
stages. As shown in the introduction, at least three stages can be distinguished:
besides the stage of the numeral, the stage of the indefinite determiner and the
stage of the indefinite article per se. Heine (1997) suggests a more fine-grained
view of the grammaticalization process of the numeral to the article: he
distinguishes 5 stages, as shown in (7). The relation between Heine’s stages and
the more simple scale introduced in (2) from Givón (1981) is indicated by the
curly braces:
(7)
Grammaticalization stages of indefinite articles: Heine (1997) and Givón
(1981)
1. the numeral
> 2. the presentative marker
> 3. the
specificity
marker
I. numeral
II. indefinite determiner
> 4. the
non-specific
marker
> 5. the generalized
article
III. indefinite article
Scales such as these can be interpreted as synchronic implicational scales.
This means, for example, that an indefiniteness marker at a given stage may
have properties of all preceding stages, but not vice versa. Besides the
synchronic view, which is our main interest here, such scales can provide a
diachronic view of the evolution from the first, oldest, stage to the last, current,
stage. Heine shows that languages have different relative degrees of
grammaticalization that an indefinite article has reached. He gives the following
examples: Stage 1: Swahili; Stage 2: Russian (but see Geist in prep.); Stage 3:
Ljudmila Geist
Hebrew; Stage 4: Germanic, most Romance languages, Chinese; Stage 5:
Spanish. In what follows I will analyze edin with respect to particular stages on
the scale of Heine. In Section 3.1 I will concentrate on the stage of presentative
marker – Stage 2 in (7) – and in Section 3.2 on the stage of specific or specificity
marker – Stage 3 in (7). The stages of non-specific marker and generalized
article (Stages 4 and 5) will be discussed in Section 4.
3.1 Edin as a presentative marker
At Stage II indefinite determiner the counterpart of ONE in different languages
is used only with referential NPs, i.e., with NPs which introduce a new referent
into the discourse.4 Wright & Givón (1987) show that in addition to indicating
the semantic status of referentiality the indefinite determiner in many languages
also indicates the pragmatic status of the importance of NP referents in the
discourse. The difference in the importance of discourse referents can be made
clear via the short discourses in (8a-b):
(8)
a. I was in the city and bought a paper. It had a very interesting article. I
read it … .
b. I was in the city and bought a paper. Then I went home, ate something
and went to sleep.
In both stories, the NP a paper is referential. However, in the first story the
referent is taken up in the second statement. This statement contributes new information about the referent, hence the speaker considers the referent to be important. In the second story the paper is mentioned only in the first statement; it
plays no role in the next statement. It is not taken up again. To capture the intuittive idea of the importance of the referent for the subsequent discourse, Givón
(1983) introduces the term referential continuity or discourse persistence. While
the referent of a paper is discourse persistent in (8a), it is not in (8b). Givón
states that some languages mark discourse persistence of NP-referents by lexical
means, e.g. in Hebrew the indefiniteness marker xad ‘one’ can be used in the
4
I assume that discourse referents introduced by referential NPs can be anaphorically
accessed by personal pronouns in non-modal contexts such as in (i). Non-referential
phrases either do not introduce any referents, like the predicate NP a teacher in (ii) – in
this case they denote properties and do not license pronominal anaphors – or they have
discourse referents with a short life span, i.e., are restricted to possible worlds. Such
referents cannot be accessed by personal pronouns in non-modal contexts, cf. (iii).
(i) Gertrud is looking for a bicyclereferential. It disappeared on Friday.
(ii) Gertrud is a teachernon-referential by profession.
(iii) Gertrud is looking for a bicyclenon-referential. She couldn’t find *it/one for her size.
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
story (8a) to indicate high discourse persistence of the indefinite NP, while in
(8b) the NP remains unmarked. Another example of a language which uses a
special marker of discourse persistence is Romanian with the particle pe
(Chiriacescu & von Heusinger 2010). But what about edin, can it indicate
discourse persistence? In the literature on edin it has been pointed out that in
using it the speaker seems to convey that the referent is important in the
discourse and he/she wants to tell more about it. This function of edin is attested,
for example, in the beginnings of fairy tales; cf. (9), where the referent
introduced with edin is immediately taken up in the next sentence.
(9)
Imalo edno vreme edin starec.
Toj imal trima sina.
had
one
time
one
old-man he had
three
‘Once upon a time there was an old man. He had three sons.’
sons
Hence, edin can indicate discourse persistence. It serves as a presentative
marker. However, if the function of edin were exclusively that of a presentative
marker, its use in contexts such as (8b), where the introduced referent is not
discourse persistent since it is not taken up in the subsequent discourse, would
be inappropriate. But as (10) shows, edin can be used even if the object is not
taken up in the subsequent discourse.
(10) Predi da predam statijata ja dadox na edin kolega za korekcii. Sled tova
podadox statijata na edno spisanie.
‘Before submitting my paper I gave it to a colleague for proofreading. Then I sent the
paper to a journal.’
Thus, the function of edin as an indefiniteness marker does not seem to be
confined to the presentative function.
3.2 Edin as a specificity marker
At this stage the indefiniteness marker does not just indicate discourse
persistence of the NP referent, but specificity as well. Specificity is understood
by Heine in its traditional sense: the speaker conveys that he/she has a particular
referent in mind, but the referent is presumed to be unknown to the hearer
(Heine 1997, 7).
I will show that edin can serve as a specificity marker in this sense: it can
indicate identifiability of the referent by the speaker (cf. Stankov 1984). I will
elaborate on this point in Subsection 3.2.1.
Compared with other indefinites, indefinites anchored to the speaker are
special in their interaction with other components of the clause: they have wide
scope with respect to all quantifiers and operators in the clause and exhibit an
Ljudmila Geist
exceptional scope-taking behavior. We have to check whether edin shows this
exceptional behavior too. In Subsection 3.2.2 we will test the scope-taking
behavior of edin NPs in the interaction with quantifiers and then with intensional
operators in intensional contexts. Afterwards we will examine their behavior in
scope islands.
3.2.1 Identifiability
In the literature on edin (e.g. Ivanova & Kovaľ 1994) some hints can be found
that edin indicates speaker identifiability of the referent. This is illustrated in
(11).
(11) a. Čete mi
se
edno
spisanie.
read I.dat refl one
journal
‘I would like to read a journal.’
b. Continuation compatible with (11a):
A imenno, poslednijat broj na
and namely,
last.def
issue of
‘Namely the last issue of Novo Vreme.’
Novo Vreme.
Novo
Vreme
c. Continuation not compatible with (11a):
#Kakvoto i
da
e.
which
and inf.part be
‘Any journal would do.’
Only the continuation in (11b), which conveys identifying information about
the referent, is felicitous. The continuation in (11c), indicating speaker nonidentifiability of the referent, is odd. The absence of edin in (11a) would allow
(11c) to be felicitous. Thus, edin seems to serve as a marker of specificity in
terms of identifiability by the speaker. Identifiability, however, is a vague
concept. I will adopt the definition of identifiability suggested in Ionin (in
press). Following Abusch & Rooth (1997), who elaborate on the identifiability
contributed by certain-indefinites in English, she proposes that the identifiability
of the referent x “requires the speaker to be able to answer the question »Which
x is it?«” (Ionin in press). Applied to example (11), felicitous use of edno
spisanie ‘one journal’ requires the speaker to be able to give an answer to the
question “Which journal is it?” The response to the question must contain an
identifying property that singles out a specific journal, distinguishing it from all
other journals. Ionin points out that there is a further requirement that the
identifying property must be distinct from properties ascribed to the selected
individual by the sentence. For example, in (11) the property of the journal that
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
the speaker wants to read it is not an identifying property in the narrow sense.
According to Ionin (in press) “an identifying property must come from outside
of the sentence.” In the above example (11), the journal is identified by naming
the title and the volume number.
Assuming that edin serves as a marker of specificity, i.e., indicates the
identifiability of the referent of the NP by the speaker, one remark should be
made concerning the specification of the term “the speaker”. Note that this term
can be differently specified depending on the type of context. In the examples I
have discussed so far “the speaker” is identical to the actual speaker of the
utterance. However, in indirect speech, the perspective can be shifted away from
the actual speaker to the speaker of embedded speech; consider the following
example:
(12) Baštata
kaza, če
e
govoril
s
edin jurist.
father.def said
that have spoken
with one
‘The father said that he has spoken with a lawyer.’
lawyer
The NP edin jurist ‘a lawyer’ refers to a person the father can identify. Thus
the referent is anchored to the father − the speaker of the embedded speech act −
and not to the actual speaker of the whole utterance.
3.2.2 Scope-taking behavior
In this subsection I will describe the behavior of edin-indefinites in intensional
contexts and in syntactic islands. I will compare their behavior with that of
indefinites with a(n) in English. Consider the English example (13). Indefinite
singular NPs such as a doctor in English are ambiguous: they can have narrow
or wide scope with respect to intensional operators. In (13a) the indefinite NP
receives a wide scope interpretation with the continuation (13b) and a narrow
scope interpretation with the continuation (13c).
(13) a. Ann wants to marry a doctor.
b. Continuation compatible with (13a):
I know who it is.
c. Continuation compatible with (13a):
Unfortunately, there are no
candidates yet.
As opposed to a(n) in English, edin as a specificity marker triggers the wide
scope reading indicated by the continuation (14b). The narrow scope reading
required by the continuation (14c) is not compatible with (14a).
Ljudmila Geist
(14) a. An
iska da
se
omâži za
Ann wants inf.part refl marry
‘Ann wants to marry a doctor.’
prep
edin lekar.5
one
doctor
b. Continuation compatible with (14a):
I know him.
c. Continuation not compatible with (14a):
#Unfortunately, there are no
candidates.
The narrow scope reading of the indefinite indicated by the continuation
(14c) can only be achieved by the use of a bare NP without edin.
Finally, it can be shown that NPs with the specificity marker edin scope out
of syntactic islands. This behavior goes along with their wide scope taking
behavior in intensional contexts. Syntactic islands are syntactic constructions
such as relative clauses, which constitute barriers for quantifiers. The quantifiers
cannot scope out of relative clauses and have to be interpreted within them. As
Fodor & Sag (1982) have shown, specific indefinites in English exhibit
exceptional behavior since they can escape from an island and take maximally
wide scope with respect to any quantifier or logical operator outside the island.
(15) can have a reading that Mary read every book recommended by one
professor or other (narrow scope reading) or Mary read every book
recommended by one particular professor ((exceptional) wide scope reading).
(15) a. Mary read every book that a professor at this university has
recommended.
b. narrow scope reading:
∀ > NP
c. (exceptional) wide scope reading:
NP > ∀
In the counterpart of (15) with the specificity marker edin in (16) the narrow
scope reading of the indefinite is excluded. The only available reading is that
Mary read every book recommended by one particular professor, i.e., the
5
Note that if in a context with intensional operators a numeral is used instead of the
indefiniteness marker edin, the numeral can receive either wide scope as with the
continuation in (ib) or narrow scope as with the continuation in (ic).
(i) a. Jana iska da
pročete dve knigi za
nasekomite.
Jana wants inf.part read
two books about insects.def
‘Jana wants to read two books about insects.’
b. Obače ne moža da gi nameri na neinija raft.
‘But she cannot find them on her shelf.’
c. Njama značenie koi.
‘Any books would do.’
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
(exceptional) wide scope reading in which the indefinite escapes the scope
island formed by the relative clause.
(16) a. Marija pročete vsjaka kniga, kojato edin professor ot tozi
Mary
read
universitet ì
every
book
which
one
professor
in this
preporâča.
university
her recommended
‘Mary read every book that a professor at this university has recommended.’
b. #narrow scope reading:
∀ > NP
c. (exceptional) wide scope reading:
NP > ∀
As with the examples above, the narrow scope reading can be achieved by
using bare indefinite NPs without edin. Edin-NPs can have narrow scope inside
the island only if they are modified by focus particles or numeral modifiers such
as exactly. As we have seen in Section 2 such modifiers bring out the numeral
reading. Numeral NPs unlike specific NPs can take scope either inside or
outside the island.
To conclude Section 3.2, edin in the contexts investigated here indicates that
the indefinite NP is specific, i.e., the speaker intends to refer to a particular
individual he/she can identify. The feature of specificity determines the behavior
of indefinites with respect to intensional operators and scope islands: edin
indefinites always take wide scope.
4 The stage of the indefinite article
In the preceding section we have seen that edin has achieved at least Stage 3,
specificity marker, on the grammaticalization scale of Heine. In this section I
want to determine whether clues are available for the further development of this
indefiniteness marker towards the last stage, generalized indefinite article, the
extreme point on the grammaticalization scale of Heine (1997) in (7).
4.1 Obligatoriness as a formal criterion
Indefinite articles are purely grammatical markers of indefiniteness. As elements
of a high degree of grammaticalization, articles are obligatory, i.e., they cannot
be left out. To check whether this criterion applies, we consider first the
occurrence of NPs in the position of an object as in (17). As Ivanova & Koval’
(1994) show, the argument NP dete ‘child’ in argument position without edin
receives an indefinite interpretation. Moreover, the indefinite interpretation is
Ljudmila Geist
the only available interpretation in this case, since definiteness in Bulgarian has
to be marked by the clitic definite article. The argument NP without the definite
article and without edin can only be interpreted as indefinite.
(17) V stajata
vleze dete.
(Ivanova & Kovaľ 1994, 59)
in room.def came child
‘A child came into the room.’
Thus, bare NPs in Bulgarian need not be marked with edin in order to
receive an indefinite interpretation. In this sense, edin is not obligatory.
However, this generalization seems to hold only for non-topical NPs. Things are
different in topic position: this is sentence initial position, where subjects but
also other constituents can occur. Ivančev (1957, 515, cited in Friedman 1976,
338) shows that NPs undergoing topicalization (indicated by clitic doubling)
require the occurrence of edin as in (18a) or the definite article as in (18b). Bare
NPs are excluded in this position; consider (18c).
(18) a. Edna žena
ja risuva edin xudožnik.
(Ivančev 1957, 515)
one
woman her painted one
painter
‘A woman was painted by a painter.’
b. Ženata
ja
risuva
edin xudožnik.
woman.def her painted one
painter
‘The woman was painted by a painter.’
c. *Žena
ja risuva edin xudožnik.
woman her painted one
painter
Why is edin obligatory with argument NPs only if they are topics? I think
that this has to do with the specificity condition on topics: According to Reinhart
(1981) indefinite topics (or, to be more precise, indefinite aboutness topics)
must be specific in order to provide an address in the common ground under
which the information about the topic – the comment – is stored. Since bare NPs
in Bulgarian are not marked for specificity (Gorišneva in prep., among others),
edin as a specificity marker must be added. In the literature on Bulgarian edin,
however, the item that I call aboutness topic has been referred to as “theme”
(Dyer 1993) or “sentence initial subject” (Ivanova & Kovaľ 1994, 61). But since
theme is often used as a synonym for topic, and sentence initial subjects very
often serve as topics, we can assume that what is called theme in the literature on
Bulgarian is the same as what is denoted by the term aboutness topic.
The correlation between topicality and obligatoriness of edin was also
observed by Izvorski (1994). She points out that bare NPs in Bulgarian cannot
serve as subjects of predicates such as tall, intelligent, and heavy, which denote
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
permanent properties (individual-level predicates in the sense of Carlson 1977).
According to Jäger (2001), sentences with individual-level predicates in
different languages have a fixed information structure with the subject as
aboutness topic and the predicate as comment. As shown in (19), bare NPs in
Bulgarian cannot serve as indefinite topics in sentences with individual-level
predicates: edin cannot be left out.
(19) *(Edni) studenti sa
inteligentni.
(Izvorski 1994, 237)
one.pl students are intelligent
‘Some students are intelligent.’
On the basis of these observations edin seems at first glance to fulfil the
obligatoriness criterion for articles. However, in topic position edin is obligatory
not for purely grammatical reasons but for the semantic reason that indefinite
aboutness topics must be specific, i.e., edin is required in this position as a
marker of specificity. For this reason I conclude that edin does not fulfil the
formal criterion of obligatoriness. This speaks against the article status of this
element.
4.2 Semantic criteria for indefinite articles
Givón (1981) claims that the transition from indefinite determiner to indefinite
article is accompanied by the bleaching out of referentiality. He assumes that
this process within the stage of indefinite article is gradual and goes through
three substages, which can be represented on an implicational scale.
(20) Substages of the stage indefinite article (à la Givón 1981, 49)6
predicative use > generic use > non-referential use in modal and
negative scope
In these stages markers of indefinite reference lose their referentiality and
come to serve some secondary purpose. According to the scale, the use of an
indefiniteness marker with generic NPs indicates a more advanced stage than the
predicative use, and the use as a non-specificity marker in the scope of modal
operators and negation is the most advanced stage in the hierarchy. Although
Givón’s general idea of the gradual bleaching out of referentiality is right, I find
the order of substages of the referentiality bleaching in (20) questionable. The
empirical grounds that led Givón to assume the hierarchy in (20) were a
comparison between English and Spanish. The indefinite article in English is an
article in the narrow sense since it can be used not only with referential NPs, but
6
Givón considers the use in the scope of a future operator to be a separate group. I lump
this use together with the use in modal scope into one group.
Ljudmila Geist
also with non-referential NPs in the contexts in (20); consider the examples in
(21).
(21) a. Mary is a nurse. (predicative use)
b. A gentleman always opens the door for ladies. (generic use)
c. If a woman shows up, let her in, but if a man does, don’t. (modal
scope)
d. I didn’t read a magazine, I read a book. (negative scope)
By comparison, the indefinite article in Spanish can be used with generic
NPs in subject positions and also with non-referential NPs in modal scope and in
the scope of negation, hence it approximates the terminal stage of the
development of English. However, as Givón himself shows, the indefinite article
in Spanish cannot be used with non-referential predicate NPs, as shown in (22a).
If un is used in the predicate position, the NP is referential, cf. (22b).
(22) a. Juán es professor de idiomas.
John is professor
of languages
‘John is a language professor.’
b. Juán es un
professor que encontré el
John is one professor
that met-I
‘John is a professor I met last year …’
the
año passado.
year past
(Givón 1981, 48, 49)
Note that Givón treats both sentences as predicational sentences with
predicate NPs despite the difference in their referentiality. In contrast to Givón, I
assume that (22a) and (22b) are different types of sentences and only (22a)
contains a predicate NP. Sentence (22a) can be understood as an answer to the
question “What is John by profession” or “What does John do?”, where the
precopular NP is the subject and the postcopular NP describes one of the
properties of the referent introduced by the precopular NP, namely his
profession. In such sentences, called predicational copular sentences, the
predicate noun denotes a property which is predicated of the subject referent.
Since predicate nouns denote properties, they are non-referential. Example (22b)
is different. It is understood as an answer to the question “Who is John?”.
Although this sentence has a copula as a main verb, its complement is not a
predicate NP but a referential NP. Such sentences have been called identity or
identificational sentences (see Geist 2008 on types of copular sentences).
Example (22a) shows that predicate nouns, which are always non-referential, are
not accompanied by un. Hence, although un can display a generic function and a
non-referential function in modal and negative scope, it has not yet achieved the
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
stage of predicative use. This situation is not consistent with the implicational
scale in (20), which also predicts the predicative use for un. This suggests that in
order to reflect the appropriate relation between different non-referential uses
the scale must be modified. In what follows I will elaborate on particular points
of this scale for edin.
4.2.1 Predicative use
As can be seen in examples from Ivanova & Kovaľ (1994) in (23), edin as an
indefiniteness marker cannot be combined with predicate nouns:
(23) a. Peter e
(*edin) učitel.
Peter is
one
‘Peter is a teacher.’
b. Mladežât
e
teacher
(*edin) vojnik.
young-man.def is
one
‘The young man is a soldier.’
c. Toj
stana
(Ivanova & Kovaľ 1994, 59)
(*edin)
he
became
one
‘He became a student.’
soldier
student.
student
The sentences in (23) can be understood as answers to the question “What is
x by profession?” or “What does x do?”, i.e., these are predicational copula
sentences with non-referential predicate nouns in the postcopular position. The
example in (24) from Ivanova & Kovaľ (1994) is different. It is understood as an
answer to the question “Who is Stojčev?” and states something about his
identity. This is an identity sentence. Here the sentence final NP is referential; it
refers to an individual. The prepositional phrase po profesija ‘by profession’ as
an indicator of the predicate status of the NP cannot be added here. Edin is
allowed and indicates, as in other cases we discussed in the previous section,
specific indefinite reference.
(24) Stojčev
e
edin žurnalist (kogoto poznavam otdavna).
Stojchev is one
journalist whom I-know
long-ago
‘Stojchev is a journalist whom I have known for a long time.’
(Ivanova & Kovaľ 1994, 60)
Consider the minimal pair:
(25) a. Toj e
(*edin) žurnalist
po profesija.
he is
one
journalist
by profession
‘He is a journalist by profession.’
(predicational sentence)
Ljudmila Geist
b. Toj e (edin) žurnalist, kogoto poznavam otdavna. (identity sentence)
he is one journalist whom I-know
long-ago
‘He is a journalist who I have known for a long time.’
In the predicational sentence (25a) indicated by the modifier po profesija
‘by profession’ edin cannot be used with the predicate NP žurnalist. In the
identity sentence (25b) žurnalist is a referential NP. Edin can be used with this
NP to indicate specific indefinite reference. Note that in sentences with tova
‘this’ as in (26) the postcopular phrase is the referential subject and tova is the
predicate NP. In such sentences, edin as a marker of specific reference can
optionally be used with the postcopular subject NP:
(26) Tova e (edin) žurnalist, kogoto poznavam otdavna.
this
is one
journalist whom
I-know
long-ago
‘This is a journalist who I have known for a long time.’
Ivanova (1994) wrongly assumes that sentences with tova ‘this’ like (26) are
predicational and the edin NP is a predicate NP. At least one argument can be
presented against this assumption. If such sentences were predicational, it would
be possible to replace the postcopular phrase with an adjective or a prepositional
phrase, since such phrases also qualify as predicates in copular sentences.
However, in sentences with tova, APs and PPs are excluded and only NPs can
occur.
(27) a. Tja e (*edna) žena
/ umna / v gradinata.
(predicational sentence)
she is one
woman smart
in garden.def
‘She is a woman / smart / in the garden.’
b. Tova e (edna) žena / *umna / *v gradinata. (specificational sentence)
this
is one
woman
smart
in garden.def
‘This is a woman / smart / in the garden.’
The sentences (26) and (27b) are not predicational, they are similar to
identity sentences but belong to a separate type, the so-called specificational
type. In such sentences the postcopular NP specifies the identity of the referent
indicated by the precopular predicate NP (cf. Geist 2008 for this type of copular
sentence). The postcopular NP is the subject and is referential.
To conclude the discussion so far, predicate NPs denoting a profession or
social status cannot be combined with edin. However, the literature on Bulgarian
mentions an exception to this generalization. Edin can be used with predicate
nouns such as glupak ‘fool’ or genij ‘genius’, which involve some evaluative
characterizing component. Consider (28):
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
(28) Ivan e edin glupak!
Ivan is one
fool
‘Ivan is such a fool!’
However, according to Ivanova & Koval’ (1994) and Stankov (1984), in this
case edin does not indicate specificity but has a so-called ‘intensifying function’.
Gorišneva (2009) assumes that characterizing predicate nouns such as glupak
‘fool’, unlike names of professions such as učitel ‘teacher’, are inherently
gradable in the sense that they denote properties which can apply to individuals
to different degrees: x can be just a fool, a big fool or a complete fool.
Combining edin with such scalar nouns yields intensification: edin glupak is, so
to speak, more of a fool than just glupak. Elena Karagjosova (p.c.) pointed out to
me that the intensificational edin with rising intonation and a special gesture can
even be combined with nouns such as učitel ‘teacher’ triggering a meaning shift
from a non-scalar property to a scalar property with a pejorative connotation:7
(29) a. Petâr e učitel.
(neutral)
Peter is teacher
‘Peter is a teacher.’
b. Petâr e edin učitel.
(pejorative connotation)
Peter is one
teacher
‘Peter is a teacher. (intended meaning: Peter is a bad teacher)’
The sentence with edin (with rising intonation and the special gesture)
means that Peter cannot teach well. Interestingly, he need not be a teacher by
profession. This utterance just evaluates his ability to teach. Note that in other
languages such as German, in cases where the indefinite article is optional with
predicate nouns, the use of it can trigger a meaning shift of a similar kind:
(30) a. Peter ist Athlet.
(German)
Peter is athlete
‘Peter is an athlete.’
b. Peter ist ein Athlet.
Peter is an athlete
‘Peter is an athlete.’
While (30a) means that Peter is an athlete by profession, (30b) states that
Peter’s body constitution is athletic. In the latter case Peter need not be a
professional athlete. The function of ein is not one of intensification but merely
7
Svetlana Petrova (p.c.) pointed out to me that without special intonation edin still triggers
a meaning shift if used with a predicate noun such as učitel. In this case (29b) means that
Peter is “not more than just an ordinary teacher”.
Ljudmila Geist
that of a type shifter which transforms neutral properties into evaluative ones.
Interestingly, while with names of professions the article can generally be
omitted in German, with evaluative nouns the indefinite article is obligatory:
(31) Peter ist *(ein) Idiot.
Peter is
a
‘Peter is a fool.’
fool
Besides these semantically motivated uses there is a fully grammatically
motivated use of the indefinite article with non-scalar nouns if the noun is
combined with a modifier, such as in ein guter Lehrer ‘a good teacher’. Such
only grammatically motivated uses are not available for edin in Bulgarian.
To conclude, the analysis of the Bulgarian data shows that the development
of edin as a predicative marker is not completed.
4.2.2 Generic use
It is known that in languages with indefinite articles such as English, singular
indefinites can refer not only to particular objects but can also have generic
reference – cf. Krifka (1995), among others. Under “generic use” on the scale in
(20) Givón is referring to the uses of indefinite generics in the subject position.
(32) a. A gentleman always opens doors for ladies.
b. A cat is usually smart.
c. A monkey would eat the banana.
(32a) is a statement about a typical representative of the kind of gentlemen
and (32b) is a statement about a typical representative of cats. Since such generic NPs refer not to particulars but to abstract representatives of a kind, they are
commonly assumed to be non-referential. As the Bulgarian counterpart of (32a)
in (33) shows, edin must be used with the generic subject. Edin indicates here
the identification of a member of a class as a representative of an entire class
(Friedman 1976, Ivanova & Koval’ 1994).
(33) *(Edin) džentâlmen vinagi otvarja vrata na
damite.
one
gentleman
always opens
doors prep ladies.def
‘A gentleman always opens doors for ladies.’
Another example of the obligatory use of edin with generic subjects is given
in (34).
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
(34) *(Edin) lekar
bi
pomognal.
one
doctor con.part
‘A doctor would help.’
help
However, there are other contexts where edin with generic subjects,
although its use is preferred, can in principle also be omitted, cf. (35).
(35) (Edin) lekar
ne
bi
postâpil
one
doctor neg con.part act
‘A doctor would never act this way.’
taka.
such
Such variability in the use of edin with generic subjects can be understood
as a signal of the non-stability of this grammaticalization stage for edin. It can
be concluded that the use of edin for marking generic subjects has not yet firmly
taken root.
4.2.3 Non-referential use in modal and negative scope
In this subsection, we consider two other contexts in which NPs can receive a
non-referential interpretation: modal contexts and contexts with sentence
negation. Modal contexts as used by Givón (1981) are intensional contexts,
which involve an intensional operator with respect to which indefinite NPs can
take wide scope to yield a referential interpretation or narrow scope to yield a
non-referential interpretation. As I have shown in Subsection 3.2.2, indefinites
with edin tend to take wide scope with respect to intensional operators and are
specific. This is illustrated in (36). Edin obligatorily triggers the referential
specific interpretation of the indefinite NP. (36a) can be followed by the
continuation (36b), which forces the referential reading of the NP, but it is
incompatible with the continuation in (36c), which triggers a non-referential
interpretation of the NP.
(36) a. Tja iska da
se
omâži
za
she wants inf.part refl marry
prep
‘She wants to marry a certain Russian man.’
b. Continuation compatible with (36a):
edin rusnak.
one
Russian
I know him.
c. Continuation not compatible with (36a): #There are no candidates yet.
A similar behavior is exhibited by edin-indefinites in sentences with
negation that establish an extensional context. Izvorski (1994, 243) points out
that indefinites with edin can never be interpreted in the scope of negation.
Indeed, sentence (37) with an unstressed edna can only be understood in the
Ljudmila Geist
sense that there is a particular detail that the person didn’t mention. It cannot be
interpreted as “He didn’t mention any details.”
(37) Toj ne
spomena
edna podrobnost.
he
neg mentioned one
detail
‘He didn’t mention some detail.’
In order to be interpreted in the scope of negation, the NP with edin must be
accompanied by a negative particle nito:
(38) Toj
ne
spomena
nito
еdna podrobnost.
he
neg
mentioned neg.part one
‘He didn’t mention any detail.’
detail
(38) can be paraphrased as “Not even one detail was mentioned,”
highlighting the cardinality. Thus, edin functions here not as a marker of
indefinite reference but as a numeral.
To conclude, NPs with edin in contexts with modal operators and negation
are referential.
4.3 Edin as indefinite article
In this section we have concentrated on the issue of whether edin can be used
with non-referential NPs – the use typical for indefinite articles. We found two
contexts where such a use is possible. First, edin can occur as a marker of
generic reference. However, this use has not yet firmly taken root. Second, edin
can even be used with predicate nouns in predicational sentences; however, this
use is subject to restrictions concerning the type of the noun (primarily nouns
denoting scalar properties are involved) and special intonation. A “neutral” use
of edin with predicate nouns as we know from English or German is however
not possible. Furthermore, edin cannot be used with non-referential NPs in the
modal scope and the scope of negation. These findings make it necessary to
consider some modifications to the scale of Givón (1981) for the substages of
the indefinite article in (20), repeated in (39).
(39) Substages of the stage indefinite article (à la Givón 1981, 49)
predicative use
> generic use
>
non-referential use in modal
and negative scope
Based on the evidence from Bulgarian, the following modifications to the
implicational subscale for indefinite articles can be assumed, cf. (40).
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
(40) Substages of the stage indefinite article
predicative use
>
generic use
non-referential use
in modal and negative
scope
> the generalized
article
First, since we found no evidence for the assumption that the generic use is
more advanced than the predicative use, we can consider the stages predicative
use and generic use to be parallel stages. Edin is beginning to develop both uses,
but this development is not completed. From this I conclude that these uses are
hierarchically equal. The parallel representation of these uses in (40) also allows
languages to skip one of the uses, the generic or the predicative use, on the way
to the next stage. This is what seems to be the case in Spanish, where the
indefinite article has already achieved the non-referential use in modal and
negative scope, and can be used with generic NPs, but cannot occur with nonreferential predicate nouns.
Second, for completeness I have added the stage generalized article from
Heine (1997) as the terminal stage on the scale. At this stage the indefinite
article can be combined with all kinds of nouns, irrespective of whether they are
count or mass – with the effect that any number-specific behavior is eradicated.
Bulgarian edin has not achieved this stage. It can only be used with count nouns.
Mass nouns accompanied by edin obligatorily shift to count nouns; consider
(41).
(41) Az piex edin čaj.
I
drank one
tea
‘I drank one (cup of) tea.’
In this example, edin čaj refers to a discrete countable portion of tea or a
kind of tea (e.g. Ceylon tea), i.e., čaj is shifted from mass to count noun. In the
former case edin serves as a numeral, while in the latter case it is ambiguous
between a numeral and an indefinite determiner.
5 Conclusion
This paper had the aim of determining the status and the semantic contribution
of the indefiniteness marker edin in Bulgarian. I tested the hypothesis by
Friedman (1976) that Bulgarian edin is an indefinite article. According to Givón
(1981) and Heine (1997) numerals pass through different intermediate stages
before they become indefinite articles. At intermediate stages the marker of
Ljudmila Geist
indefinite reference can only be combined with referential NPs. It does not have
the status of an indefinite article but the status of an indefinite determiner. At the
terminal stage, the stage of the indefinite article, the indefiniteness marker can
also occur with non-referential NPs. The question was to what extent edin has
developed from the numeral through the stage of the indefinite determiner
towards the stage of the indefinite article on the integrated grammaticalization
scale of Givón (1981) and Heine (1997). The examination of edin has shown
that it has entirely achieved the stage of the indefinite determiner since it can be
used as a marker of discourse persistence or specificity with referential NPs.
However, it is not the terminal stage for edin but further development on the
grammaticalization scale towards the indefinite article was attested. Edin is
beginning to spread to non-referential uses, since it can occur with generic and
predicative phrases. However, unlike the indefinite articles in English and
German, edin cannot be used with non-referential NPs in the modal scope and
the scope of negation and cannot be combined with mass nouns without a
meaning shift. For this reason edin cannot yet be assessed as a “true” indefinite
article. Also formally edin does not behave as a “true” article since it is not
obligatory with NPs in argument positions. Bare NPs without edin can receive
an indefinite interpretation. If edin is added in argument NPs, it indicates
discourse persistence or specificity.
We also made some progress in deepening our understanding of relations
between various functions that indefiniteness markers may have in different
languages. I applied work on the grammaticalization and typology of indefinite
articles in which different functions of indefiniteness markers are seen as stages
in the process of grammaticalization. In this work the diachronic stages of
indefiniteness markers are represented on an implicational scale. However, the
diachronic stages can also be seen as synchronically available functions of
indefiniteness markers in an implicational hierarchy. This means that an
indefiniteness marker at a given stage may synchronically have the functions of
all the preceding stages. The findings concerning the current functions of edin in
Bulgarian led us to modify the implicational subscale proposed by Givón (1981)
for the stage of indefinite article. The resultant integrated scale can be
represented as below:
Bulgarian edin: The Rise of an Indefinite Article
(42) Stages and functions of markers of indefinite reference
the nuthe speci> the presentameral
tive marker > ficity >
marker
I.
numeral
II.
indefinite determiner
predicative
use
generic use
non-referential use in
> modal and
negative
scope
> the
generalized
article
III.
indefinite article
Bulgarian edin
On this scale the different functions which indefinite determiners may have
are represented in an implicational hierarchy. The box for Bulgarian edin
indicates its development status on the scale. The examination of more
languages is necessary to show whether this integrated scale has cross-linguistic
validity.
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