# All Slavic languages: Articles



## natasha2000

Hello, 

In another thread, a forero said that Macedonian and Bulgarian have articles. Since forero who claimed that doesn't have neither Macedonian nor Bulgarian in his profile as languages he speaks, I am a little bit suspicious, considering that as far as I know, no Slavic language has articles. Apart of that, the only Slavic language I can understand is Macedonian and Bulgarian, and I would say there are no articles whatsoever.

Now, do Macedonian and Bulgarian have articles or not?


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## alby

Hi
I tought the same but i have just find this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_%28grammar%29
and according to this link, Macedonian and Bulgarian have articles 
" Macedonian and Bulgarian share the pattern; for example, _drvo_ means "tree", while _drvoto_ means "the tree" (_durvo_ and _durvoto_ in Bulgarian)."

Nataša


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## natasha2000

alby said:
			
		

> Hi
> I tought the same but i have just find this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_%28grammar%29
> and according to this link, macedonian and bulgarian have articles
> " Macedonian and Bulgarian share the pattern; for example, _drvo_ means "tree", while _drvoto_ means "the tree" (_durvo_ and _durvoto_ in Bulgarian)."
> 
> Nataša


 
AAAAAAAAA...   That's why they put -to, -ta at the end of almost each word! So, it's article...

But... Woldn't it be demonstrative, rather than article, considering it is very similar to our taj, ta, to? And in S/C/B it is called demonstrative, and not article? 

Thanks for your answer...


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## alby

Hey... 
I'm a bit confused too, but articles are often made from demonstrative pronouns. Anyway, Macedonian would say *drvoTO *(the tree) and S/C/B would say *TO drvo *(that tree) wich would mean the same in conversation, atleast i think , but in the first case it's an article and in second one is demonstrative..!?

Nataša


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## natasha2000

Maybe their article has roots in our demonstrative? Or it was earlier demonstrative, which turned into article...!?


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## Outsider

Don't forget that Bulgarian is part of the Balcanic _Sprachbund_. The languages in that group have some unique characteristics, one of which is having a suffix for the definite article.


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## jester.

Sorry, I should have included links to Wikipedia when I said in the other thread that Bulgarian and Macedonian have articles.

You were right to be suspicious


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## natasha2000

j3st3r said:
			
		

> Sorry, I should have included links to Wikipedia when I said in the other thread that Bulgarian and Macedonian have articles.
> 
> You were right to be suspicious


 
 You got me red handed!!!! 

It's not that I don't believe you, its just that it looks so incredible....


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## natasha2000

Outsider said:
			
		

> Don't forget that Bulgarian is part of the Balcanic _Sprachbund_. The languages in that group have some unique characteristics, one of which is having a suffix for the definite article.


 
According to this link, Serbian is also in this group, and it doesn't have article at all.


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## Outsider

They say that Serbian Torlak (a dialect of Serbian?) does...
Of course, not all languages in the group have every characteristic that define it. For example, Greek has no postposed article, either.


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## jester.

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> You got me red handed!!!!
> 
> It's not that I don't believe you, its just that it looks so incredible....



Don't worry, I understand your situation perfectly well.


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## natasha2000

Outsider said:
			
		

> They say that Serbian Torlak (a dialect of Serbian?) does...
> Of course, not all languages in the group have every characteristic that define it. For example, Greek has no postposed article, either.


 
A kind of Serbian dialect, BUT......

Torlak is some kind of mixture among Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian. I do not understand it since it is more similar to Bulgarian than to Serbian I speak, i.e. standardized language. I would go even further and call it speech rather than dialect, since it is not standardized, and according to where their speakers live, it is called Serbian Torlak dialect or western Bulgarian dialect. Even their speakers do not belong to the same nation, but they can be characterized only as Slavs - Serbs Macedonians, or Bulgarians...

I would like to quote one thing more:



> Torlakian is now seen in Serbia—and to a degree in Macedonia and Bulgaria—*as an uneducated and provincial dialect of the dominant language*, and most Torlakian speakers have accepted Serbian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian as their cultural identities


 
Therefore, I would say it is very different from official Serbian, and the article thing came to this language through Macedonian and Bulgarian, and NOT through Serbian.


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## българин

Pozdravi  

Let my try and clear up some confusion. Yes, you guys are right. Bulgarian and Macedonian (which linguistically similar) differ from all other slavic languages in that they have lost their noun declension system (I beleive sometime in the Middle Ages) and have adopted the suffixed article. There are also some other characteristics but I'll just stick to the main topic. Let me give you an example:

Bulgarian: Чаша*та* е пълна. (The cup is full)
Macedonian: Чаша*та* е полна. 

Bulgarian: Български*ят* език. (The Bulgarian language)
Macedonian: Македонски*от *jазик. (The Macedonian language)

Bulgarian: Най-добри*ят* начин. ("the best way")
Macedonian: Наjдобри*от *начин.

Bulgarian: Организатори*те* на манифестация*та* очакват между гости*те* да бъде и директорът на училище*то*. 

Macedonian: Организатори*те* на манифестација*та* очекуваат меѓу гости*те* да биде и директор*от* на училиште*то*. 

(The organizers of the manifestation expect the school director to be among the guests) 

I think by now you've figured out that the bold letters indicate the definite article. 
те-plural 
та- feminine
ят, ът/от- masculine
то- neuter



As far as Torlakian (Турлашки) goes, one thing pops into my mind, Zona Zamfirova  Generally speaking, a person from western Bulgaria can understand it far better than someone from the eastern part. Although Torlakian is considered a dialect in both countries, we should strive to keep this linguistic richness of our languages.


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## natasha2000

Thank you, Bulgarian, for your explanation. I was always wondering why Bulgarians and Macedonians put that TE, TA, TO in almost all words that are the same or at least similar to Serbian ones... I would have never imagined it would be the article. One last question in respect to the articles: TE is plural both for feminine and masculine gender, as well as for neuter? From what you put, I understand that TA is feminine singular, OT would be masuline singular (sorry, don't have these Bulgarian letters, so I cannot write the Bulgarian article correctly), and TO neuter singular....

Zona Zamfirova is an excellent novel, but as I alrady said, I almost need a translation, since I can hardly understand it. It was very difficult for me to read it when I was at school...

Thanks again 
Cheers.


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## cajzl

IMHO it is rather a demonstrative enclitic (written together with the nouns) than a suffix.

In Czech we can also say: *Číše ta je plná.* = Чаша*та* е пълна.

BTW, all Slavic languages use the following demonstrative enclitics (in some form)

sing. *-jь , -ja, -je*
plur. -*ji, -je, -je*

dobrъ, dobra, dobro -> *dobrъjь, dobraja, dobroje*

*novaja kniga* is formally equivalent to the Bulgarian *novata kniga*
*novyje knigy* ...* novyte knigy*


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## Jana337

cajzl said:
			
		

> IMHO it is rather a demonstrative enclitic (written together with the nouns) than a suffix.
> 
> In Czech we can also say: *Číše ta je plná.* = Чаша*та* е пълна.


For learners: This is very poetic. You would sound stilted. I think I have never uttered it. 


> BTW, all Slavic languages use the following demonstrative enclitics
> 
> sing. *-j , -ja, -je*
> plur. -*ji, -je, -je*


So they are not simply endings? I have never thought of it this way!

But you say "*all* Slavic languages use the following demonstrative enclitics". I am in a quandary - what do we use in Czech? The -ta thingy above?



> dobrъ, dobra, dobro -> *dobrъj, dobraja, dobroje*


What's the difference between the first and the second group? 

Thanks, 

Jana


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## natasha2000

cajzl said:
			
		

> BTW, all Slavic languages use the following demonstrative enclitics
> 
> sing. *-j , -ja, -je*
> plur. -*ji, -je, -je*


 

All? Well I know three that don't have demonstrative enclitics.

Serbian
Croatian
Bosnian


Demonstratives go always in front of the noun, and as a separate word.


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## българин

natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Thank you, Bulgarian, for your explanation. I was always wondering why Bulgarians and Macedonians put that TE, TA, TO in almost all words that are the same or at least similar to Serbian ones... I would have never imagined it would be the article. One last question in respect to the articles: TE is plural both for feminine and masculine gender, as well as for neuter? From what you put, I understand that TA is feminine singular, OT would be masuline singular (sorry, don't have these Bulgarian letters, so I cannot write the Bulgarian article correctly), and TO neuter singular....
> 
> Zona Zamfirova is an excellent novel, but as I alrady said, I almost need a translation, since I can hardly understand it. It was very difficult for me to read it when I was at school...
> 
> Thanks again
> Cheers.


 

You're mostly correct, but I will add a table to summarize everything.

Bulgarian: 

masculine singular: ~ът and ~ят, човек*ът *and кра*ят* (the man, the end)
feminine singular: ~та, книга*та* (the book)
neuter singular: ~то, дърво*то* (the tree)
masculine and feminine plural: ~те, (мъже*те*, планини*те*) (the mountains, the men)
neuter plural: ~та, куче*та* (the dogs)

Now, there actually exist too forms of the definite article for masculine singular, complete and incomplete. The complete form is the one I wrote above, ~*ът*. This is used when writting. The incomplete form is ~*а*. This is used in spoken speech (partly because it's a bit difficult to pronounce the ~ът clearly when speaking, so we just say ~a). So, we have мъж*ът* in written form and мъж*а* in spoken form. Also, in masculine singular, words ending in й, the ~ят is used (край ---> краят). That's all. Not too difficult eh?
The only thing I have to say is that for plural nouns you need to be careful because you cannot add the definite article for the plural immediately. The noun has to be in its proper plural form first. There are some rules for forming plural nouns, but that's a different topic. For example, дете would change to plural деца. And "the children" would then be деца*та*.

Now in macedonian you have:

Masculine singular ~от
Feminine singular ~та 
Neuter singular ~то 
Masculine and Feminine plural ~те 
Neuter plural ~та 

Sometimes the *т* changes with *в* in order to specify distance. When the *т* is used, it is an unspecified distance. When the *в *is used it is a close distance. For example, 
книга*та* - the book 
книга*ва* - this book; the book over here 
книги*те* - the books 
книги*ве* - these books; the books over here


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## natasha2000

българин said:
			
		

> You're mostly correct, but I will add a table to summarize everything.
> 
> Bulgarian:
> 
> masculine singular: ~ът and ~ят, човек*ът *and кра*ят* (the man, the end)
> feminine singular: ~та, книга*та* (the book)
> neuter singular: ~то, дърво*то* (the tree)
> masculine and feminine plural: ~те, (мъже*те*, планини*те*) (the mountains, the men)
> neuter plural: ~та, куче*та* (the dogs)
> 
> Now, there actually exist too forms of the definite article for masculine singular, complete and incomplete. The complete form is the one I wrote above, ~*ът*. This is used when writting. The incomplete form is ~*а*. This is used in spoken speech (partly because it's a bit difficult to pronounce the ~ът clearly when speaking, so we just say ~a). So, we have мъж*ът* in written form and мъж*а* in spoken form. Also, in masculine singular, words ending in й, the ~ят is used (край ---> краят). That's all. Not too difficult eh?
> The only thing I have to say is that for plural nouns you need to be careful because you cannot add the definite article for the plural immediately. The noun has to be in its proper plural form first. There are some rules for forming plural nouns, but that's a different topic. For example, дете would change to plural деца. And "the children" would then be деца*та*.
> 
> Now in macedonian you have:
> 
> Masculine singular ~от
> Feminine singular ~та
> Neuter singular ~то
> Masculine and Feminine plural ~те
> Neuter plural ~та
> 
> Sometimes the *т* changes with *в* in order to specify distance. When the *т* is used, it is an unspecified distance. When the *в *is used it is a close distance. For example,
> книга*та* - the book
> книга*ва* - this book; the book over here
> книги*те* - the books
> книги*ве* - these books; the books over here


 
This is fascinating, Bulgarian!
I have spen almost all my life with those languages so near, and yet I haven't known anything about them, even though I uderstand it the best of all Slav languages... Thank you very much for this thorough explanation...


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## Juri

Interesting the theory enunciated by cajzl, about unconsciously use of demonstrative forms in everyday speech.I'm not a linguist, nevertheless I know the followiing examples in Slovene, are not appreciated in the litteral form, only in dialect.
"*Ta *dobre Bog vzame"(The good ones are taken/seized by God)
"*Ta* predsednik je boljši od prejšnjega"(This president is better then the former one) "*To *leto hiše ne bo dokončal"(He will not finish the house in
the present year) "Če bi me le *ta* glava nehala boleti!"(Fine,  if my headache would stop!)


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## Sofianec

While the postpositioned articles in BG/MK obviously evolved from the demonstratives, they are clearly fully fledged definite articles now. That is also why Bulgarians usually have no problem with articles in other ( European) languages, though there are some differences in use.

Romanian similarly has postpositioned articles, so do the Scandinavian languages.

I may be mistaken, but other Slavic languages simply cannot express the opposition definite/indefinite:

Чета книга/Чета книгата - I am reading a book/I am reading the book


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## janecito

I like your approach, cajzl.  I agree. Although I'm not sure if jь, ja, je indeed is a *demonstrative* (pronoun). It's true that the difference between the short and long form of adjective can be compared to the use of article in other languages (but only in meaning, probably not in etymology). I'm not sure though. The whole declination of the pronoun  jь, ja, je can still be observed in the declination of personal pronouns for the 3rd person (singular and plural). While the nominative forms of these personal pronouns derive from demonstrative pronouns onъ, ona, ono ... the rest of the cases use the forms of the pronoun  jь, ja, je (genitive for instance: jego, jej ipd.) unlike demonstrative pronoun onъ, ona, on that would have the genitive forms onego etc. And I think this can be observed in most modern Slavic languages:

Russian:
он, его, ему, его ...
она, её, ей, её ...
оно, его, ему ...
они, их, им ...

Polish
on, jego, jemu ...
ona, jej, jej
ono, jego, jemu ...

Slovene:
on, njega, njemu, njega ...
ona, nje, njej...
ono, njega, njemu ...
oni, njih, njim ...
one, njih, njim ...
ona, njih, njim ...

Nominative forms > from the demonstrative onъ, ona, ono
Other cases > from the pronoun  jь, ja, je

By the way, Slovene lost most of its short/long form adjective distinction (it is only preserved in nominative singular masculine – velik/veliki). And even in this case speakers nowadays make absolutly no distinction when using these two forms. I don't know how this is in other South Slavic languages.




			
				Jana337 said:
			
		

> What's the difference between the first and the second group?




I'm not sure, but I thing in Old Church Slavonic they very even called indefinite (dobrъ, dobra, dobro) and definite (dobrъj, dobraja, dobroje) form of adjective.




			
				natasha2000 said:
			
		

> Maybe their article has roots in our demonstrative? Or it was earlier demonstrative, which turned into article...!?


 

Definite articles in general derive from demonstrative pronoun. So, I'd say, the pronoun came first.  In the case of Bulgarian and Macedonian this is obvious because the forms of their articles are so preserved. But also in other languages. Latin demonstrative pronouns ille, illa, illum, for instance, developed into articles that we know in modern Romance languages (e.g. Spanish el, la, (lo)). I don't know much about Germanic languages, but I'm sure we could find common points in the etymology of THE and THIS.  This shouldn't really be surprising as the articles and demonstrative pronouns really have a very similar task – to define a noun. The demonstrative only adds something extra to the meaning (it tells you the relative location of the noun respective to the speaker). So if you say “ta kuća” instead of “kuća” (again, pardon me a possible misuse of ć  ), what you do is define *the* house. What must have happened in Bulgarian and Macedonian is that the demonstrative lost this extra meaning of localization, hence becoming a definite article.


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## tkekte

българин said:


> neuter plural: ~та, куче*та* (the dogs)


I thought кучета is simply the plural of куче. So it's just "dogs", and "the dogs" would be кучетата...


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## sokol

Juri said:


> Interesting the theory enunciated by cajzl, about unconsciously use of demonstrative forms in everyday speech.I'm not a linguist, nevertheless I know the followiing examples in Slovene, are not appreciated in the litteral form, only in dialect.
> "*Ta *dobre Bog vzame"(The good ones are taken/seized by God)
> "*Ta* predsednik je boljši od prejšnjega"(This president is better then the former one) "*To *leto hiše ne bo dokončal"(He will not finish the house in
> the present year) "Če bi me le *ta* glava nehala boleti!"(Fine,  if my headache would stop!)



Yes, Slovene dialects indeed do use articles but aren't included in the Slovene standard language as this use of articles is traced back to German influence.
Not all linguists do agree on that one, some think that reasons for the development of a (new) article in Slovene dialects lies within the Slovene language and is no interference from other language.

However, the fact that the use of articles in Slovene is discouraged still remains. It is a non-standard feature.


As for the Bulgarian and Macedonian (postponed) article, this is no 'Slavic' development (or at least not restricted to southeastern Slavic languages) but a feature of the 'Balkansprachenbund' which Wiki translates as 'Balkan sprachbund' into English and means just 'common features' of Balkanese languages:
- postponed article
- infinitive is avoided with phrasings like 'hoćeš da idem' instead of 'hoćeš iti' (and please excuse grammatical faults if I've made some)
- common loan words etc.

So, wherever Bulgarian and Macedonian article may have originated, it is not a genuinely Slavic article in origin.


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## OldAvatar

> Bulgarian: Чаша*та* е пълна. (The cup is full)
> Macedonian: Чаша*та* е полна



Interesting. This is very similar with Romanian too:
_Ceaşc*a* e plină._


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## Flaminius

Please find the discussion about tonal accent in South Slavic languages here.


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## MIODRAG

Even though not widespread,  the use of a demonstrative pronominal adjective as a _de facto_ definite article exists in (heir-languages to) Serbo-Croat.

The final "-(a)s", or rather originally "-ьс" in words such as "данас/danas" (day-this => today), "ноћас/noćas" (night-this => tonight), "вечерас/večeras" (this even[ing]), "јесенас/jesenas" (this autumn), "зимус/zimus" (this winter), "летос/l(j)etos" (this summer) is an example of this. 

It can be compared to Macedonian "годинава" (this year) as opposed to "годините" (those/the years).


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## Kanes

MIODRAG said:


> Even though not widespread,  the use of a demonstrative pronominal adjective as a _de facto_ definite article exists in (heir-languages to) Serbo-Croat.
> 
> The final "-(a)s", or rather originally "-ьс" in words such as "данас/danas" (day-this => today), "ноћас/noćas" (night-this => tonight), "вечерас/večeras" (this even[ing]), "јесенас/jesenas" (this autumn), "зимус/zimus" (this winter), "летос/l(j)etos" (this summer) is an example of this.
> 
> It can be compared to Macedonian "годинава" (this year) as opposed to "годините" (those/the years).



You don't understand the difference between articles and demonstated pronouns. It does not matter are they behind the word, those are still demonstrative pronouns and I think they imply "durring" in all your examples which would make them cases. The is not the same as This.

What you wrote on makedonian is wrong:
It's годината and it means (the year), not (this year)


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## Christo Tamarin

MIODRAG said:


> Even though not widespread, the use of a demonstrative pronominal adjective as a _de facto_ definite article exists in (heir-languages to) Serbo-Croat.


In all languages(?), there are demonstrative pronominal adjectives:


> English: this, these, that, those
> French: ce, cette, ces, cettes, etc.
> Russian: тот, та, .., этот, эта, etc.
> Polish: ten, ta, etc.
> etc.





Kanes said:


> You don't understand the difference between articles and demonstated pronouns.





alby said:


> I'm a bit confused too, but articles are often made from demonstrative pronouns. Anyway, Macedonian would say *drvoTO *(the tree) and S/C/B would say *TO drvo *(that tree) wich would mean the same in conversation, atleast i think , but in the first case it's an article and in second one is demonstrative..!?
> 
> Nataša


 
Definite articles are usually derived from demonstrative pronominals.

Most Slavic languages (including Serbo-Croatian) have no definite articles. 

In order some demonstrative pronominals to become definite articles, the language has to follow this rule: *If a demonstrative pronominal can be applied to a noun, then either apply it or apply the corresponding definite article*. 

Thus, in some context, you can say *to drvo *in Serbo-Croatian and you can say *това дърво* in Bulgarian and you can say *that tree* in English. Demonstrative pronominals are used in all the three languages. In some context, you can merely omit the demonstrative pronominal *to *in Serbo-Croatian and say just *drvo. *However, in English, in the same context, if you omit the demonstrative pronominal *that*, you *must* use the definite article in that context: *the tree*. The same is true for Bulgarian/Macedonian: if you omit the demonstrative pronominal *това*, you *must* use the definite article in that context: *дървото*. The key phrase is: you *must*. Otherwise, the meaning may be changed.

The position of the definite article in Bulgarian/Macedonian is inherited from Old Slavonic where the short demonstrative pronominals were enclitics. The Bulgarian/Macedonian (the Slavo-Balkanic language) has influenced Romanian (the Romano-Balkanic language) and possibly Albanian in relation to the postpositioned definite articles. 

The other Romance languages, Greek, English, German have pre-positioned definite articles. 



MIODRAG said:


> The final "-(a)s", or rather originally "-ьс" in words such as "данас/danas" (day-this => today), "ноћас/noćas" (night-this => tonight), "вечерас/večeras" (this even[ing]), "јесенас/jesenas" (this autumn), "зимус/zimus" (this winter), "летос/l(j)etos" (this summer) is an example of this.


These cases are related to the lexicology rather than to the morphology. Articles are not concerned. I have already mentioned the position of the short demonstrative pronominals in Old Slavonic. On the other hand, the above words are adverbs, they are not nouns, they cannot get adjectives. They are simply different words, I mean there is a word "ноћ" which is noun and you can say "добра ноћ", and there is another word "ноћас" (Bulgarian: "нощес") which is an adverb.



MIODRAG said:


> It can be compared to Macedonian "годинава" (this year) as opposed to "годините" (those/the years).





Kanes said:


> What you wrote on makedonian is wrong:
> It's годината and it means (the year), not (this year)


Let me introduce a term. You already know that all Romance languages (French, Spanich, etc), all Germanic languages (English, German, etc) and all Balkanic languages (Albanian, Greek, Slavo-Balkanic, Romano-Balkanic) have definite articles. Now, we can say that those languages are *arthromaniac*, or we can say that those languages have *arthromania*.

Some Slavo-Balkanic dialects (in FYRO-Macedonia, to the west of the Vardar river; as well as in the Rhodopes mountains in Bulgaria) have *extended arthromania. *They have three sets of definite articles expressing nearness, neutrality and distance: 

nearness: *годинава* (in the Rhodopes: *годинаса*) 
neutrality: *годината*
distance: *годинана*

The Standard Macedonian accepts the *extended arthromania*, the Standard Bulgarian does not.

So, Macedonian *годинава *should be translated into English as *this year*.


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## se16teddy

Christo Tamarin said:


> Now, we can say that those languages are *arthromaniac*, or we can say that those languages have *arthromania*.


 
Can we? Have you just made that word up, Christo? I can't find it in the Oxford English Dictionary or on Google.


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## sokol

se16teddy said:


> Can we? Have you just made that word up, Christo? I can't find it in the Oxford English Dictionary or on Google.


I don't know that term either (and I don't think that it is an accepted term in linguistics) but Christo obviously used the Greek word for "article - άρθρο" combined with "-mania".

The meaning anyway is rather clear as Christo explained it in his post above.

(On a sidenote, there's a total of 8 Google hits for "arthromania" - two of them referring to this thread and the rest not using it as a linguistic term.)


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## Diaspora

Officially Serbocroatian doesn't have articles but in reality there is a three-way demonstrative pronoun system which serve as primitive articles, they are inflected for gender, number and case. Maybe the language will evolve and one can choose to look at it as pronouns or articles.

Examples: 
"Uvela ti duša ta". from the song Zvijezda tjera mjeseca

Ej, stvarno ti je to auto dobro!

Plus the accusative ending of some nouns is related to Bulgarian article -a.

Vidim čovjeka.


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## jazyk

Czech officially doesn't have articles, either, but I keep hearing the demonstratives ten, to, ta everywhere to exhaustion that I think we could (at least tentatively) say that Czech does have articles after all.


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## SweetCherry

I could have died not learning that some of the Slavic languages have articles.
Am I shocked... or am I shocked?! 
Duya, thank you very much for your explanation about the use of accent in order to express definite/indefinite form of nouns.
This form is known by the certain name in Serbian grammar
(mlad covek - mladi covek), but it has been a long time, so I leave it to someone with more knowledge to explain. 
Now, here is my question to all of you who say that certain forms in Bulgarian, Macedonian etc. are containing articles.
Why are you saying *articles*?
Is there a group of words in the grammars of these languages that is known by that name?
Or is it simply that certain suffixes (added to a noun) are used to express definite/indefinite form of the noun?
In Serbian, there is definitely no word group known as articles, but there are ways to express definite/indefinite form of nouns, one of them is the one that Duya mentioned, another one is by using/not using definite *pronouns* _(taj, ta, to, ovaj, ova, ovo...)._


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## Anatoli

This question has been answered in the first posts. Why is it coming back again?

Look for *definite article*:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_grammar
Look for *definiteness*:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_grammar

There are only 2 Slavic languages with definite articles: Bulgarian and Macedonian (they are very close and mutually comprehensible). The definite articles work as suffixes, attached to the end of the word. There are no indefinite articles. The indefiniteness is expressed by an absence of the article.


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## Christo Tamarin

Christo Tamarin said:


> Let me introduce a term. You already know that all Romance languages (French, Spanich, etc), all Germanic languages (English, German, etc) and all Balkanic languages (Albanian, Greek, Slavo-Balkanic, Romano-Balkanic) have definite articles. Now, we can say that those languages are *arthromaniac*, or we can say that those languages have *arthromania*.





se16teddy said:


> Can we? Have you just made that word up, Christo? I can't find it in the Oxford English Dictionary or on Google.



I think that the casus was explained: the term *arthromania *was introduced by me and it was given a definition. Thus, it can be merely used in the discussion here. However, in order to use that term in another discussion, it is to be defined there again.


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## Christo Tamarin

Diaspora said:


> Plus the accusative ending of some nouns is related to Bulgarian article -a.



That is not true. 

The Bulgarian article *-a* is just an abbreviation of the article *-ът* having omitted the final *-т*. This topic is related just to the orthography. 

*Note 1*: The rule for differentiating the use of the articles  *-ът* and  *-а* is totally unnatural, it is just forced by scholars in their attempts to violate the language. Moreover, that rule is always ignored in the speech and usually ignored in writing as well. In particular, that rule is an internal affair and it is to be ignored outside Bulgaria.

*Note 2*: In Bulgarian, on the other hand, there is an archaic accusative ending  *-a* along with an archaic dative ending *-у (-u)* that may be applied to a class of nouns.


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## Christo Tamarin

SweetCherry said:


> Duya, thank you very much for your explanation about the use of accent in order to express definite/indefinite form of nouns.
> This form is known by the certain name in Serbian grammar
> (mlad covek - mladi covek), but it has been a long time, so I leave it to someone with more knowledge to explain.
> Now, here is my question to all of you who say that certain forms in Bulgarian, Macedonian etc. are containing articles.
> Why are you saying *articles*?
> Is there a group of words in the grammars of these languages that is known by that name?
> Or is it simply that certain suffixes (added to a noun) are used to express definite/indefinite form of the noun?
> In Serbian, there is definitely no word group known as articles, but there are ways to express definite/indefinite form of nouns, one of them is the one that Duya mentioned, another one is by using/not using definite *pronouns* _(taj, ta, to, ovaj, ova, ovo...)._



Perhaps, every language allows definiteness and/or indefiniteness to be expressed in some way. 

Arthromaniac languages go further: expressing definiteness and/or indefiniteness is obligatory. E.g., in German, you must say *das Mädchen* (if definite) or *ein Mädchen* (if indefinite) in Singular. You must always express if the *girl* is definite or indefinite: you are not allowed to rely on the context. You cannot say just *Mädchen*: it would be the indefinite plural form (the definite plural form is *die Mädchen*). And this is in addition to the demonstrative pronominals: you still can say *dieses Mädchen *(this girl) or*diese Mädchen* (these girls) to express definiteness. However, please pay attention: you cannot simply omit *diese(s)* - you must replace it with an article (*das/**die*). That's why German is arthromaniac, unlike Serbian and most other Slavic languages.


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## sokol

Christo Tamarin said:


> You cannot say just *Mädchen*: it would be the indefinite plural form (the definite plural form is *die Mädchen).*


Well you can actually when addressing a person (in which case it would be automatically definite, and not indefinite) - like "Mädchen, kommst du bitte mal?" which is not a very idiomatic sentence, but it works perfectly with: "Fräulein, könnten Sie mir bitte helfen?"

But apart from that you're of course basically right. 

In Slovene, in those dialects which *do *use article (standard language only has definiteness in adjectives as explained already, but no articles), the use of article is rather unsystematic - sometimes article is used and sometimes not; but as far as I know use of article is never obligatory in those dialects: so yes, it seems that the article of those Slovene dialects isn't nearly as fixed grammatically as it is in German.


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## phosphore

I don't really understand how you prove that use of articles is mandatory in a language: for example, both English and French has articles but they use it quite differently.

Could someone tell us when, historically, were articles grammaticalised in Bulgarian?


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## Christo Tamarin

phosphore said:


> I don't really understand how you prove that use of articles is mandatory in a language:





> Yesterday, I saw *a* blond girl driving a red car. Today, I saw *the* girl driving *a* blue car. I saw also *the *red car driven by *a* brunette this time.





> J'ai vu hier *une* blonde dans *une* auto rouge. Aujourd'hui, j'ai vue *la* blonde dans *une* auto bleue. J'ai vue aussi *l*'auto rouge avec *une* brunette dedans.





> Вчера я увидел блондинку за рулём красной машины. Сегодня блондинка сидела за рулём машины голубого цвета, а за рулём красной машины сидела брюнетка.


We cannot omit the articles in English neither can we in French: definiteness and/or indefiniteness must be expressed explicitely. We cannot rely on the context for that. English and French are arthromaniac.

In Russian, definiteness and/or indefiniteness can be merely implied by the context. Russian (Polish, Serbo-Croatian, etc) is not arthromaniac.



phosphore said:


> For example, both English and French has articles but they use it quite differently.


The above example shows that the usage of articles in English and French agree in the basic cases. In some special cases, they do differ. In some special cases, there are differences in the usage of articles even inside the Romanophonia: *ma mère* (French) vs. *la mia madre *(Italian).



phosphore said:


> Could someone tell us when, historically, were articles grammaticalised in Bulgarian?



Bulgarian caught the arthromania as a member of the Balkan sprachbund, not earlier than 10th century. On the other hand, Bulgarian should have caught the arthromania early enough. And respectively, the articles should have been grammaticalised early enough. This is because we need the article *-та* already grammaticalised for feminine nouns (жената, водата) and then applied to all a-stemmed nouns (*владиката*, *воеводата*). When Turkish came to Balkans (15th century approx.), the grammaticalisation of articles should be already finished because massive a-stemmed loanwords took the article *-та*: *чорбаджията*, *завалията*, etc.


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## phosphore

I do not think your example works. The direct translation from Russian to Serbian would be:

_Јуче сам видео плавушу за воланом црвеног аутомобила. Данас је плавуша седела за воланом плавог аутомобила, а за воланом црвеног аутомобила седела је бринета._

However, it sounds highly unnatural to me, if not ungrammatical. I would rather say:

_Јуче сам видео *неку* плавушу како вози црвен аутомобил. Данас је *та* плавуша возила плав аутомобил, а *онај* црвен*и* је возила *нека* бринета._

Serbian definitely has no articles but in this case you have to express definiteness or undefinitess somehow and in all the same cases as in French or English.


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## WannaBeMe

cajzl said:


> I wanted to say that the majority of the Slavs uses _unconsciously_ the demonstrative enclitic in their speech. Only the Bulgarians use it consciously, but they replaced the *jь, ja, je* by *tъ, ta, to.*
> 
> BTW it is not a theory, the demonstrative pronoun *jь, ja, je* existed in OCS (in some form; and in Old Czech: *jen, jě, je*) and meant *ten, ta, to* (this, the). Thus the Proto-Slavic *dobra-ja voda* meant _*the* good water_.



You know, you are right but in preslavonic it was a personal pronoun which stem from Indoeuropean personal pronoun for he,she,it. If you compare it with Latin or Sankskrit or Baltic languages you will see a big similarity.

And according to Bugarian and Macedonian this particle hasnt been replaced its been added to it.

DOBRI+OT ČOVEK and not DOBER+OT čovek, you see?


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## sokol

Moderator note:

This is an old thread - but with the vivid new discussion about definiteness of Slavic adjectives we finally thought it is better to split these topics:

- in this thread here, please continue to discuss *articles *of Bulgarian and Macedonian and those Slavic languages which have adopted articles in colloquial speech (like some Slovene dialects, as mentioned above);

- in the new thread *definitiveness of adjectives.*

Unfortunately, some posts referred to both topics and when splitting I had to make a choice.  (And I only can hope that I chose well.)

Thanks for your understanding!
Cheers
sokol
moderator


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## Ukrainito

In modern Eastern Slavic languages, the indefiniteness is often expressed using the numeral "one" (as we know, practically all European languages have their indefinite articles that evolved from the numeral "one"). However, the Russian/Ukrainian/Belarusian "one" is never officially identified as "the indefinite article" and its use isn't compulsory to express indefiniteness, so to speak.

Russ. *У меня есть один друг, который....*
Ukr. *У мене є один друг, який...*
Transl. *I have one friend who...* (i.e. *I have a friend who...*)

Re. the definiteness, it's almost exclusively expressed using the demonstrative pronouns (Russ. *этот, тот*; Ukr. *цей, той*). Interestingly, in Modern Russian (both colloquial and literary) you're likely to come across the de-facto definite article *-то* used in postposition (exactly like in Bulgarian).

e.g.
Russ. *Море-то тёплое*
Bulg. *Морето е топло*
Eng. *The sea is warm.*

This *-то* is indeed viewed by many Russian linguists as the definite article. However, it's unlikely to be called so in school grammar books partly because its use isn't compulsory to express definiteness. 

The *"-то article"* or something of that sort isn't found in Modern Ukrainian.


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## Sobakus

This -то isn't an article in any way: it isn't obligatory, it doesn't mark definiteness, it can be used with pronouns. It is an intensive particle only. "Море-то тёплое" doesn't mean "The sea is warm", it means "() sea is actually warm" and implies you thought it wasn't.


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## WannaBeMe

Sobakus said:


> This -то isn't an article in any way: it isn't obligatory, it doesn't mark definiteness, it can be used with pronouns. It is an intensive particle only. "Море-то тёплое" doesn't mean "The sea is warm", it means "() sea is actually warm" and implies you thought it wasn't.


I agree with you.


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## Ukrainito

Sobakus said:


> This -то isn't an article in any way: it isn't obligatory, it doesn't mark definiteness, it can be used with pronouns. It is an intensive particle only. "Море-то тёплое" doesn't mean "The sea is warm", it means "() sea is actually warm" and implies you thought it wasn't.



You're SO wrong.


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## Sobakus

Ukrainito said:


> You're SO wrong.


Elaborate, please.


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## Provensalstinar

As you probably know, except for Bulgarian and Macedonian, no standard Slavic language uses definite article regularly. Lately, however, I have often observed in Czech, that many people, including educated speakers in very formal speech, overuse demonstrative pronouns ("ten, ta, to, ti, ty, ta") in a way very close to the definite article.

E. g.: _Všechny *ty* knihy jsou o *tom* životě *těch *lidí za *té *války.
(All the books are about the life of the people during the war.)_

None of these pronouns is used reasonably - all of them are mere articles. I think it was not used before nineties.

What about other Slavic languages? Is there any similar tendency? 

Thanks for answers.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Here's an interesting article on the word *ta*, which can function as an adjectival definite article in colloquial Slovenian:

http://www.ung.si/~rzaucer/papers/MarusicZaucer-2007-Adjectival-definite-article-in-Slo.pdf [PDF format)

Furthermore, the words meaning "one" (*ena, ena, eno*) frequently function as indefinite articles in colloquial Slovenian.

Also, the Resian dialect of Slovenian -- a standardized form of the language spoken in a few remote Italian valleys -- has fully fledged articles: *te* (definite) and *din* (indefinite).

None of these forms exist in standard Slovenian.


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## swintok

Christo Tamarin said:


> We cannot omit the articles in English neither can we in French: definiteness and/or indefiniteness must be expressed explicitely. We cannot rely on the context for that. English and French are arthromaniac.
> 
> Good as a general rule, but not entirely accurate.  There is no plural indefinite article in English.  The absence of the definite article indicates "indefiniteness." For example, in the phrase "Girls just want to have fun," the lack of an article implies that the phrase refers to all girls.
> 
> 
> 
> Ukrainito said:
> 
> 
> 
> In modern Eastern Slavic languages, the indefiniteness is often expressed using the numeral "one" (as we know, practically all European languages have their indefinite articles that evolved from the numeral "one"). However, the Russian/Ukrainian/Belarusian "one" is never officially identified as "the indefinite article" and its use isn't compulsory to express indefiniteness, so to speak.
> 
> Russ. *У меня есть один друг, который....*
> Ukr. *У мене є один друг, який...*
> Transl. *I have one friend who...* (i.e. *I have a friend who...*)
> 
> I would argue that the use of *один* implies "definiteness" rather than "indefiniteness" since you are emphasising that this applies only to one single friend and does not apply to other friends.  If you say simply *У мене друг, який... *you are also talking about one friend in particular, but not excluding the possibility that this might apply also to other friends.
Click to expand...


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## koskon

A little bit of the definite and indefinite article in Bulgarian. Somebody said that a is interchangable with ЪТ. This is so wrong. The form A is used when it is not subject and when it is in front of a conj. For instance: Попитах човекА (not човекът). Meaning I asked the man. Man here is OBJECT and not Subject. When it is SUBJECT or after the verb съм (be) we use the complete form. Човекът ме попита. Аз съм докторът. (The man asked me. Here man is subject and not object). The second sentence means: I am the doctor. It is the full form because of the verb SUM. In addition, the full form is NOMINATIVE (because it is subject), the indefinite form is ACCUSATIVE (because it is object). It is mistaken by many bulgarians such as BULGARIAN. It is still considered as a big mistake.


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## FairOaks

And here we go again with that full article nonsense.
Попитах човек(ът/а). / Човек(ът/а) (го) попитах.
Човек(ът/а) ме попита. / Попита ме човек(ът/а).
Кравата я открадна разбойник(ът/а) от с. Ощава. / Разбойник(ът/а) от с. Ощава открадна кравата.
Подлози, допълненийца, алимити-балимити…


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## koskon

Това, че не можеш да научиш едно просто правило за членовете в бълг. език не е мой проблем. Ако искаш си комуникирай с мимики, но в бълг. език има ПРАВИЛА..........


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## FairOaks

Кой мерзък зложелател ти е подшушнал, че точно това измислено правилце не мога да го науча? Въобще, откъде си толкоз сигурен какво съм усвоил и какво не? Някакъв изпит ли съм положил съвсем несъзнателно при теб, непознати доценте?
А това, че ти не умееш да отделяш със запетаи елементарни подчинени изречения, не е пък моя грижа. Също така не съм приритал да изписвам с главни букви всяка десета дума. Като гледам колко… красноречиво се изразяваш писмено, май-май тъкмо на теб приляга жестомимичният език.


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## koskon

Първо, някъде да съм казал, че си полагал някакъв изпит при мене??? Аз ти казвам, че е грешка да се заменя пълен определит. член с неопределителен. Това е форум и пунктуационните првила не са толкова важни....


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## FairOaks

Изпита действително не си го споменал, но пък наперено заяви, че не мога да науча правилото, макар да е просто. Като ми се напише черно на бяло, че нещо не го мога, точно това и предполагам, че се има предвид. Колкото до другото — мисля, че препинателните знаци са също толкова важни, колкото и разни изкуствени и безполезни членни форми, несъблюдавани от кажи-речи никого.


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## koskon

Извинявам се, ако съм по някакъв начин те обидил. Темата все пак в края на краищата е за членовете в бълг. език, а не за пунктуацията. За останалото си прав.


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## TriglavNationalPark

*MOD NOTE: Just a quick reminder: For the benefit of other foreros, please use English in this thread devoted to all Slavic languages. If you would prefer to use Bulgarian, please open a new thread for that purpose. Also, please keep the conversation civil (for instance, avoid referring to other foreros' posts as "nonsense").*


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## Borin3

AAAAAAAA...  That's why they put -to, -ta at the end of almost each word! So, it's article.. 

These to, ta that are put at the end of the words without clear reason are just the Mongolian influence on both Bulgarian and Macedonian languages, dating back to avaric,bulgaric  and other invasions. Some eastern Russians also have this fenomena.


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## Awwal12

Anatoli said:


> There are only 2 Slavic languages with definite articles


Many North Russian dialects also have a similar phenomenon, which originated independently in the early north-eastern dialects around the XV century or so. The most well-known written source which includes that feature is Avvakum's books from the mid XVII century.
However, it's not quite the same as Bulgarian and Macedonian "articles", and many scholars refuse them the status of proper definite markers (although it's the closest thing that Russian has, anyway).
Also that should not be mixed with the standard Russian "-то" emphatic particle, which was mentioned above. It apparently has similar origin, but it's purely emphatic, has no gender forms and isn't declinable.


Borin3 said:


> are just the Mongolian influence on both Bulgarian and Macedonian languages, dating back to avaric,bulgaric and other invasions.


Martian influence, more likely.
Seriously, that feature in Bulgarian and Macedonian clearly comes from the Balkan sprachbund (compare various markers of definiteness in Romanian and Greek), and Mongols are quite innocent in it (as long as you won't prove the opposite).


Borin3 said:


> Some eastern Russians also have this fenomena.


"Eastern Russians" is pretty misleading in this context. I doubt that Rostov, Vologda or Nizhniy Novgorod (which indeed represent the eastern part of the primary Russian dialects) ever were somehow closer to Mongols in any aspect than Ryazan or Tula, and direct Mongolian influence on the Russian language is almost non-existant anyway. Even those few Mongolian loanwords that Russian possesses either have come through Turkic languages or represent rather late loans (mostly from Kalmyk: доха, сапсан etc.).


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## ahvalj

Speaking of the substrate influence onto Russian, the definite declension formed by a postpositive particle (the former pronoun) is also present in Mordovian (Erzyan and Mokshan) languages. For example, the Erzyan indefinite case forms for "house" _kudo_ (Nom.), _kudonʲ_ (Gen.), _kudonʲenʲ_ (Dat.), _kudodo_ (Ablative), _kudoso_ (Inessive), _kudosto_ (Elative) etc. have definite counterparts _kudo-sʲ_ (Nom.), _kudo-n-tʲ_ (Gen.), _kudontʲenʲ_ (Dat.), _kudodo-ntʲ_ (Ablative), _kudoso-ntʲ_ (Inessive) and _kudosto-ntʲ_ (Elative). No other languages of the region seem to have such forms, only Mordovian and north Russian.

Finnic languages were once spoken across virtually all the territory occupied in the Middle Ages by north Russian dialects (e. g. the green areas in this map of the 3–4th century archeological cultures: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/East_europe_3-4cc.png vs. the orange areas in the Russian dialectal map http://cdn.fishki.net/upload/post/201502/09/1421624/589297c496bd92115a5ae6ded096bed8.png) and one of two Mordovian nations, the Erzyans, are genetically closer to East and West Slavs than to any of their neighbors (the green areas here: http://генофонд.рф/wp-content/uploads/Ris.-5.28.jpg from http://генофонд.рф/?page_id=5500 see also Erzyans). So, it is not impossible that some kind of interference occurred in the centuries around the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia in the upper Volga region, the interference that resulted, in particular, in the development of the definite article in the speech of both groups. The three languages are now also pretty close phonetically (Erzyan and Mokshan radio records: Вайгель).

*P. S.* It appears that Turkic, Mongolian and Tungussic languages not only lack postpositive articles, but don't have any morphological ways to express definiteness altogether. Thus, they hardly could have influenced the formation of Bulgarian/Albanian/Romanian and Mordovian/Russian articles.

*P. P. S.* The north Russian definite Nominative Singular of masculine nouns of the 2nd declension looks like _столот, мужикот,_ which suggests that it emerged before the fall of the yers, that is to the 12th century these compounds had already existed (even if as non-grammaticalized constructions).


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> Speaking of the substrate influence onto Russian, the definite declension formed by a postpositive particle (the former pronoun) is also present in Mordovian (Erzyan and Mokshan) languages. For example, the Erzyan indefinite case forms for "house" _kudo_ (Nom.), _kudonʲ_ (Gen.), _kudonʲenʲ_ (Dat.), _kudodo_ (Ablative), _kudoso_ (Inessive), _kudosto_ (Elative) etc. have definite counterparts _kudo-sʲ_ (Nom.), _kudo-n-tʲ_ (Gen.), _kudontʲenʲ_ (Dat.), _kudodo-ntʲ_ (Ablative), _kudoso-ntʲ_ (Inessive) and _kudosto-ntʲ_ (Elative). No other languages of the region seem to have such forms, only Mordovian and north Russian.


They are normally called Mordvin(ic) languages.


ahvalj said:


> So, it is not impossible that some kind of interference occurred in the centuries around the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia in the upper Volga region


Not impossible, but, sadly, absolutely not provable either.

I also must stress that East Slavs have come into proper contact with the modern Mordvinic peoples rather late; although the chronicles mention a lot of Finnic tribes, Mordva is first mentioned only under 1103, if I am not mistaken. Even though Mordvinic languages do have several loanwords from Old Russian, it's incomparable with the amount of later (XVI-XX сс.) influences, while earlier loanwords are predominantly Turkic. I'd think about Muroma in the first place, who have left Mordvinic toponymics as well and were assimilated rather early (mentioned as a political entity in retrospective only, and its archaeological culture disappears around the XI century already). However, that creates a problem of the rather large time interval between the assimilation of Muroma and the first appearance of the postpositive definite markers in written sources. Plus Muroma was a rather small tribal union compared to, say, Merya - who, however, apparently were Mari-speaking.

Generally, I struggle to see how definiteness might be an area phenomenon, if that particular area seemingly did NOT represent a tight group of interconnected languages by the postulated moment. It looks more like a loan, either from a substrate or from a superstrate. The first hypothesis rises some questions mentioned above. The second is also far from being perfect, taking into account that in Mordvinic languages the definiteness represents a fully developed, finished cathegory, unlike in the North Russian dialects we know.

The correlation looks interesting, but I absolutely don't see a possibility to draw some solid conclusions from it.


ahvalj said:


> It appears that Turkic, Mongolian and Tungussic languages not only lack postpositive articles, but don't have any morphological ways to express definiteness altogether. Thus, they hardly could have influenced the formation of Bulgarian/Albanian/Romanian and Mordovian/Russian articles.


Although Mongolian influence is extremely unlikely for sure , this argument is hardly relevant. If you loan some syntactical cathegory like definiteness, it's absolutely not necessary to express it the same way as in the source language; more likely, you'll find some means in your own language.


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## ahvalj

Awwal12 said:


> They are normally called Mordvin(ic) languages.


I know: the variant _Mordovian, _which does exist too, just appears somewhat more euphonic to me.



Awwal12 said:


> Not impossible, but, sadly, absolutely not provable either.


Agree. Yet when two contiguous languages develop some feature that separates them from all their neighbors, this raises suspicions that this is not totally casual. I don't draw any solid conclusions, just point to that in both cases when a Slavic idiom has postposed definite articles, some neighbor language of a different group possesses it as well, which may be suggestive or not.



Awwal12 said:


> I also must stress that East Slavs have come into proper contact with the modern Mordvinic peoples rather late; although the chronicles mention a lot of Finnic tribes, Mordva is first mentioned only under 1103, if I am not mistaken. Even though Mordvinic languages do have several loanwords from Old Russian, it's incomparable with the amount of later (XVI-XX сс.) influences. I'd think about Muroma in the first place, who have left Mordvinic toponymics as well and were assimilated rather early (mentioned as a political entity in retrospective only, and its archaeological culture disappears around the XI century already). However, that creates a problem of the rather large time interval between the assimilation of Muroma and the first appearance of the postpositive definite markers in written sources. Plus Muroma was a rather small tribal union compared to, say, Merya - who, however, apparently were Mari-speaking.


I am not aware of any positive evidence about the languages of Muroma and Merya and about the time of their final disappearance. In all probability they were Finnic, but that's virtually all we know for sure. I am also not aware of any written sources reflecting the north-eastern East Slavic speech of the first half of the second millennium. As an example that this is important: the very particular north Krivichian dialect casually recovered from excavated birch bark manuscripts left only faint traces in the official texts of Novgorod and Pskov origin.

Speculating in the framework of the above hypothesis, we may conjecture that the definite declension arose in the area of Russian/Volgaic contacts (perhaps Slavic being the source of this phenomenon) and spread to Mordovian from the then-spoken related languages of the upper Volga.



Awwal12 said:


> Generally, I struggle to see how definiteness might be an area phenomenon, if that particular area seemingly did NOT represent a tight group of interconnected languages by the postulated moment. It looks more like a loan, either from a substrate or from a superstrate. The first hypothesis rises some questions mentioned above. The second is also far from being perfect, taking into account that in Mordvinic languages the definiteness represents a fully developed, finished cathegory, unlike in the North Russian dialects we know.


It is not quite developed since it is formed somewhat differently in both Mordovian languages and in different case forms (the definite particle gets attached sometimes before the ending, sometimes after it: cp. the Erzyan Elative Singular _kudo-sto-ntʲ_ vs. Plural _kudo-__t-__nʲe__-ste: _it is inserted between the Plural marker _-t-_ and the Elative marker _-stO_), and in Mokshan only three cases (Nom. Gen. and Dat.) have separate definite declension. Overall, being agglutinating languages, Mordovian have less structural limitations for introducing new elements to the paradigm: they already had the personal declension (my/thy/his/our etc.), and the definite particle just replaced in the Singular the personal marker: compare _kudo-sto-ntʲ_ "from the house" and _kudo-sto-n_ "from my house(s)", _kudo-sto-t_ "from your house(s)", _kudo-sto-nzo_ "from his house(s)" etc. That was much more difficult in the inflectional Russian grammar (though it did happen some centuries before, in the compound adjectives: _nova-jego, novu-jemu_ etc.).



Awwal12 said:


> Although Mongolian influence is extremely unlikely for sure , this argument is hardly relevant. If you loan some syntactical cathegory like definiteness, it's absolutely not necessary to express it the same way as in the source language; more likely, you'll find some means in your own language.


Practice shows that grammatical calques are often as literal as possible. The brain is lazy. Compare for example the spoken Slovene _en _and _ta, _which calque the German _ein _and _der._



Awwal12 said:


> Which doesn't help us a lot. In fact, if the reduplication in тътъ didn't happen, we very well could have a pronoun "от" by now.


Don't get your argument. _Столот _is the direct phonetic outcome of_ столътъ_ like _днесь_ is of _дьньсь._ Other Slavic languages either vocalize _ъ_ (Slovene _ta_), or add _-jь_ (Belarusian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian _той_), or do both (Serbo-Croatian _taj_), or add _-enъ_ (West Slavic). None has _**ot._


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> Don't get your argument.


Nevermind, I've deleted it already. It could work if the demonstratives would be typically postpositional, but in Old Russian they were typically prepositional, of course.


ahvalj said:


> Practice shows that grammatical calques are often as literal as possible. The brain is lazy.


Sure thing. But if you simply cannot calque the source literally, the brain will have some work to do anyway. "En" and "ta" look like half-loanwords already, not like mere calques.


ahvalj said:


> It is not quite developed since it is formed somewhat differently in both Mordovian languages


And now it's me who cannot get the argument. The noun cases in Slavic languages also have developed differently. Does that mean that the Slavic cases don't represent a well-formed grammatical cathegory? I doubt that.


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## ahvalj

Mokshan has twelve cases, and the definite declension has separate forms for only three of them; the place of the definite particle is varying in the paradigm (this is extremely rare cross-linguistically); some Erzyan dialects have _-stʲ _vs. _-ntʲ _codified in the standard language: all this rather resembles an emerging category. The variability found in the Slavic declension is of a different nature: the structural elements are in their places since the Proto-Indo-European times (and the number of fully developed cases has not increased since then) — what we find is the different phonetic evolution and the different choice of parallel endings.


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## Hachi25

ahvalj said:


> Compare for example the spoken Slovene _en _and _ta, _which calque the German _ein _and _der._



Do you have any examples of this? I know the usage, but I would like to see how exactly are _en _and _ta_ calqued from _ein _and _der. _

The first reason I ask is that the usage of the the word for 'number one' or a word derived from that word (in this case _en_) as indefinite article or emphatic particle in spoken word is relatively common among all Slavic languages. It may be a Germanic influence in Slovenian, but then again it may not. And _ta_ is simply an emphatic particle and it doesn't follow the same usage pattern as German definite articles. For example, it is not declensed and it can be used when an adjective follows after, you can't put it directly before a noun. It is derived from a demonstrative pronoun, but, again, the emphatic usage of demonstrative pronouns is a common practice among Slavic languages.


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## ahvalj

Hachi25 said:


> Do you have any examples of this? I know the usage, but I would like to see how exactly are _en _and _ta_ calqued from _ein _and _der. _
> 
> The first reason I ask is that the usage of the the word for 'number one' or a word derived from that word (in this case _en_) as indefinite article or emphatic particle in spoken word is relatively common among all Slavic languages. It may be a Germanic influence in Slovenian, but then again it may not. And _ta_ is simply an emphatic particle and it doesn't follow the same usage pattern as German definite articles. For example, it is not declensed and it can be used when an adjective follows after, you can't put it directly before a noun. It is derived from a demonstrative pronoun, but, again, the emphatic usage of demonstrative pronouns is a common practice among Slavic languages.


No, unfortunately I can't provide examples: I just recall having read several times over the years that the use of these words in spoken Slovene was shaped by the Slovene-German bilingualism (this was of course written in more details). Right now the only thing I have found in the literature I have at hand is the following citation from _[Routledge language family descriptions] · 1993 · The Slavonic languages: _411:


> The use of _en _and _ta_, which in many respects act as indefinite article and definite article respectively, is, however, not encouraged in the written literary norm, and is limited in spoken standard Slovene also



East Slavic is much more limited in its use of article-like words: the word "one" more often conveys the meaning of the English "some", and the counterparts of the definite article are simply absent in the standard languages and in many dialects. Actually, it is very difficult, at least for Russian speakers, to master the opposition of definiteness in the foreign languages as the mother tongue doesn't provide any solid basis for it.


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## Panceltic

Hachi25 said:


> Do you have any examples of this?



I can provide some examples:

- *Ena* ženska bi rada govorila s tabo. (*A* woman would like to speak to you.)
- Jutri imam dva izpita. *Ta* prvega bom naredil, *ta* drugega bom pa padel. (I have two exams tomorrow. I will pass *the* first one, but fail *the* second one.)
- Naj zmaga *ta* najboljši. (Let *the* best win.)
- Če se hočeš voziti naokrog, si moraš najprej kupiti *en* avto. (If you want to drive around, you have to buy *a* car first.)

You are right that "ta" is not declensed, but it was not the case in the older stages of the language. From Trubar's translation (1550s) of the gospels: "V'*tim* začetku je bila *ta* Beseda...", "Le-tu so *te* bukvi od *tiga* rojstva Jesusa Christusa ...", "Inu on pokliče *te* dvanajst suje jogre k'sebi ..." In these cases, I think it is a rather obvious calque from German.


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