# All Slavic languages: Бил бил бил Бил (Bulgarian)



## lordwings

How would people from the other slavic countries understand a phrase like this:

"Бил бил бил Бил."

(The phrase is in bulgarian rennarative mood, the last word is the english name Bill )


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## ilocas2

lordwings said:


> How would people from the other slavic countries understand a phrase like this:
> 
> "Бил бил бил Бил."
> 
> (The phrase is in bulgarian rennarative mood, the last word is the english name Bill )



White plant was beating Bill


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## Duya

Wild guessing: _I would have beaten Bill_? ???


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## lordwings

Well, in fact it means "He (someone) said that (he has heard that) he (assuming someone else) has beaten Bill" though I was wondering how would it sound for speakers of other slavic languages, because the meaning of the word "bil" is quite different with each repetition.


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## Duya

Well, I kind of guessed which lexemes are involved, but they simply don't form anything meaningful in my language. The closest BCS (semi-)grammatical sentence, on which I based my answer, would be:

_Bio bih bio Bila (da sam znao da je lopov)._

'I would have beaten Bill (if I knew he was a thief).'

In BCS, _bio bih_ is auxiliary marking past conditional (bitiPERF + bitiAORIST), second _bio_ is from 'beat', and Bill is in accusative, naturally.


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## swintok

In Ukrainian it would simply sound like a string of nonsense words.  Other than the proper name Bill, the only word in Ukrainian that is close to the form _бил_ is _біль_, which means "pain."


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## rusita preciosa

That does not mean anything in Russian. The only word I would understand is бил (hit - past tense, masc.). The English name Bill is spelled with two л's (Билл).


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## Tchesko

ilocas2 said:


> White plant was beating Bill



That requires quite a deal of imagination.  I suppose the Czech version would be "Bílé býlí bilo Billa".


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## rusita preciosa

ilocas2 said:


> White plant was beating Bill


In Russian that would be 
*белая былинка била Билла *


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## Duya

lordwings said:


> Well, in fact it means "He (someone) said that (he has heard that) he (assuming someone else) has beaten Bill" though I was wondering how would it sound for speakers of other slavic languages, because the meaning of the word "bil" is quite different with each repetition.



Lordwings, could you provide us a deeper grammar analysis? We still don't know which _бил_ is from which lexeme.


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## lordwings

Бил    -    past aorist participle of the auxiliary verb "съм" (third person, masculine, singular) - In this position it is used for creating rennarative mood, which means that the speaker is not a witness of the event he's talking about 


бил     -     past aorist participle of the auxiliary verb "съм" (third person, masculine, singular) - creates past aorist tense, the event has happened a time ago (might also be considered that a third person, from whom the information comes from, is not sure in it because is not a witness) 


бил     -     past aorist participle of the verb бия (to beat).


Бил     -     as is written above - the english name Bill - the second l which exists in english is omitted.


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## Azori

In Slovak it would not make much sense, if any. *Bil* = third person masc. sing. past tense form of the verb *biť* - to beat, *byľ* = stalk, stem, halm (of a plant).


ilocas2 said:


> White plant was beating Bill


Biela bylina bila Billa. (A white herb was beating Bill.)

Biela byľ bila Billa. (A white stalk was beating Bill.)

Bill bil bielu byľ. (Bill was beating a white stalk.)

Bill bil byľ. (Bill was beating a stalk.)

Doesn't make much sense, really....


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## lordwings

In Bulgarian "White plant was beating Bill" would be:

Бяло растение биеше Бил.

Where the verb "бия" is in past imperfect tense.
However, in the sentence above is not completely clear who is beating whom, because it might mean both - "A white plant was beating Bill" and "Bill was beating a white plant" so more clear versions of it would be:

Бялото растение биеше Бил. - here is used definite article at the adjective white so it is "The white" instead "A white", assuming that the plant has been already mentioned in the context. 

In Bulgarian, there isn't indefinite article so, to become more clear , sentences where the plant is the one who is beating look like this:

Някакво бяло растение биеше Бил. - Some white plant was beating Bill.
Едно бяло растение биеше Бил. - One white plan was beating Bill.

Otherwise:

Бил биеше бяло растение. - Bill was beating a white plant.

Бил бяло растение биеше. - Bill was beating a white plant. - archaic, poetic.

Бил растение бяло биеше. - Bill was beating a white plant. - archaic, poetic

Бил растение биеше бяло. - Bill was beating a white plant. - archaic, poetic


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## DarkChild

lordwings said:


> In Bulgarian "White plant was beating Bill" would be:
> 
> Бяло растение биеше Бил.


Instead of rastenie, you can use the word *bile* to keep in line with the confusion 

Бил бил бил Бил is not a realistic sentence. No one would say such a thing. By the way, the way I understood it was that Bill has beaten another Bill. I don't think you can string three participles this way. Also, the *bil* part meaning beat would actually be *nabil *​in a realistic sentence.


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## Kartof

DarkChild said:


> By the way, the way I understood it was that Bill has beaten another Bill.


That's exactly the way I understood it the first time as well.

I'm having trouble understanding the sentence as well; grammatically it could make sense I guess, but saying it out loud sounds like there's one too many бил for it to be a realistic utterance.


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## lordwings

The sentence would rather not be used that way indeed. It depends on the context:

Казаха, че когато той  бил там, той всеки ден бил бил Бил. - Someone said, that when he was there he was beating Bill each day.

Sometimes it would be shortened to:
Бил бил (на)бил Бил. - When the one who says it, doubts what he has heard, so he's not willing to explain it in details. 

The four "bil" sentence is seldom used. However it is intelligible and I was curious how the word changes it's meaning on different positions in the sentence and is it  like this in the other slavic languages.


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