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TITLE "Degrees of Explicitness: Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects"
SUBJECT "Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, Volume 102"
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Degrees of Explicitness
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Editor Andreas H. Jucker Justus Liebig University Giessen, English Department Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10, D-35394 Giessen, Germany e-mail:
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Volume 102 Degrees of Explicitness: Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects by John Leafgren
Degrees of Explicitness Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects
John Leafgren University of Arizona
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data John Leafgren Degrees of Explicitness : Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects / John Leafgren. p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 102) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Bulgarian language--Syntax. 2. Bulgarian language--Topic and comment. 3. Bulgarian language--Semantics. 4. Focus (Linguistics) I. Title. II. Pragmatics & beyond; New ser. 102. PG919 L43 2002 491.8´15-dc21 isbn 90 272 5342 0 (Eur.) / 1 58811 220 9 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
2002066552
© 2002 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
To Elizabeth and Tory, whose quest for knowledge and understanding is just beginning
Table of contents
List of tables
ix
Acknowledgments
xi
C 1 Introduction . Goals of the study and explicitness in communication . Word order, intonation and information structure . Major concepts and terms .. Focus .. Topic .. Discourse theme C 2 Subjects . Degrees of explicitness . Semantic explicitness .. Participant identity .. Participant involvement .. Additional information about the participant . Focus . Aboutness .. Aboutness in the written mode .. Aboutness in the oral mode C 3 Direct and indirect objects . Degrees of explicitness . Semantic explicitness .. Participant identity .. Participant involvement .. Additional information about the participant
1
97
Table of contents
. .
Focus Aboutness .. Aboutness at the discourse level .. Aboutness at the clause level
C 4 Conclusion . Degree of explicitness in the packaging of subjects .. Summary of relevant factors discussed .. Illustration of subject explicitness in the data . Degree of explicitness in the packaging of direct and indirect objects 196 .. Summary of relevant factors discussed .. Illustration of object explicitness in the data . Concluding remarks
Notes
Data sources
References
A Oral data examples prior to normalization
Index
Tables
Table 1.
Primary degrees of subject explicitness in English and Bulgarian
Table 2.
Primary degrees of object explicitness in Bulgarian
Table 3.
Nominative personal pronouns
Table 4.
Types of focused subjects
Table 5.
Contextual factors contributing to instability of aboutness
Table 6.
Direct and indirect object types
Table 7.
Object types and degrees of explicitness
Table 8.
Examples of object types
Table 9.
Short form (clitic) personal pronouns
Table 10. Long form personal pronouns
Table 11. FNP objects
Table 12. Markedness values of the object types for focus
Acknowledgments
While it would not be possible here to properly express my gratitude to all those who have contributed in one way or another to this study, I would nonetheless like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of at least a few key individuals. Any errors or other shortcomings in the study are, however, my own responsibility. I wish to thank first and foremost Grace Fielder, whose encouragement and insightful advice and comments upon reading various stages of the manuscript have been invaluable. Second, whether he knows it or not, Victor Friedman played an important role in prompting me to undertake such a project in the first place. Among the many scholars cited in the study whose prior work has guided me in my own investigation, I will make mention of one in particular. Krasimira Aleksova has done all researchers of Bulgarian linguistics a tremendous service by sharing the voluminous data she collected for her own dissertation, and I thank her and any other individuals who helped make this valuable corpus available electronically for research purposes. I am indebted to the professional and efficient editors at John Benjamins Publishing Company and especially to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript — the obviously careful reading and insightful suggestions, criticisms and other comments have led to significant improvements in the work. I wish to express my thanks to faculty members at the University of Virginia for fostering my interest in linguistics and the Bulgarian language, and to my colleagues at the University of Arizona for their encouragement and support. Finally, but by no means least significant, there has been the patience, moral support and encouragement I have received at home from my wife, Kathy.
C 1
Introduction
. Goals of the study and explicitness in communication This study has two primary goals, which also define its major contributions to the understanding of the matters at hand. The first of these will be of the most interest to those concerned with the structure and use of the contemporary Bulgarian language. The second has import for the wider, theoretical study of the way certain categories are or can be relevant in the form and use of natural language in more general terms. Without intending to give prominence to one of these interconnected goals over the other, I will here discuss them in this order. The first goal is relatively narrower in scope, but is by no means small or insignificant in absolute terms. This is to explicate the factors relevant in the decisions Bulgarian language users make in the degree of explicitness they employ when referring to the primary participants in the actions and states conveyed in oral and written utterances. This aspect of “participant packaging” is particularly interesting and important in a language like Bulgarian which possesses and exploits a great number of competing forms that differ according to various sorts of explicitness. As will be shown, the exploitation of the distribution of these packaging options allows the language user to convey a great deal of information about his or her intentions concerning points of relevance and emphasis. In other words, the very form of a noun phrase itself reflects important aspects of the intended message. While other formal features of the utterance, such as word order, sentential intonation and grammatical techniques (e.g. passivization), are certainly relevant in Bulgarian, they bear a relatively smaller functional load in fulfilling these communicative needs than they might in languages with fewer available participant-packaging types. I will illustrate this diversity of Bulgarian packaging options very briefly here, saving a more complete description of the forms themselves and the relevant levels of explicitness and factors determining their distribution for upcoming chapters. In this brief sketch I will use English as my main point of contrast as a language representative of those with fewer salient packaging options.
Degrees of Explicitness
In the expression of grammatical subjects, for instance, one might contrast a primary dichotomy in English to a basic trichotomy in Bulgarian. Where a speaker of English takes a number of factors into account when making the principal decision whether to use a personal pronoun or a more explicit lexical item or phrase in packaging a subject (see the examples in Table 1), a speaker of Bulgarian takes a number of factors into account in deciding whether to use a personal pronoun, some other overt lexical form or phrase, or a non-overt zero subject.1 Given the appropriate contexts, each of these sentences could be used successfully and felicitously to report precisely the same real world situation (that a particular individual was singing). It will be shown in Chapter Two that not only the potential for misidentification of the referent of the subject noun phrase, but also emphasis (“focus”) and aboutness at both the clause level (“topicality”) and the discourse level (“discourse themehood”) are crucial factors in the Bulgarian distribution of these packaging methods. The passages in (1-1) below serve as a preliminary indication of the differing preferences for degrees of explicitness between English (with two primary degrees) and Bulgarian (with three). The Bulgarian in (a) is from the Bulgarian novel Samopriznanie (‘Confession’ ), by Pavel Vezˇinov. The English in (b) is my own translation, reflecting what I believe to be a natural English literary correlate. I have also included, in (c), a published Russian translation. This translation illustrates that merely having the same formal options (Russian, like Bulgarian, possesses the primary trichotomy of personal pronoun, other overt lexical form and zero noun phrase) does not necessarily entail the same preferences Table 1. Primary degrees of subject explicitness in English and Bulgarian (illustrated with a third person singular form) a. English Dichotomy Personal Pronoun: Other Lexical Form or Phrase:
She was singing. Maria was singing./My sister was singing.
b. Bulgarian Trichotomy Personal Pronoun: Other Lexical Form or Phrase: Zero Subject:
Tja peesˇe. ‘She was singing.’ Marija peesˇe./Sestra mi peesˇe. ‘Maria was singing.’/‘My sister was singing.’ Ø Peesˇe. ‘He/She/It/You was/were singing.’
Introduction
in the distribution of the available degrees of packaging explicitness. For ease of comparison I have numbered corresponding subject forms, all referring to a detective looking for a particular apartment in a complex. (1-1) Differences in Subject Explicitness: Bulgarian — English — Russian a. Bulgarian Original Ralcˇev1 da˘lgo se luta mezˇdu toku-sˇto zava˘rsˇeni i nedopraveni zdanija, Ø2 naprazno ta˘rsesˇe nomerata na blokovete. Njamasˇe ni nomera, ni kakvito i da bilo ukazanija. Ø3 trjabvasˇe da preskacˇa izkopi, da zaplita kraka v kabeli i provodnici, da zaobikalja gramadi ot stroitelni materiali. I makar v grada dosta otdavna da ne be valjal nikaka˘v da˘zˇd, vse pak Ø4 uspja da se izkalja edva li ne do usˇite. Edinstvenijat mu spravocˇnik v toja labirint bjaxa decata. No sˇto se otnasja do blokovete, dori te bjaxa na razlicˇni mnenija. Ø5 Va˘rvja dosta da˘lgo vreme naljavo, sled tova Ø6 sva˘rna nadjasno, posle Ø7 se va˘rna nazad. (PV:422) b. English Translation ‘Ralcˇev1 wandered for a long time among recently completed and unfinished buildings. He2 looked in vain for the building numbers. There were neither numbers nor signs of any sort. He3 had to jump over ditches, to entangle his legs in cables and wires, to go around piles of building materials. And although there hadn’t been any rain in the city for a long time, he4 still managed to get himself muddy just about up to his ears. The children were his only guide in this labyrinth. But as concerns the apartment buildings, even they were of differing opinions. He5 walked for quite a while to the left, after that he6 turned right, then he7 came back.’ c. Russian Translation Ralcˇev1 dolgo brodil mezˇdu tol’ko cˇto zakoncˇennymi i nedostroennymi zdanijami, tsˇcˇetno razyskivaja nomera korpusov. Ne bylo ni nomerov, ni ukazatelej. On3 pereprygival cˇerez kanavy, Ø spotykalsja o kabeli i provoda, Ø obxodil grudy stroitel’nyx materialov. Xotja v gorode davno ne bylo dozˇdja, on4 uspel peremazat’sja cˇut’ ne do usˇej. Edinstvennym spravocˇnikom v etom labirinte okazalis’ deti. No i oni ploxo otlicˇali odin korpus ot drugogo. Dolgoe vremja on5 sˇël, svernuv nalevo, potom Ø6 povernul napravo, zatem snova Ø7 vernulsja nazad. (PV-R:35)
Degrees of Explicitness
The Bulgarian writer of this passage uses a highly explicit non-pronominal form, the last name, in the first clause of the first sentence. After this initial identification, however, he opts for the least explicit packaging, the zero noun phrase, for each successive reference to this individual in a grammatical subject role. My English translation also names the participant very explicitly in the first sentence. I have then packaged this subject six times with the personal pronoun “he”. Note that although such overt personal pronouns (e.g. toj ‘he’) are available in Bulgarian, the author of the original in (a) has not selected this intermediate level of subject explicitness even once in the cited passage, creating at least the impression of a greater tolerance of or preference for a lesser degree of explicitness for grammatical subject participants in Bulgarian than in English. The Russian translation in (c) suggests a sort of middle ground between English and Bulgarian in terms of personal pronoun preference.2 After the initial ultimately explicit proper name, the Russian translator uses the overt personal pronoun three times (subjects numbered 3, 4 and 5), and matches the Bulgarian zero expression for subjects numbered 6 and 7. The Russian translator has replaced the Bulgarian finite verb associated with subject number 2 with a non-finite verbal adverb, and has changed the structure of the third sentence such that the translation includes two zero subjects of finite verbs where the Bulgarian original (and my English version) has infinitival constructions.3 The number of means of packaging direct and indirect object participants in Bulgarian is considerably more striking than is the case for subjects. Here one can distinguish six distinct packaging methods, the distribution of which reflects differing combinations of marked values in the categories described in Chapter Three as relevant in determining degree of explicitness. These formal alternatives are illustrated with a third person singular indirect object in Table 2. A detailed description of the forms themselves (including the highly parallel direct object forms), an analysis of their distribution, and systematic examples are found in Chapter Three. As in the case of the subject variants in Table 1, each of the sentences in Table 2, in the appropriate context, could be used to describe exactly the same real-world situation. The use of the English passive construction to render the meaning expressed in this type of subjectless Bulgarian sentence is discussed in 2.1 below. As I have been suggesting, the choice among the various packaging methods can make significant, even crucial, differences in the message sent to the addressee. Most obvious is the type of situation in which an underestimation
Introduction
Table 2. Primary degrees of object explicitness in Bulgarian (illustrated with a third person singular indirect object) a. Zero Object b. “Short” Pronouna c. “Long” Pronoun d. “Long” Pronoun (reduplicated)b e. Other Lexical Form f. Other Lexical Form (reduplicated)
Taka Ø kazaxa. ‘That’s what X was told./That’s what was said.’ Taka mu kazaxa. ‘That’s what he was told.’ Taka kazaxa na nego. ‘That’s what he was told.’ Taka mu kazaxa na nego. ‘That’s what he was told.’ Taka kazaxa na Ivan. ‘That’s what Ivan was told.’ Taka mu kazaxa na Ivan. ‘That’s what Ivan was told.’
a
The distinction “short” versus “long” personal pronoun in Bulgarian could also be labelled appropriately “clitic” versus “non-clitic” personal pronoun. These forms will be listed and discussed further in Chapter Three. b I will refer to as “reduplicated” any object formally represented twice as such within the same clause. Reduplicated objects in Bulgarian consist of a short form (clitic) personal pronoun used in conjunction with some other type of noun phrase referring to one and the same participant in the same relation in a single predication.
of the degree of explicitness needed in the given context may lead to a failure on the part of the addressee to interpret, or to interpret correctly, the identity of a participant in the intended communication. This sort of underestimation is illustrated by the ineffectiveness of the pronominal form in the second sentence in the simple example in (1-2). (1-2) Insufficiently Explicit Packaging — Referential Ambiguity Kakvi golemi momcˇeta! Kak go naricˇat? ‘What big boys! What do they call him?
Clearly, barring a non-linguistic gesture such as finger-pointing, a more explicit means of packaging the participant in question is called for. Depending on the extralinguistic context, some effective substitutions which would specify which boy was meant might be blondina ‘the blond’, po-mladija ‘the younger one’ or toja do prozoreca ‘that one by the window’. This need to employ a certain level of explicitness to achieve referential clarity is certainly not restricted to Bulgarian. The same problem, for instance, is seen in the English translation in (1-2). Nor is this motivation for explicitness in participant packaging restricted to the expression of direct objects.
Degrees of Explicitness
Personal pronoun subject forms (e.g. toj ‘he’), indirect object forms (e.g. mu or na nego ‘to him’) or prepositional objects (e.g. za nego ‘about him’), for instance, would be equally ineffective in this sort of context. Other motivations for certain levels of explicitness are more languagespecific and more restricted in terms of grammatical participant role (that is, as one example, restricted to direct object packaging, or, as another, applicable to both direct and indirect objects but not to subjects). These other motivations, which I find to be more interesting than the type illustrated in (1-2), occur in many varieties. They can involve the triggering of overt rather than zero packaging, non-pronominal rather than pronominal packaging, or double rather than single packaging. The factors providing the motivation include reference to characteristics of the participant, the clarification of the particular role played by a participant in the content of the message, the very involvement of a participant in the first place, emphasis of various sorts on the participant, and the conveyance to the addressee of what the speaker or writer believes the clause or the discourse is about. It would not be appropriate or practical to attempt a detailed, complete inventory of these possibilities in this introductory chapter, but a few simple examples should serve as illustration. I will demonstrate in subsequent chapters that an examination of the role played by explicitness in participant packaging is essential to a complete understanding of how Bulgarians successfully communicate significant features of their intended messages to their addressees, and is thus an important part of the study of the language as a functional linguistic system. Apart from this scholarly, scientific pursuit, an understanding of these issues, largely neglected in descriptions of the language, is also of great practical value to those learning Bulgarian as a second language. I have selected and described the first two of the following three illustrative examples in such a way as to highlight functional contrasts to the use of seemingly parallel English forms. This demonstrates this practical value to the non-native both in interpreting the full meaning of Bulgarian messages encountered and in the attempt to express oneself in this language. First, the sentences in (1-3) illustrate one type of situation where explicitness clarifies the very involvement of a participant. Compare the underlined subject forms in these examples. (1-3) Explicitness Indicating Participant Involvement a. ST: Tova e Olja. V: E, Ø mnogo e simpaticˇna, Ø mnogo e xubava. (KA:1.1, excerpt 5)
Introduction
‘ST: This is Olja. V: Well, she’s very attractive, she’s very pretty.’ b. Ne iskam da sedja na vedroto na dvora. (Ø) Prekaleno goresˇto e. ‘I don’t want to sit on the bucket in the yard. It’s too hot.’ c. Ne iskam da sedja na vedroto na dvora. To e prekaleno goresˇto. ‘I don’t want to sit on the bucket in the yard. It’s too hot.’
I will pause here to say a few words about some of the material cited in examples in this study. The data base used includes both naturally occurring colloquial oral material and published written prose fiction. The example in (1-3a), as well as all other examples specified as coming from the source abbreviated “KA,” is of the former type. This oral material was collected during the late eighties and early nineties. It was compiled and primarily collected by Krasimira Aleksova of Sofia University, and was used by her for her 1994 dissertation Ezikovi procesi v semejstvoto (va˘rxu material ot stolicata) (‘Linguistic Processes in the Family (based on material from the capital’)). This material has generously been made available electronically for research purposes under the title “Korpus ot razgovoren ba˘lgarski ezik” (‘Corpus of conversational Bulgarian’) at the site indicated in the list of sources below. This corpus is given in phonetic transcription and is an excellent resource for research on many linguistic levels. Because the current study does not focus on either phonology or morphology, I have, in an effort to increase accessibility, taken the liberty of normalizing on the lexical level, in addition to transliterating and adding punctuation, when citing examples from this corpus. This lexical normalization involved replacing phonetic representations with forms that reflect standard orthography. I have, for example, “restored” elided consonants and vowels and have “erased” the effects of vowel reduction and consonantal voicing assimilation. The original data, in transliteration, can be found in the appendix. I now return to the discussion of the examples in (1-3). In (1-3a), speaker ST is showing snapshots to speaker V. As we will see, the use of a zero subject in speaker V’s response represents the norm in Bulgarian when a speaker or writer makes a comment about a participant already established as what is being discussed and when this least explicit packaging does not result in referential ambiguity. Now if we compare the Bulgarian forms in the sequences in (1-3b) and (1-3c), we see that the difference between them lies in the absence of an overt subject in the second sentence in (1-3b) as opposed to the presence of the overt to ‘it’ in (1-3c).4 Despite the identical English glosses, the Bulgarian
Degrees of Explicitness
in (1-3b) and that in (1-3c) do not mean the same thing. In (1-3b), without a subject, the sentence may be referred to as “impersonal” — the English “it” used only to fulfill a grammatical requirement that the sentence have an overt initial subject. There is no specific reference for this “it”. What is too hot is the weather in general on this day or perhaps the act of being out in the yard on such a day. In (1-3c), with the overt pronominal subject to ‘it’, on the other hand, the thing that is being described as too hot is the bucket. Thus the overt packaging of the subject helps to clarify that there is a specific participant involved in this “beinghot” predication, rather than this quality being ascribed impersonally as it is in (1-3b). The point is that there is a very real potential for miscommunication if this very specific, but not infrequent, motivation for explicitness is not understood. Assume, for instance, that a non-native speaker of Bulgarian is savvy enough to have noted the frequency with which native Bulgarians follow the pattern in (1-3a), but is not yet aware of the need for explicitness to avoid impersonal readings with certain predicates. This non-native, then, tries to express the message in (1-3c) using the model in (1-3a). Doing so (provided that the intended subject referent is neuter, such that the predicate will end up in the neuter form used by default in impersonals) will result in the sentence in (1-3b), leading a Bulgarian addressee to the impersonal interpretation instead of the intended personal one. There is also, of course, a sort of converse potential for misinterpretation created by a less savvy native speaker of English who does not yet realize the existence of the zero-packaging technique in Bulgarian, or at least is not yet proficient enough to think to use it in his or her own messages. Such a speaker, imposing the English grammatical requirement for an overt subject on the attempted communication in Bulgarian, may produce the equivalent of (1-3c) when the intended meaning was of the impersonal sort seen in (1-3b). Other types of explicitness motivated by the need to indicate participant involvement will be illustrated and discussed below in 2.2.2 (for subjects) and 3.2.2 (for objects). A simple, hypothetical example illustrating the importance of understanding emphasis as a motivator of a certain type of explicitness in Bulgarian is given in (1-4). (1-4) Explicitness Indicating Emphasis a. I don’t like her sister’s new husband. He doesn’t clean. He doesn’t cook. He doesn’t watch the children. b. Ne mi xaresva novijat ma˘ zˇ na sestra ì. Toj ne cˇisti. Toj ne gotvi. Toj ne gleda decata.
Introduction
If we assume that the English sentences were written in a letter to a friend, there are at least two possible conclusions about the new husband that the friend might draw. The first, following from an interpretation of the emphasis in the last three sentences as being on the indicated actions (or, more precisely, on the reported inaction in this case), is that the new husband is simply lazy, preferring perhaps to sit on the sofa and watch television. The second, based on an interpretation of the emphasis as falling on the referent of the pronominal subject “he” in the last three sentences, might be that the new husband is sexist — he won’t do these things because they are her job as the woman in the house. The first impression is more likely, unless emphasis on the subject is somehow indicated more explicitly.5 Let us now assume that a native speaker of English, writing a letter in Bulgarian to a Bulgarian friend, wishes to convey his or her view of the new husband as lazy (but not sexist). Subconsciously knowing that the packaging strategies used in the English in (1-4a) would be interpreted this way, the writer attempts to match this degree of explicitness by using the formally parallel pronominal subject toj ‘he’, as indicated in (1-4b). This writer, not understanding adequately the place of this degree of explicitness in the system of Bulgarian subject packaging, is inadvertently suggesting emphasis on this participant, resulting in something along the line of the second impression suggested above. This hypothetical miscommunication would be the result of the fact that while the use of personal pronoun subjects is the neutral, unmarked norm in English, this is not the case in Bulgarian. Overt personal pronoun subjects in Bulgarian are opposed to the less explicit zero packaging, the latter being in a sense more neutral (see Chapter Two). The use of the overt subject pronoun for an entity under discussion is restricted in Bulgarian to contexts in which this degree of explicitness is motivated. As we will see, one such motivation is emphasis on the participant. In the absence of any other apparent motivation, the native reader of (1-4b), as described in the analysis which follows, is led to interpret the overt pronominal subjects as involving emphasis.6 A final example I will submit here illustrates one aspect of the importance of understanding the role played by degree of explicitness in following the frequently complex and dynamic flow of changing “aboutness” of the participants mentioned in a developing discourse. This example, part of a natural conversation recorded in Aleksova’s corpus, is given in (1-5). I have numbered some of the subjects and objects in this example for ease of reference in the discussion which follows.
Degrees of Explicitness
(1-5) Explicitness Indicating Aboutness M: Ø1 Iskam, Ø2 vikam, da se razsˇirja. Ø3 Imame teraska. Ø4 Imame terasa, i Ø5 iskam, Ø6 vikam, da vzemem edin meta˘r ot dvora, za da mozˇem taja terasa da ja prisposobim za staja, da mozˇem, Ø7 vikam, dvamata pone na stari godini da se priberem na spokojstvie. T: I ta˘kmo, kazva, i sa˘sedite … M: Da. I osven tova, vikam, pa˘k sa˘sedite nad nas … T: Nie8, s edin kursˇum … M: I texnite deca vecˇe stanaxa golemi. Decata, tja trjabvasˇe da gi9 razdeli tezi deca9. Njama ka˘de da gi10 da˘rzˇi v edna … T: Ø11 Momcˇe i momicˇe sa. M: Ø12 Ne sa ednopolovi, … (KA:4.2, excerpt 2) ‘M: I1 want, I2 tell (them), to expand. We3 have a little terrace. We4 have a terrace, and I5 want, I6 say, to take a meter from the yard, so that we can adapt this terrace for a room, so the two of us can, I7 say, at least in our old age, settle down in peace. T: And precisely, she says, the neighbors also … M: Yes. And moreover, I say, the neighbors above us, too … T: We8, with one stone … 7 M: Their children, too, have already gotten big. The children, she ought to have separated these children9. There isn’t room to keep them10 in one … T: They’re11 a boy and a girl. M: They’re12 not the same gender, …’
In this example a woman (speaker M) and her husband (speaker T) frequently interrupt each other as they describe to other listeners the wife’s visit to an architect. In her first contribution to the conversation in this excerpt, speaker M reports what she told the architect about their current accommodations and the changes they are hoping for. Note the frequent use of zero subjects for reference to the first person entities with status of theme of discussion in this contribution (subjects 1 through 7). In the next two contributions speaker T, assisted then by speaker M, indicates to the other listeners that they are about to give information about their upstairs neighbors. Notice that now (in speaker T’s second contribution) an overt form (nie ‘we’) is used for first person reference (subject 8). Speaker M’s third contribution begins by providing domestic information about the neighbors, introducing in the process new participants (the neighbors’ children) into the discourse. At this point speaker
Introduction
M and her husband begin to talk about these children, who are then what the rest of the cited part of the conversation is about. This aboutness is explicitly signaled to all listeners in the second sentence of M’s third contribution by her selection of the reduplicated construction gi … tezi deca ‘these children’ (object 9). As will be discussed in Chapter Three, the very function of reduplication is to indicate to the addressee the clause-level aboutness of the participant in question.8 Once this aboutness has been established in the discourse, speakers/writers can switch to the less explicit forms (zero subjects and short pronominal objects) favored for participants being spoken or written about.9 This is precisely what we find in the cited excerpt. The children, once clearly marked as what the discussion is about, are subsequently packaged only with these less overt forms — the short form personal pronoun gi ‘them’ when the participant(s) occurs in a direct object role in the last sentence of M’s third contribution (object 10), and the indicated zero subjects used by T and M in the last two sentences (subjects 11 and 12). The point here is that knowing, understanding and incorporating the conventional connection between particular degrees of explicitness and status of a given participant as what comes to be or continues to be spoken or written about is an important part of successful communication. It allows a listener or reader to understand this central aboutness feature of the messages of others. It allows a speaker or writer to convey this feature to addressees. And it allows a listener-turned-speaker to contribute cooperatively and appropriately. By understanding the aboutness of previous utterances, the new speaker in a conversation will have a better idea of how explicit his or her own packaging should be. A low degree of explicitness, for instance, will be appropriate, will sound natural, and will send no unintended signals (see the discussion of (1-4) above) in the case of non-emphatic, unambiguous referents enjoying continued aboutness. Conversely, understanding this aspect of the ongoing discourse is also crucial in the event that a new speaker is making a change in the theme of discussion. Depending on the nature of the shift, it can be inappropriate or even rude to do so without including the appropriate signals or even apologies to the other speaker(s). The second major goal of this study is more theory-oriented in nature and has relevance to the understanding of human communication well beyond any particular language. The success with which the analysis in the pages which follow accounts for certain crucial aspects of Bulgarian linguistic usage can be viewed as strong support for the theoretical approach it adopts. One aspect which deserves special note is the component of the proposed analysis which
Degrees of Explicitness
concerns the notion of “aboutness” at the clause level (in particular Sections 1.3.2, 2.4 and 3.4.2). While there is an essential similarity between what I will refer to as a topic and what many adherents to the FSP (Functional Sentence Perspective) approach associated with the Prague School refer to as a topic (or theme, osnova, tema, ekspozicija), there are two key differences between the concept as applied in the study presented here and more traditional FSP applications. First, I will treat topicality as a status to be analyzed at the level of the clause. This is a departure from many other FSP-type analyses, where topicality is either explicitly described as a sentence-level status or else the distinction is not clearly made. The primary justification for a clause-level approach is that reduplicated object forms are used only when the participant referred to is what the current clause is about. If one instead evaluates topic status only at the sentence level, the subsequently possible hypothesis that the forms in question overtly signal aboutness will be missed, since these forms are sometimes used to package participants that subordinate clauses, but not entire sentences, are about. This situation is perhaps most obvious when a reduplicated object is a relative pronoun: cf. E, taja rakija e ot tam, samo cˇe ot novi nasazˇdenija, koito gi napravixa. (KA:1.1, excerpt 5) ‘Well, this brandy is from there, but from new plantings which they did.’ The purpose of the relative clause is to provide information about the plantings (the clause-level topic), even though it can hardly be said that that is what the sentence as a whole is about. Second, I depart from the common practice of assuming that topicality is incompatible with indefiniteness, focus, or newness in the discourse. While a majority of topics (defined in terms of aboutness) may in fact represent nonfocused, given information expressed with definite noun phrases, none of these will be regarded here as necessary conditions for analyzing a particular participant as being a topic. I would argue that these modifications are radical enough to warrant giving up the “functional sentence perspective” (FSP) label in favor of something along the lines of “clausal aboutness perspective” (CAP), where “clausal” rather than “sentence” reflects the smaller unit of speech used to evaluate topicality, and “aboutness” in place of “functional” captures the now singular factor upon which this topicality is analyzed. It is also important to note here, however, that while I will be using “topicality” as a designation for a clause-level status, I am not arguing against the importance of the status of being what a greater stretch of discourse is about. Indeed this latter discourse-level status, termed here “discourse themehood” will be treated as one which also must be taken into account in order to adequately describe the selection among available subject and object forms in Bulgarian.
Introduction
As suggested in the title of the study, the analysis is concerned with certain key aspects of Bulgarian “information structure”. I assume a conception of information structure which is in keeping with the central features ascribed to this aspect of language structure in Lambrecht’s rigorous 1994 work. We find here the following proposed as a formal definition: INFORMATION STRUCTURE: That component of sentence grammar in which propositions as conceptual representations of states of affairs are paired with lexicogrammatical structures in accordance with the mental states of interlocutors who use and interpret these structures as units of information in given discourse contexts. (5)
The investigation of information structure is concerned with “the discourse circumstances under which given pieces of propositional information are expressed via one rather than another morphosyntactic or prosodic form” (5) and with “the comparison of semantically equivalent but formally and pragmatically divergent sentence pairs” (6). The study of information structure as defined above clearly involves pragmatics, if by pragmatics one means something along the lines of the relationship between the language user, the communicative setting and the communication itself, or the study of “what people using language are doing, and accounting for the linguistic features in the discourse as the means employed in what they are doing” (Brown and Yule 1983:26).10 The current work thus investigates primarily the pragmatic, information structure motivations for the selection among various “alternative” means of referring to participants in the roles of grammatical subject, direct object and indirect object. It explores the extent to which one can speak of functional distributions of these available packaging techniques. Central to this is the communication or clarification of grammatical roles, focus, topicality at the clause level, themehood at the discourse level and what might be regarded as semantic aspects of the message — referential identity and the provision of (additional) information about the participant in question. As this suggests, the main concern here is a functional, distributional one, and the study should not be viewed as a syntactic analysis in any generative or other formal sense. That is, the goal of this study is to discover the contexts in which various forms and constructions are used, the pragmatic “information” they allow the speaker or writer to convey to the addressee, their “meaning” in a sense. I fully agree with Lambrecht (1994), however, that such an approach, with the primacy it gives to this type of “meaning” over form, should not be
Degrees of Explicitness
seen as implying that a more formal approach describing the structure of the constructions from the point of view of a generative or other formal syntax is necessarily wrong or unimportant. As Lambrecht puts it, “ a functional explanation for some grammatical phenomenon does not in principle obviate a formal account of it, and … a formal explanation does not make a functional account superfluous or irrelevant” (10-11). For a particularly clear example of how the two types of approaches can complement each other, see the discussion of Mincˇeva’s 1969 treatment of reduplicated objects in Section 3.4.2. Another theoretical aspect of the current work is the notion of markedness it assumes. Given forms will be said to be either marked or unmarked for a feature (or even marked for the absence of the feature) within a categorical opposition. A particular noun phrase packaging type (e.g. the long form personal pronoun object), for instance, may be marked for a particular feature (e.g. focus on the participant being referred to). By saying that the long pronoun is marked for focus, I am claiming that the form occurs only in contexts in which this focus is present. This entails that an addressee who encounters such a form can unequivocally assume this participant status — the status has thus been communicated through the speaker or writer’s very selection of the form. When a form is unmarked for a feature (e.g. a reduplicated object for the focus feature), this means that the addressee can make no assumptions about the presence or absence of the feature based on the form alone, since the unmarked reduplicated object occurs sometimes in focused contexts and sometimes in non-focused contexts. Lambrecht’s (1994:16–17) description of this conception of markedness includes a simple analogy involving hand tools, which I will simplify further and then expand on slightly. A comparison of the functions of screwdrivers and hammers, in this analogy, suggests the view of the former as marked and the latter as unmarked. Screwdrivers are only used for inserting screws, let us assume, while hammers can be used for a number of purposes (including inserting screws, inserting nails, and knocking out walls). Put another way, if an individual (A) sees another individual (B) pick up a screwdriver, A knows what B intends. But if A sees B pick up a hammer, the intention is not clear — B may be about to pound in a nail (or a screw), or may in fact plan to strike a wall or something or someone else. In this analogy B corresponds to the speaker or writer “picking up” (selecting) among marked and unmarked forms, and A represents the listener or reader drawing conclusions from this selection. The analysis presented below addresses the degree of explicitness used by Bulgarian language users in the packaging of the primary participants in the
Introduction
content of their messages. Primary attention is directed at the extent to which this degree is influenced by semantic factors and key features of information structure (focus and aboutness). Section 1.3 will present and illustrate the way in which central terms and concepts are used in this study. First, however, Section 1.2 outlines two other parameters in which these primary information structure features are reflected: word order and sentential or clausal stress. An in-depth examination of these parameters is beyond the scope of this investigation into degree of explicitness. Even the brief outline contained in this section, however, may be helpful in putting the more detailed analysis of explicitness which follows into the larger perspective of expression of information structure in Bulgarian overall. The summary in Section 1.2 relies largely on the findings of others as reported in the existing literature. A great deal has been written on these topics, and it would be impractical if not impossible to provide here an exhaustive survey. The following should be viewed, therefore, as a general outline which incorporates only representative observations made by other researchers, primarily those who focus on or at least include Bulgarian data in their study. Note too that it is often the case that there is significant overlap between the influence of information structure features on word order and intonation, on the one hand, and their manifestation in the area of explicitness, on the other. This will be addressed further in later chapters.
.
Word order, intonation and information structure
Several primary characteristics of the interrelation of word order and/or intonation phenomena and the information structure features of emphasis and aboutness are frequently noted in the existing literature. These can be summarized, in clearly simplified form, in the statements presented in (1-6): (1-6) Basic Influences of Information Structure on Bulgarian Word Order and Intonation a. There is a strong correlation between emphasis on an element and clause- or sentence-level stress. b. There is a general correspondence between topic (what is being talked about) and early position in the clause or sentence. c. There is a general lack of correspondence between aboutness and emphasis (which follows from a tendency for emphasis to be on
Degrees of Explicitness
new information contained within the comment being made about the topic). This, put together with the statements in (a) and (b) above, results in a general lack of correspondence between the intonational stress noted in (a) and early position in the clause or sentence. d. Heavily emphasized elements are sometimes fronted (thus diverging from the general linear ordering pattern described in (c)) for stylistic or expressive effect.
Sentential intonation is a dauntingly complex topic.11 This complexity is due in large part to the existence of a wide range of combinatorial possibilities.12 Despite this complexity, one aspect of sentential intonation is very straightforward. This simple and consistent aspect of intonation, described in (1-6a), has to do with heavy stress on a semantically or pragmatically emphasized element, often an element representing a primary participant in the content of the message. This feature of information structure, referred to as “focus”, will be seen to be a crucial factor in the degree of explicitness used in the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects as well. With respect to intonation in the spoken use of the language, what we find is the unvarying presence of physical stress on the noun phrase used to package an emphasized participant. While one might speak of numerous types of intonational contours in various sorts of sentences in oral language use, a common denominator would be that an element being emphasized within the context of the message receives physical stress in the utterance itself. To some extent this idea of emphatic stress is connected to the notion of rhematic stress described by a number of scholars. In Ivancˇev 1978 [1974] (173), for example, rhematic stress is equated with logical stress, as well as with sentential stress. The relevance to the current discussion of emphatic stress lies in the extent to which the rheme, understood to be the new information in the message, is likely to be where an emphasized participant would be most likely to be mentioned in the sentence. According to Dyer (1992:50), however, one can distinguish emphatic stress from rhematic (or logical) stress. Citing others, Dyer notes that where rhematic stress can be described as melodic, as a changing of tone, emphatic stress, on the other hand, involves more simply a heavy, intense pronunciation.13 Furthermore, Dyer correctly observes that while there may be an overlap between them, “[e]mphatic[a]lly stressed sentential elements may or may not be the rheme of a sentence” (50). For these reasons, although rhematic stress is not unconnected, observations which have been made concerning the
Introduction
stress specifically associated with semantic or pragmatic emphasis/focus are much more clearly relevant to the matter at hand. One such observation can be found in Rudin 1986 (22). In this syntactic analysis which proposes a preverbal syntactic FOCUS position, Rudin notes that postverbal position is also possible for “the semantic focus of a sentence as indicated by emphatic stress” (emphasis mine). She cites the following two examples in which she underlines the focused element. In the second variant the focused element is in the syntactic preverbal FOCUS position, while in the first it is not (but does receive the emphatic stress). (1-7) Focused Participants Ne razbiram nisˇto. neg understand-1s nothing ‘I don’t understand anything.’ Nisˇto ne razbiram. nothing neg understand-1s ‘I don’t understand anything.’ (Rudin 1986:22)
Motapanyane (1997:265) also remarks very explicitly both on the association between emphasis and stress and on linear order variation for emphasized elements. She provides the following examples with focus indicated by boldface, the third of which she takes from Rudin 1993 (1). (1-8) Focused Participants Marija ni kupi cvetja (ne bonboni). Mary us bought flowersFOC (NEG candies) ‘It was flowers Mary bought us, not candies.’ Pavel kola kupi (ne ka˘sˇta). Paul carFOC bought (NEG house) ‘It is a car Paul bought, not a house.’ Parite li nameri Ivan? the moneyFOC Q found John ‘Was it the money that Ivan found?’
As a second basic influence of information structure it is stated in (1-6b) that there is a general correspondence between topic status of a participant and early position in the clause or sentence. The logic behind this tendency is that a message producer will typically facilitate the processing of the content of the message by the recipient by announcing first what the crucial new
Degrees of Explicitness
information is about (the topic, the file where the new information (the comment) is to be stored in the memory) before actually providing the comment itself. This gives the listener or reader a chance to locate this file before processing and initiating the storage of the new information.14 This notion of the division of sentences into a typically initial topic (or “theme”), which is characterized as the old or given information, the starting point of the utterance or as the element with a relatively low degree of “communicative dynamism”, and comment (or “rheme”), which is characterized as the new information, the culmination of the utterance, or as the portion of the sentence with a relatively high degree of communicative dynamism, is a central feature of the approach often referred to as Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP).15 The FSP approach, applied first to Czech, English and Russian, is generally associated with the Prague School of linguistics in the first half of the twentieth century. An outline of the history of FSP can be found in Dyer 1992 (2-12), where credit is given to Szober (1933) for being the first to apply this basic notion to Bulgarian. Subsequent to Szober there have been many published analyses which incorporate the notion that topics tend to occur at the beginning of sentences or clauses as part of a description of the typical or in some sense neutral Bulgarian word order. The following examples certainly do not represent an exhaustive list of such works, but they do give an idea of the pervasive recognition of an association between topicality and early linear position. Ivancˇev 1957 notes a quantitative predominance of the ordering of topics before comments (504) and also describes this order as normal and objective, found in calm description and narration (500). This characterization is echoed in Popov 1963 (220). In Dyer 1992 (53) the ordering of topic before comment is characterized as “communicatively neutral”, and in volume 3 of the Academy Grammar 1983 (280) this linear arrangement is referred to as stylistically neutral. Georgieva 1974 (65) also claims stylistic neutrality for the positioning of topics before comments, and adds that this is “the usual and statistically confirmed sequence” ([o]bicˇajnata i statisticˇeski potva˘rdenata posledovatelnost). Among the examples provided in these sources of this typical or neutral linear order are the sentences in (1-9) through (1-13). I have underlined the topical participants in these sentences. The translations of the examples from Bulgarian sources are my own. Note that while the initial topics in the first three examples are all packaged as grammatical subjects, (1-12) and (1-13) illustrate that initial topical participants may also be grammatical objects (direct and indirect, respectively).
Introduction
(1-9) Initial Topic (grammatical subject) Decata da˘lgo vreme cˇakaxa da se pojavi njakoj. (Ivancˇev 1957:503) ‘The children waited a long time for someone to show up.’ (1-10) Initial Topic (grammatical subject) Deteto kazva istinata. (Georgieva 1974:71) ‘The child is telling the truth.’ (1-11) Initial Topic (grammatical subject) Ka˘sˇtata na lelja mu besˇe v tix, kraen kvartal na grada … (Academy Grammar, vol. 3:282, from G. Misˇev) ‘His aunt’s house was in a quiet neighborhood on the edge of town.’ (1-12) Initial Topic (grammatical direct object) Sled tova na drugarja Todor Zˇivkov be predostavena dumata za privetstveno slovo. Slovoto pomestvame otdelno. ‘After this, the floor was given to comrade Todor Zhivkov for an opening speech. The speech we have published separately.’ (Dyer 1992:95, from Zemedelsko zname, Sept. 24, 1985) (1-13) Initial Topic (grammatical indirect object) Na mladite im e pozvoleno da xva˘rcˇat iz oblacite. (Academy Grammar, vol. 3, 1983:283, from J. Radicˇkov) ‘Youth can fly through the clouds.’ (more literally: ‘To youth it is permitted to fly through the clouds.’)
Some of the work done on Bulgarian word order within the framework of a generative, transformational syntax provides further reflection of the fact that there is an association between topicality and early position in the sentence or clause. Both Rudin 1986 and Motapanyane 1997 conclude that there is a preverbal topic position in the Bulgarian sentence/clause, providing examples such as the following:16 (1-14) Initial Topic (grammatical subject) Ivan dali na vas da se obadi? (ili na mene) Ivan whether to you to refl call-3s or to me ‘As for Ivan, should he call you? (or me)’ (Rudin 1986:21) (1-15) Initial Topic (grammatical indirect object) Na vas dali Ivan da se obadi? (ili Georgi) to you whether Ivan to refl call-3s or Georgi ‘As for you, should Ivan call you? (or should Georgi)’ (Rudin 1986:21)
Degrees of Explicitness
(1-16) Initial Topic (grammatical indirect object) Na Marija nikoj ne bi ì go dal bez sa˘zˇalenie.17 to Mary nobody NEG would to her it given without regret ‘As for Mary, nobody would have given it to her without regret.’ (Motapanyane 1997:272)18
Note in passing that in each of the preceding eight examples of initial topics, taken from a variety of sources, the topic in question can be described as what the speaker or writer is providing information about. While not all researchers consider aboutness to be the defining characteristic of topics, it will be shown below that it is indeed the aboutness feature that is crucial in the decisions speakers make in selecting among certain participant packaging methods. The typical lack of cooccurrence of topicality and emphasis on one and the same participant is another fact of information structure that has not gone unnoticed by others. The tendency for heavily emphasized elements to be part of the comment made about a topic rather than to constitute the topic itself is so strong that it has led a number of scholars to portray topicality and emphasis or focus as mutually exclusive features. Within a discussion of object packaging in Bulgarian, Franks and King (2000:254) state very clearly their opinion that “[f]ocus is incompatible with being a topic”. This contention finds support in the statement in volume 3 of the Academy Grammar 1983 (116) that the logical stress in a sentence is always tied to the comment, and also in Guentchéva’s 1994 (16) claim that topics never receive sentential or emphatic stress. Although it will be argued below that such claims are too strong, and that it is not at all impossible for aboutness and emphasis (especially of a contrastive variety) to coincide on one and the same participant, there is at least a general correlation between emphasis and absence of aboutness, and between aboutness and absence of emphasis.19 The fact that emphasized participants tend not to be what the speaker or writer is providing information about, put together with the observed tendencies cited in (1-6a), i.e. that emphasis entails stress, and in (1-6b), i.e. that topics tend to occur early in the sentence or clause, results in yet another characteristic that can be described as typical of Bulgarian — stressed elements are generally not placed at the beginning of the sentence or clause. In other words, because topics are generally not associated with the type of emphasis which brings sentential stress, this sentential stress is found rela-
Introduction
tively rarely in clause- or sentence-initial position (the position typically occupied by topics). The very typicality and statistical preponderance of non-initial location of emphasized elements makes possible the intentional violation of the norm for communicative purposes.20 More specifically, fronting emphatically stressed noun phrases referring to focused participants is associated with a relatively greater degree of emotion or expressiveness in some sense. This unusual sort of word order, described either specifically in terms of stress or emphasis on a preverbal element or else in terms of the atypical placement of comments before topics, receives frequent remark in the existing literature. Into the set of treatments which reflect the first of these ways of describing this atypical linear order are the syntactic treatments in Rudin 1986 and Motapanyane 1997 cited earlier, where one of the preverbal nodes which may be filled by noun phrases is reserved for focused elements. The second example in (1-7) and the third in (1-8) above are among those presented in these analyses as illustrating focused noun phrases which have been moved to this expressly emphatic position. I repeat these sentences here in (1-17) for convenience. (1-17) Noun Phrases in Preverbal Focus Position Nisˇto ne razbiram. nothing neg understand-1s ‘I don’t understand anything.’ (Rudin 1986:22) Parite li nameri Ivan? the moneyFOC Q found John ‘Was it the money that Ivan found?’ (Motapanyane 1997:265, citing Rudin 1993:1)
This phenomenon has also been described within the framework of an FSP approach as the reversal of the typical topic-before-comment ordering to an atypical comment-before-topic arrangement. This is precisely the type of reversal, referred to as “emphatic word order” (emfaticˇen slovored), to which the authors of volume 3 of the Academy Grammar are referring in the passage quoted in note 20. Many other analyses also make reference to this transposition as resulting in an utterance which is in some way special in its arrangement of the elements in the message. Georgieva 1974 refers to such utterances as “stylistically marked” (stilisticˇno beljazani) (65), “emphatic” (emfaticˇen) (75), and
Degrees of Explicitness
expressive (ekspresiven) (69). Two of the examples she uses to illustrate this special arrangement are given in (1-18), where the initial objects I have underlined are analyzed as rhematic. (1-18) Fronting of Emphasized Participants Ocˇite si otvori toj. (Georgieva 1974:75) ‘He opened his eyes.’ Istinata toj kazva. (Georgieva 1974:69) ‘He is telling the truth.’
Dyer (1992:54) refers to sentences with rheme before theme as “communicatively marked”. He cites Georgieva’s second sentence in (1-18), labeled “expressive”, and adds the sentence in (1-19) under the label “contrastive”. In both of these sentences, according to Dyer, the initial rhemes have “strong logical stress”. (1-19) Fronting of Emphasized Participant Snjag pada, a ne da˘zˇd! ‘It’s snow that’s falling, not rain!’ (Dyer 1992:54)
Among earlier works which remark upon the atypical placement of comments before topics are Ivancˇev 1957, Cyxun 1962a and Popov 1963. Ivancˇev characterizes such sentences as “subjective” (subektiven), and states that they are found in connection with “strong emotional agitation” (silna emocionalna va˘zbuda) (500). Popov’s description is very similar, but suggests that the level of emotion need not be as high as one might be led to believe based on Ivancˇev’s statement.21 Cyxun connects this subjective order “above all to the resolving of doubt or inexact understanding which, in the opinion of the speaker, might arise from the preceding linguistic context or from the situation at hand” (287). In this section I have briefly summarized four primary ways in which information structure finds reflection in Bulgarian word order and sentential intonation. Emphasis on a particular participant in the content of the message entails clause-level or sentence-level stress on the noun phrase referring to this participant and only rarely correlates with early linear position. The status of a participant as being what the utterance is about, on the other hand, generally does correlate with early position in the sentence or clause, and tends not to cooccur with the type of stress associated with emphasis. Finally, language users have at their disposal a means of manipulating word-order and intona-
Introduction
tional patterns in such a way as to add expressiveness to their message, to reflect emotional charge. This means consists of placing emphatically stressed elements in an unusual early linear position.
.
Major concepts and terms
In this section I define the terms which are central to the analysis presented in Chapters Two and Three. Here I also characterize the categories and concepts related to the information structure of the messages which an examination of the written and oral data reveals to be relevant in the choices Bulgarian language users make in the selection among degrees of explicitness in the packaging of subjects and objects. I begin with the notion of focus in 1.3.1. In the remainder of the section I will then discuss participant “aboutness” — aboutness at the clause level (topicality) in 1.3.2, and aboutness at the discourse level (discourse themehood) in 1.3.3. ..
Focus
The clause-level feature which will be referred to here as “focus” involves relatively heavy emphasis. This feature, as will be seen in Chapters Two and Three, plays an important part in determining noun phrase type in the packaging of participants. A focused element in a clause is one which, in the opinion of the speaker or writer, stands out semantically or pragmatically as contrastive, surprising, or in some other way deserving of special attention. Although applied specifically at the level of the clause, this is otherwise essentially compatible with characterizations found in Rudin 1986 and Lambrecht 1994. Compare the description above to Rudin’s “rough” definition of (semantic) focus as “the most salient information conveyed by the sentence” (22), and to Lambrecht’s definition of focus as a “semantic component of a pragmatically structured proposition whereby the assertion differs from the presupposition” (213). Following Lambrecht, I wish to emphasize that focus is being defined “as a semantico-pragmatic, not a formal, category … , not at the grammatical level of the (syntactically structured) sentence.” Recall from Section 1.2 on word order and intonation that Rudin also makes this distinction, opposing semantic focus to syntactic FOCUS. The terms “emphasis” and “focus” are used to refer to very similar notions in this and following chapters. Emphasis is the more general term, while focus refers to significant emphasis on a particular element within the context of the information
Degrees of Explicitness
conveyed in a particular clause. Compare the examples in (1-20) through (1-23), where the elements intended to be focused are underlined. (1-20) Focused Element a. Speaker A: Mike and Kim had hot dogs for lunch. b. Speaker B: Mike had a hot dog?! (1-21) Focused Elements a. Speaker A: My dad can drink fifty hot dogs at a time! b. Speaker B: He can drink them?! (1-22) Focused Element a. We went to a very interesting wedding yesterday. b. It was a very interesting wedding we went to yesterday. (1-23) Focused Element a. The bride wore a satin dress. b. The bride was wearing orange overalls.
In most contexts there would be nothing unusual about any of the information in (1-20a). None of the elements would be focused. If a listener knew, however, that Mike was a vegetarian, or that he was six weeks old, this listener might respond as in (1-20b) with heavy emphasis on “Mike”, since, in his/her opinion Mike is an unusual, surprising participant in the described event. The sentences in (1-21) represent my recollection of part of a conversation I overheard between four-year-olds. The first speaker wanted to impress her friend with the quantity of food her father could consume, and so emphasized the direct object. The friend caught the slip of the tongue made by the first child in choice of verb, and responded with a snide interrogative with this verb focused. Focus, as defined here, is clearly related to the notion “degree of communicative dynamism” described in Firbas 1964. Firbas (270) defines degree of communicative dynamism as “the extent to which the sentence element contributes to the development of the communication, to which it ‘pushes the communication forward’ as it were”. For Firbas the “rheme” of a sentence consists of the element or elements with the highest degree(s) of communicative dynamism, while the element(s) with the lowest degree(s) of communicative dynamism comprise(s) the “theme”. In these terms, focused elements, such as the underlined forms in (1-20) and (1-21), clearly have very high degrees of communicative dynamism. But it is important not to draw too close a connection between “focus” as used here and “rheme” as proposed by Firbas. A focused element does not just have the high-
Introduction
est degree of communicative dynamism in its sentence or clause, it has a high degree of communicative dynamism even by typical rhematic standards. Compare (1-22a) to (1-22b), for instance. It is quite possible that (1-22a) could be uttered with no focused elements whatsoever. The participant represented by the noun phrase “a very interesting wedding” would be part of the rheme and has a degree of communicative dynamism relatively high within its sentence. It is probably not, however, being viewed by the speaker as unusual, surprising or contrastive. Of course it is possible for a speaker to view this participant as focused, worthy of special attention, and to utter (1-22a) with heavy emphatic stress on “very” and/or “interesting”, or to use instead the cleft construction in (1-22b).22 Similarly, the direct object noun phrase in (1-23a) is rhematic and has the highest degree of communicative dynamism in the sentence. It does not, however, have the type of emphasis necessary to qualify it as focused, as would be true in the case of the focused direct object in (1-23b). In the Bulgarian material it is often the case that reference to focused participants is accompanied by various emphatic particles, adverbs, and/or adjectival forms clearly reflecting the focus. Among these, for example, are the adverbs dori, dazˇe (‘even’), osobeno (‘especially’) and tocˇno (‘precisely’), the particles ni/nito (‘not a single’) and i (‘even’, ‘too’) in emphatic usage, adjectival nikaka˘v (‘not any’), and various combinations of forms, such as ne samo X, no i Y (‘not only X, but also Y’). Some examples of this type of lexically signaled focus can be seen in (1-24) through (1-27). In (1-24), in a description of how an officer found soldiers on guard duty playing with some puppies, surprise is expressed that an animal as big as a puppy could get through a perimeter secure enough to prevent even a mouse from entering. (1-24) Lexically Signaled Focus Otka˘de li bjaxa dosˇli — nali celijat poligon besˇe zagraden s bodliva tel, cˇe i misˇka ne mozˇesˇe da mine? (KC:17) ‘Where could they have come from — weren’t the entire grounds fenced in with barbed wire so that even a mouse couldn’t get through?’
In (1-25), also from a written literary prose source, the narrator emphasizes that an old man is not startled into sobriety even by a third, more powerful stimulus. (1-25) Lexically Signaled Focus Pijnalijat ne se strjaska — ni ot minalo, ni ot ba˘desˇte. Dazˇe ot segasˇnoto ne se strjaska. (DG:89) ‘Neither past nor future sobers up the drunk. Even the present doesn’t sober him up.’
Degrees of Explicitness
Examples (1-26) and (1-27), from Aleksova’s colloquial corpus, illustrate focused elements highlighted by negative forms. The exchange in (1-26) is part of a conversation about the stringent standards associated with “red” as opposed to the less prestigious “blue” Russian diplomas. In (1-27) the complete absence of available produce is emphasized. (1-26) Lexically Signaled Focus V: Da. Tova sa taka narecˇenite cˇerveni diplomi. L: Cˇerveni diplomi, da. V: Da, znaja gi. L: Axa, axa. V: “Diplom s otlicˇiem”. [This line is in Russian in the original.] L: Toj … . Ako njamasˇ nito edna petica. Imasˇ li edna petica, vecˇe e sinja. (KA:1.1, excerpt 2) ‘V: Yes. Those are the so-called red diplomas. L: Red diplomas, yes. V: Yes, I know them. L: Uh-huh, uh-huh. V: “Diploma with Distinction”. L: It … If you don’t have even a single five [a grade roughly equivalent to a B]. Have a single five, already it’s a blue one.’ (1-27) Lexically Signaled Focus L: Njama ot nika˘de nikakvi plodove. Ne moga da si napravja dzˇankovite … dzˇankovija sok. (KA:1.1, excerpt 3) ‘L: There isn’t any fruit anywhere. I can’t make my wild plum … wild plum juice.’
In other instances the focus is not reflected by the use of special emphatic lexical items, but the emphasis is still obvious from the presence of overt points of contrast in the context. I have italicized such points of contrast in relation to the underlined focused elements in the literary example in (1-28), which compares a mother to a father, and the colloquial example in (1-29), which is part of a discussion of extensive organizational work on conferences. (1-28) Focus with Overt Point of Contrast Tatko e seriozen cˇovek, tatko ne biva da ba˘de obezpokojavan, a mama vinagi mozˇesˇ da ja dra˘pnesˇ za polata i da oba˘rsˇesˇ nosa v neja … (IM:78)23 ‘Dad is a serious person, Dad should not be disturbed, but Mom you can always tug by the skirt and wipe your nose on it …’
Introduction
(1-29) Focus with Overt Point of Contrast M: Ednata ja provedoxa.23 Sega vtora si organizirat … (KA:4.4, excerpt 1) ‘M: They held the one. Now they’re organizing a second [conference] …’
In many other cases focus on a participant is accompanied neither by the overt signals provided by emphatic lexical items (particles, adverbs, etc.) nor by contextually supplied points of contrast. Rather, the focus is perceived by the addressee through his/her own pragmatic knowledge of the way things work in the world or the way they are viewed by society. In the example in (1-30), for instance, the listener’s knowledge of normal rainfall quantities allows the underlined noun phrase denoting quantity to stand out as focused. (1-30) Pragmatic Focus ST: Sto i dvanajcet litra na kvadraten meta˘r e padnalo. (KA:1.1, excerpt 3) ‘ST: A hundred and twelve liters per square meter came down.’
..
Topic
I will use the term “topicality” to refer to the second major feature to be considered here. Topicality has to do with “aboutness”. The traditional approach to linguistic analysis in which this notion plays a major role, frequently termed Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP), involves dividing the utterance into at least two parts — the topic (or theme, osnova, tema, ekspozicija) and the comment (or rheme, jadro, rema).24 One proposed way of characterizing these components of sentences or clauses views the former as the starting point of the utterance, and the latter as its culmination, its main purpose. Representative here is Georgieva 1974 (32): Temata e tazi cˇast na izrecˇenieto, kojato sluzˇi kato otpravna tocˇka pri izrazjavane na remata … . Rema e tazi cˇast, kojato v sa˘otnosˇenie s temata predava aktualnata informacija. ‘The theme is that part of the sentence/clause which serves as a point of departure for expressing the rheme … . A rheme is that part which, in correlation with the theme conveys the vital information.’
Similarly one can again characterize the comment/rheme as the new information the speaker or writer wishes to convey to the addressee, and then describe the topic/theme as the component of the utterance which indicates to the
Degrees of Explicitness
addressee what this information is about. This view of topic, which is adopted, for example, in Keenan 1976 (318-19), Andrews 1985 (77), Rudin 1986 (22), Lambrecht 1994 (118) and Androulakis 1998 (162), to name a few works, is the one which will be incorporated into the formal definitions assumed in this analysis: (1-31) Topic and Comment Topic: The component of a clause which represents that about which the clause provides or requests information; Comment: The component of a clause which represents the information provided or requested about the topic.
A particularly effective method of applying these abstract notions in the analysis of actual linguistic data is achieved by adopting a revised version of Sgall’s 1975 approach. Namely, one can think of the speaker or writer’s goal in producing a clause as that of changing in some way the information stored in the addressee’s memory. The topic of the clause can then be described as that element which indicates where in the memory the change in information is to be made or stored, and the comment is this new or revised information itself. In this approach it is as if the memory is viewed as being arranged in a set of files whose titles or labels are referents, each of which is a potential topic.25 With each clause, the speaker or writer expects the addressee to locate (or create) the correct file (i.e., the topic) and to add to or change the information stored there as indicated in the comment. The passages in (1-32) and (1-33) contain a number of examples of topics (underlined) and comments made about them. (1-32) Topics No basˇtata oba˘rna gra˘b i tra˘gna, bez Ø povecˇe da ja pogledne.26 I milicionera˘t tra˘gna ma˘lcˇalivo sled nego. Roza se izpravi. Osˇte edna mlada zˇena be vljazla v stajata za svizˇdane, Ø pokorno i primereno sedna na izla˘skanata pejka. (PV:432) ‘But her father turned his back and left, without Ø looking at her further. The policeman too set off quietly after him. Roza stood up. Another young woman had come into the visiting room, she sat down meekly and with resignation on the polished bench.’
This literary passage consists of six clauses in four sentences. Both the main clause and the subordinate clause in the first sentence provide information about Roza’s father by telling the reader what he does and how he does it as he
Introduction
concludes the visit with his daughter who had come to see him in prison. This referent is mentioned overtly in the first clause and as a non-overt zero (or as a deleted pronoun) in the second clause.27 The second and third sentences in (1-32) provide the reader with additional information to file with that already stored about two other participants in the episode, i.e. the guard and Roza, respectively. The reader then encounters two clauses about a new referent being introduced into the novel for the first time. The reader must therefore create a new file in his/her memory. Into this new file goes first the comment in the first clause — that this woman had made an appearance on the scene. The second clause, where the topic is formally represented as a zero subject, gives more information about this recently introduced topic by telling the reader something else she did. (1-33) Topics K: Tazi masa besˇe tuka. Imasˇe edna pecˇka za da˘rva i va˘glisˇta. Ama Ø nisˇto ne e gorela. Ox lele az vikam, s pecˇki Ø ne ulucˇix xubavo. Taka s ma˘ zˇ ako Ø ne bjax ulucˇila, sto pa˘ti Ø sme se razvezˇdali. A s pecˇka, i do den dnesˇen s pecˇka Ø ne sa˘m ulucˇila. A s ma˘ zˇ Ø sa˘m ulucˇila. (KA:2.3, excerpt 1) ‘K: This table was here. There was a firewood and coal stove. But it didn’t burn anything. Oh goodness, I declare, I’ve had bad luck with stoves. If I’d have had bad luck like that with a husband, we’d have been divorced a hundred times. But a stove, to this day I haven’t had luck with a stove. But with a husband I’ve had luck.’
In the first three sentences in (1-33) the speaker gives information about some items that were in the house when she was younger. In the rest of the passage she is providing information about herself (or, in the case of the second clause in the fifth sentence, about both herself and her husband). We repeatedly see here examples of the omission or deletion of personal pronouns. Such deletion is especially common in Bulgarian when the pronoun is a first person (as in (1-33)) or second person subject. This will be addressed in detail in Chapter Two. It is crucial to the analysis which follows that the definition of topic in (1-31) involves no prohibition against regarding noun phrases which are focused, indefinite, and/or new information as being topical. This runs counter to the way topic status is conceived in some existing works dealing with various aspects of information structure in Bulgarian and other languages. Guentchéva (1994:16), for instance, speaks of the incompatibility of focus and topicality: “un thème ne reçoit jamais l’accent phrastique” (‘a topic never gets
Degrees of Explicitness
the sentential stress’) and “un thème n’est jamais porteur d’un accent d’insistance” (‘a topic is never a bearer of emphatic stress’). Many scholars take the position that topics must be known or given information rather than new information in the context of the discourse. Among these are Popov (1963:96), the authors of volume 3 of the Academy Grammar (1983:188), and, perhaps most adamantly, Sgall (1975:303-04), who states that topics must be both known to the listener and speaker and also “activated or foregrounded by the preceding co-text or situation”. Andrews (1985:78) also comes out quite clearly against regarding new information as topical. He further suggests that topics are not packaged with indefinite noun phrases: By definition, topics are given, that is, presumed to be in the consciousness of the hearer by virtue of the preceding discourse or already shared knowledge … .28 Topics furthermore seem always to be definite. The reason for this is presumably because it is pointless to make a comment about the referent of an NP if the NP doesn’t manage to identify a specific referent to the hearer.
I omit such prerequisites from my definition in (1-31) because their inclusion would obscure the primary importance of the “aboutness” feature and would make impossible certain significant generalizations concerning the role of topicality in the determination of degree of explicitness in Bulgarian. As will be shown in the chapters which follow, there are components of Bulgarian participant packaging which are sensitive to “aboutness” at the clause level, but not to these other features regarded by some as necessary characteristics of topics. A brief look at reduplication, which will be discussed in detail in Chapter Three, will illustrate this point. The majority of examples of reduplicated forms in the data are non-focused, given and definite.29 There is, however, a small minority which are new information and/or indefinite.30 And there is actually a relatively large minority which are focused. What even these seemingly exceptional forms in the minority have in common with those in the majority is that they represent what is being spoken or written about at the clause level.31 With the less restrictive notion of topic, one can (and should, assuming the validity of Ockham’s razor) capture the essence of reduplication’s topic-marking function without having to resort to the type of workable but rather complex approach taken in Guentchéva 1994. Guentchéva associates object reduplication with both “thématisation” and with “focalisation”, depending on whether there is or is not emphasis on the reduplicated object, and these thematized and focalized elements are then combined under the umbrella “terme de départ”. Another alternative is to insist that
Introduction
anything emphasized is obligatorily part of the comment with no further acknowledgment of the “aboutness” of a subset of these emphatic elements. This type of approach, however, leads to the conclusion that although most reduplicated forms are topical, there are some which simply are not. This, in turn, leads the analyst away from what will be described in 3.4.2 below as not only a characteristic of Bulgarian object reduplication, but as its actual communicative function (i.e., the explicit signaling of object topicality). Nonetheless, it does hold true that the majority of topics are in fact definite, non-focused participants. And most, furthermore, can be assumed by the speaker/writer to be in the consciousness of the listener/reader by virtue of recent mention in the discourse or presence in the immediate non-linguistic environment. This appears to be connected to a tendency in human communication to make the addressee’s task easier by providing information to be stored in files which have already been “activated”, as Sgall puts it, (or else to take a moment to activate them first: “I ran into Bob in front of the library. He shaved his head again.” instead of simply “Bob shaved his head again.”, if Bob has not yet been mentioned in the discourse and is not within eyesight of the interlocutors). But, again, it is crucial to the analysis that follows that these features not be viewed as prerequisites to topic status, even though they may be typical of topics.32 While the preponderance among topics of noun phrases which are non-focused, definite, given information both seems logical and is supported by an examination of Bulgarian linguistic data, it should also be noted that counterexamples are neither terribly infrequent nor remarkably odd when they do occur. The underlined topics in (1-34) through (1-38) support at least the second part of this claim. The indicated topic in (1-34) is focused. The speaker simultaneously gives information about the electricity (that it wasn’t working) and emphasizes this element (using this absent electricity as a contrast to and negation of the previously stated adequacy of quantity and quality of elevators). (1-34) Topical Focused Participant B: A kolko asansjori ima na vxod? I: Tri. B: E, znacˇi tova i dobre, nali? I: Tri asansjori sa na vxod. I vseki ima svoj samostojatelen tam, a˘, pult na upravlenie. Vseki edin ot tjax. B: Axa. I: No njamasˇe tok, i ne rabotjat asansjorite. (KA:2.8, excerpt 1)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘B: I: B: I:
And how many access elevators are there? Three. So, that’s good, isn’t it? There are three access elevators. And each has its own separate, uh, control panel there. Each one of them. B: Uh-huh. I: But the power was out, and the elevators don’t work.’
There is an even more straightforward contrast involved in the focus on the topical indirect object in the literary example in (1-35). (1-35) Topical Focused Participant … ta vizˇ, kazvasˇe toj, ako tova nesˇto go narisuva njakoj xudozˇnik, sˇte mu kazˇat, cˇe e kicˇ, a na prirodata ne mozˇesˇ da ì kazˇesˇ, cˇe e sa˘zdala njakoj kicˇ … (IM:109-10)33 ‘… why look, he would say, if this thing is drawn by some artist, they’ll tell him that it’s kitsch, but one can’t tell nature that it has created some kind of kitsch …’
The colloquial excerpt in (1-36) contains an example of topical new information (the grandfather is mentioned here for the first time). In (1-37) a different speaker in the same conversation uses an indefinite noun twice to refer to the topic. (1-36) Topical New Participant E: Nie njamame navik da pravime zimnina. B: Ami kakvo pravite prez zimata? Kupuvate? E: Sega sˇte ti kazˇa. Njamame, zasˇtoto edno vreme, a˘, nie imaxme ka˘sˇta na poduene. Djado mi imasˇe. I tam primerno ili vujna mi i djado mi se xvanat i napravjat, i ima i za nas. (KA:2.4, excerpt 1) ‘E: We’re not in the habit of canning for the winter. V: But what do you do in the winter? Buy? E: Hang on, I’ll tell you. We’re not [in the habit] because, uh, we used to have a full house. My grandfather was alive. And for example there either my aunt and my grandfather go and do it, and there’s enough for us, too.’ (1-37) Topical Indefinite Participant I: A be njama fasonki. Njama po tova, njamo po, Zˇoro, sˇte mi dadesˇ li edna cˇasˇa voda, kato xodisˇ natam? Njama po magazinite nika˘de fasonki be. (KA:2.4, excerpt 1)
Introduction
‘I: But man, there are no sockets. There aren’t any at this one, there aren’t any at, Zˇoro, will you get me a glass of water since you’re going that way? There aren’t any sockets at the stores anywhere, man.’
The excerpt in (1-32), repeated here as (1-38), contains an example of literary usage of a topic which has both of the atypical features seen in colloquial (1-36) and (1-37). The underlined topic is both indefinite and new information in the context of the narrative. (1-38) Topical Indefinite New Participant No basˇtata oba˘rna gra˘b i tra˘gna, bez povecˇe da ja pogledne. I milicionera˘t tra˘gna ma˘lcˇalivo sled nego. Roza se izpravi. Osˇte edna mlada zˇena be vljazla v stajata za svizˇdane, pokorno i primereno sedna na izla˘skanata pejka. (PV:432) ‘But her father turned his back and left, without looking at her further. The policeman too set off quietly after him. Roza stood up. Another young woman had come into the visiting room, she sat down meekly and with resignation on the polished bench.’
..
Discourse theme
The feature outlined above, topicality, involves a participant holding a certain status at the clause level. According to the definition adopted in the present study, the topic is the participant about whom or which the speaker or writer, in uttering or writing a particular clause, intends to provide (or request) information. The third feature of information structure to be considered here differs from topicality and focus in that it involves a participant holding a certain status in regard to a greater stretch of speech or text. Participants with this third feature, which will be termed here “discourse themes” (DTs), are similar to topics, however, in that their defining characteristic has to do with “aboutness”: (1-39) Discourse Theme Discourse Theme (DT): The participant that a “discourse” is primarily about.
As concerns written monologue, the “discourse” in this definition equates roughly to paragraph, although I do not mean to say that one ought to assume that discourse boundaries always or only occur where writers (or their editors) decide to indent. It is quite possible that in a given instance a
Degrees of Explicitness
single typographical paragraph contains a switch from one DT in the first portion to another in the second. In this case it would be viewed in this analysis as being split between two discourses. Also frequent is the converse — two or more consecutive typographical paragraphs have the same DT. In this case it becomes possible to argue in favor of combining the paragraphs into a single discourse. Nonetheless, in the written texts examined, it seems clear that paragraphs are generally organized around a single DT (either a single individual participant, or a well-defined set of participants viewed collectively). The relevance of the paragraph in linguistic analysis is supported by Givón’s (1992:16) observation that “most grammatical devices used to code thematic importance are sensitive primarily to local - paragraph scope — importance”.34 The text in (1-40), for example, consists of two paragraphs, each organized around a single DT. The primary purpose of the first paragraph is to give information about a woman who is secretly leaving milk out at night for a son who is hiding out in the forest, sought by the authorities. The DT of the second paragraph is the son himself. In this and the following example, the occurrences of the DTs are underlined. Note in passing how frequently these DTs are packaged as non-overt (zero) subjects and as short form pronominal objects. Attention will be directed at this frequency in Chapters Two and Three. (1-40) Discourse Themes I tazi nosˇt mljakoto besˇe izpito. Ø Oprja se na brjasta, Ø ogleda se izplasˇena, da ne bi njakoj da ja e vidjal, i Ø zaba˘rza ka˘m ka˘sˇti. Ø Vleze v stajata, Ø spa˘na se v stolcˇeto — kotlenceto izdra˘ncˇa na pra˘stenija pod, — Ø zalitna, Ø sedna na oda˘rcˇeto. Sedem meseca izminaxa bez nego. Ø Dojde si edna vecˇer — besˇe po va˘rsˇitba, — Ø Vleze v stajata i Ø zakljucˇi sled sebe si vratata. Tja se zaradva i izplasˇi. Zaradva mu se, zasˇtoto Ø otdavna ne besˇe si idval — Ø rabotesˇe kato ognjar v ciglenata fabrika v grada, — a se izplasˇi, zasˇtoto liceto mu besˇe oteklo i pod ocˇite mu imasˇe sinini. (KC:97) ‘This night, too, the milk had been drunk. She leaned against the elm, Ø looked around in fear that someone might have seen her, and Ø hurried toward the house. She went into the room, Ø stumbled into the stool — the pot clanged onto the dirt floor, — she staggered, Ø sat on the little plank-bed. Seven months went by without him. He came home one evening — it was during threshing season, — he came into the room and Ø locked the door behind him. She was delighted and frightened. She was
Introduction
delighted to see him because he had not come home in a long time — he was working as a stoker at a tile factory in the city, — and she was frightened because his face was swollen and there were dark circles under his eyes.’
In dialogue, too, stretches of speech of various length can be seen to be primarily about a single theme, with more than one speaker sharing this topic of conversation. For convenience I will apply here the same terms as those used for the parallel notions illustrated above with the monologic example — discourse and discourse theme. To illustrate this I have selected the natural, colloquial discourse in (1-41), where the conversation between two women contains this exchange concerning the toddler son of one of them. (1-41) Discourse Themes V: Iskam da ti kazˇa nesˇto mnogo prijatno. Ø Naakal se e. R: I normalno, nali? Be geroj. Normalno. S pamper li si, ne si? V: Ej, na … R: Mala˘k, Ø naakal li si se naistina? V: Mnogo. Roska, trjabva da go miem. R: A, sˇte go opravim. Njama problem. (KA:1.6, excerpt 2) ‘V: I want to tell you something very pleasant. He’s messed his pants. R: As usual, huh? A hero. As usual. Do you have a diaper, no? V: Here you are. R: Little one, have you really messed yourself? V: A lot. Rozka, we have to wash him. R: Ah, we’ll fix him up. No problem.’
In addition to the obvious notional similarity between the proposed characterizations of topic and discourse theme, there is also a very frequent overlap between these two information structure features in terms of simultaneous presence in one and the same participant. In other words, in both the written and the oral data, it is very often the case that clause-level topics also represent what the current discourse is about, and, conversely, particular references to discourse themes are very often what the current clause is about. This frequent concurrence is not surprising. Since DT is defined as the participant that a discourse is primarily about, it stands to reason that DTs will often serve as clause-level topics within that discourse. That is, the amassing of a fairly large number of clauses providing information about a given participant creates DT status and contributes to the perception that the discourse is primarily about that participant.
Degrees of Explicitness
It is essential, however, to note that topicality and discourse themehood certainly do not always cooccur. The following English example was used in Leafgren 2000 (60) to illustrate this point. References to the DT are underlined, and each clause-level topic is in italics. (1-42) Topic versus Discourse Theme My brother enrolled at Columbia last fall. He spent the first two weeks simply browsing in the library and wandering the streets of Manhattan. By the middle of September, however, classes were in full swing, and he finally was forced to settle into a more productive routine. My parents told me all this. They eagerly check the mail every day for a letter from him. Fortunately he writes at least once a week.
The primary purpose of this paragraph is to provide the reader with information about the DT, my brother. Four of the seven clauses (the sole clauses in the first, second and final sentences, and the second clause in the third sentence) have as their purpose the provision of information about this DT, and so are instances of coincidence of topicality and discourse themehood. In the other three clauses in this paragraph, however, the topics are participants other than the DT. Information is provided about the classes in the first clause of the third sentence, and about the parents in the two clauses which make up the fourth and fifth sentences. The fifth sentence, in addition to including one of these three instances of topics which are not DTs, also illustrates the nontopical DT situation. The DT is mentioned (“him” = the brother) in this clause where some other participant (“they” = the parents) is topical. For a similar example from the Bulgarian data, see the paragraph in (1-43), which was cited earlier as part of (1-40). Clause-level topics are italicized and DTs are underlined. (1-43) Topic versus Discourse Theme I tazi nosˇt mljakoto besˇe izpito. Ø Oprja se na brjasta, Ø ogleda se izplasˇena, da ne bi njakoj da ja e vidjal, i Ø zaba˘rza ka˘m ka˘sˇti. Ø Vleze v stajata, Ø spa˘na se v stolcˇeto — kotlenceto izdra˘ncˇa na pra˘stenija pod, — Ø zalitna, Ø sedna na oda˘rcˇeto. (KC:97) ‘This night, too, the milk had been drunk. She leaned against the elm, Ø looked around in fear that someone might have seen her, and Ø hurried toward the house. She went into the room, Ø stumbled into the stool — the pot clanged onto the dirt floor, — she staggered, Ø sat on the little plank-bed.’
Introduction
I have italicized the ten clause-level topics in this paragraph. In eight of these clauses it is the DT that is topical. These eight instances of coincidence of topicality and discourse themehood are marked with both underlining and italicization. The two topics that are not currently discourse themes, the milk and the pot, are italicized, but not underlined. In the first section of this chapter I have provided a brief and rough sketch of the degrees of explicitness available in Bulgarian for the packaging of participants as subjects and objects, a description of the goals of the current analysis and the general theoretical framework employed, and some illustration of the functional, communicative significance of degree of explicitness in the successful conveyance of messages from one language user to another. Section 1.2 provided an outline of the primary ways in which emphasis and aboutness are reflected in word order and sentence-level stress. Section 1.3 then was devoted to a more detailed discussion and illustration of the information structure features (focus, topicality and discourse themehood) which turn out to be crucial in the analysis of participant explicitness in Bulgarian. The way has now been prepared to begin the analysis itself. The presentation of the analysis has been divided into two parts: Chapter Two addresses the packaging of grammatical subject participants, and Chapter Three turns to direct and indirect objects.
C 2
Subjects
. Degrees of explicitness The variety of noun phrase types used to express grammatical subjects in contemporary Bulgarian may be divided into three main formal categories based on their degree of explicitness: personal pronouns, other overt noun phrases, and non-overt noun phrases. The least explicit of these are the nonovert zero or null subjects. Here, obviously, no grammatical or lexical information is morphologically expressed in the form of the noun phrase itself. In clauses with zero subjects, the semantic content of the omitted noun phrase is understood (if the communication is successful) from the context of the utterance, with some information about this participant reflected in the inflectional agreement features located in the predicate (i.e. in the inflectional morphology of the verb, and perhaps of a predicate adjectival form).35 Examples of this, including (2-1), follow. I have numbered the zero subjects in (2-1) for later reference. (2-1) Zero Subjects Togava Ø1 va˘vedoxa basˇta ì. Ø2 Stori ì se mnogo otslabnal, liceto mu imasˇe ma˘rtvesˇki cvjat. (PV:430) ‘Then they brought in her father. He seemed very thin to her, his face had a deathlike color.’
Example (2-1) contains two instances of zero subject. The second of these two, found in the first clause of the second sentence, is the more typical. Here the zero subject refers to a specific individual whose identity as the participant in the clause in question is clear from the context. The inflectional morphology of the verb (stori se ‘seemed’) tells us that the subject is second or third person singular, and that of the adjectival otslabnal ‘thin’ makes it clear that the subject is masculine. The immediately preceding reference to the father, the absence of any other likely referent in the context, and the logic involved in a woman’s concern with the appearance/well-being of her father (whom she is visiting in prison) allows for the omission of an overt subject (basˇta ì ‘her
Degrees of Explicitness
father’ or pronominal toj ‘he’) without creating any real threat of ambiguity or misinterpretation of reference. The other zero subject in (2-1), Ø1, is perhaps more interesting. There are two possible interpretations. On the one hand, one might explain the appropriateness of a zero subject here in a manner similar to that just proposed for Ø2 in the second sentence. Namely, since logic and knowledge of the real world make it obvious that it would be the prison guards who would bring a prisoner into the visiting room, there is no need to identify them. The identity of this (group of) participant(s) is completely recoverable without any overt reference. A second possibility is to interpret the subject of this sentence as an example of what Rå Hauge (1999:201) calls “unspecified subjects”. In this case a functionally equivalent English translation might involve the passive construction, which allows English speakers to avoid overt reference to an agent: ‘Then her father was brought in.’. In the English passive, no specification of the number of the agent, i.e. singular or plural, is made. At first glance this seems inconsistent with the Bulgarian original, where the verb va˘vedoxa ‘brought in’ is morphologically third person plural. Note, however, what Rå Hauge has to say about this issue (emphasis mine): The 3rd-person plural sentences constitute a way to express that an action is performed, without expressing who performs it; much as passives can be used. The unnamed performer of the action is understood to be human, and may be singular or plural. The plural of the verb form is only formal; actually the distinction between plural and singular is neutralized in these forms.
Among Rå Hauge’s examples is the following, in which either a singular or a plural participant may have performed the act of telling. This is despite the formally plural form of the verb razkazaxa. (2-2) Zero Subject Vcˇera mi razkazaxa edna slucˇka, kojato me nakara da se razmislja. ‘Yesterday I was told about an incident that made me reflect.’ (Rå Hauge 1999:201)
The excerpt from a colloquial conversation presented in (2-3) is from Aleksova’s corpus. Unlike that in (2-2), it illustrates the use of the typical, ‘specified’, type of zero subject in the oral data. (2-3) Zero Subject M: Krasi, ti cigarka iskasˇ li? V: Ø Ne pusˇa. (KA:2.3, excerpt 1)
Subjects
‘M: Krasi, do you want a cigarette? V: I don’t smoke.’
Here the first person singular personal pronoun az ‘I’ is omitted or deleted. The inflectional ending of the verb is explicitly first person singular, present tense, and the context of the utterance leads to the expectation of a first person response. From a derivational syntactic viewpoint it is perhaps best to treat these zero subjects as deleted, or dropped, personal pronouns, which themselves derive from an earlier process of pronominalization of a more explicit noun phrase type. This notion of an underlying subject formally realized with no phonetic content finds frequent support in the literature. Rudin (1986:39), for instance, writes: “Bulgarian is a so-called “Pro-drop” language; that is, it freely allows the subject of a clause to be missing (or null [NPe]).” Pencˇev’s (1998) recent work is particularly clear in this regard: Every clause/sentence has a subject. In accordance with this principle, the constituent grammar always produces a subject position, even though some predicates do not need it. We know that this subject can be expressed with an NP or an N or a clause, called a “subject clause”. We also know, however, that a clause can be expressed without a subject as well … (77) Bulgarian is one of the so-called null-subject languages (or “those which drop the pronominal subject”). (140)
After zero subjects, the next degree of explicitness in the options for subject packaging is made up of the set of nominative personal pronouns. These are listed in Table 3.
Table 3. Nominative personal pronouns
First Person Second Person Third Person
a
masc. fem. neut.
Singular
Plural
az ti toj tja to
nie vie a te te te
As in many other languages (cf. Russian vy, French vous), the so-called second person plural is also used with singular reference for participants with whom the speaker is on more formal terms.
Degrees of Explicitness
These nominative pronominal forms are highly explicit grammatically. They are paradigmatically opposed to pronominal forms used as direct and indirect objects (which will be introduced in Chapter Three), and their use thus signals that the participant they refer to is a grammatical subject (or nominative predicate linked to the subject by a verb of “being”). The grammatical information about person, number and, in the third person singular, gender inherent in their forms also contributes greatly (in comparison to non-overt zero subjects) to referential specification. While clauses with zero subjects have only verbal morphology to formally indicate or give clues toward identifying the participant filling the grammatical subject role, these personal pronouns often go further in restricting the set of potential referents. The imperfect past tense verb form besˇe ‘was’ in (2-4a), for example, like other simple past tense verb forms with parallel inflection, is morphologically singular and is not used with first person subjects. The inflection of this form is compatible, however, with both second person singular and third person singular agreement: (2-4a) Zero Subject Koga Ø besˇe v Sofija? ‘When were you (sg.) in Sofia?’/’When was he/she/it in Sofia?’
Including the overt personal pronoun ti ‘you’ clarifies that the intended participant in the message is the addressee, rather than some third party. (2-4b) Personal Pronoun Subject Koga ti besˇe v Sofija? ‘When were you (sg.) in Sofia?’
The presence (versus absence) of a third person singular personal pronoun can further restrict potential referents by overtly indicating not only person, but also gender (which is not morphologically explicit in many verb forms). Compare (2-5a) to (2-5b). (2-5a) Zero Subject Ø Dade mi go vcˇera. ‘You/He/She gave it to me yesterday.’ (2-5b) Personal Pronoun Subject Tja mi go dade vcˇera. ‘She gave it to me yesterday.’
In the prescribed standard language one does not find increased referential explicitness through inclusion of a pronoun in the plural. Plural verbal con-
Subjects
structions themselves morphologically indicate person, and the presence of personal pronouns does nothing to further specify gender. Some examples of this are given in (2-6), where the presence of the pronominal subject does not contribute to referential clarity of the identity of the participants. (2-6a) Present Tense (Nie) Pisˇem pismo. ‘We are writing a letter.’ (Vie) Pisˇete pismo. ‘You are writing a letter.’ (Te) Pisˇat pismo. ‘They are writing a letter.’ (2-6b) Aorist Past Tense (Nie) Napisaxme pismo. ‘We wrote a letter.’ (Vie) Napisaxte pismo. ‘You wrote a letter.’ (Te) Napisaxa pismo. ‘They wrote a letter.’ (2-6c) Present Perfect Tense Nie sme napisali pismo. / Napisali sme pismo.36 ‘We have written a letter.’ Vie ste napisali pismo. / Napisali ste pismo.36 ‘You have written a letter.’ Te sa napisali pismo. / Napisali sa pismo.36 ‘They have written a letter.’
A speaker can make his or her participant most explicit, referentially if not grammatically, by employing an overt noun phrase other than a personal pronoun as the subject:37 (2-7a) Non-pronominal Subject Nikolaj mi go dade. ‘Nikolaj gave it to me.’ (cf. Toj mi go dade./Ø Dade mi go. ‘He gave it to me.’/’You/He/She gave it to me.’) (2-7b) Non-pronominal Subject Ucˇitelkata mu njama ma˘ zˇ.
Degrees of Explicitness
‘His teacher does not have a husband.” (cf. Tja njama ma˘ zˇ./Ø Njama ma˘ zˇ. ‘She does not have a husband.’) (2-7c) Non-pronominal Subject Decata osˇte ne znajat za tova. ‘The children don’t yet know about this.’ (cf. Te osˇte ne znajat za tova./Ø Osˇte ne znajat za tova. ‘They don’t yet know about this.’)
At this point the objection might be raised that at least some noun phrases other than personal pronouns are no more explicit, perhaps are even less explicit, than are personal pronouns. Non-personal pronouns such as njakoj ‘someone/anyone’, nikoj ‘no one’, nesˇto ‘something’ or noun phrases such as edno kucˇe ‘a dog’ or njakoi xora ‘some people’ may not seem very explicit. What I need to emphasize in this regard is that “explicit” here is not meant in the sense of “specific”. By saying that personal pronouns are less explicit than other overt noun phrases, what I mean is that in using them, the speaker has opted for a sort of shorthand notation that is not as transparent as it could be. The subject in the sentence “He gave me a pencil.” may be very specific in reference, but in uttering the sentence I know that I am not being as explicit in reference as would be the case had I said instead “Dave gave me a pencil.” or “Your brother gave me a pencil.”. Conversely, the subjects in “No one had a pencil.” or “Someone gave me a pencil.” are not specific in their reference, but in uttering these sentences I am being as explicit as I can be (or at least as explicit as I feel I can be under the circumstances) about the participants in question.38 In this way one can view specificity as a semantic notion, while explicitness is pragmatic in nature. Within the set of personal pronouns, the second person forms and especially the first person forms are more explicit than are the third person forms. Unlike substituting “he” for “Dave” or “toj” for “Nikolaj”, the use of az/I, ti/you, nie/we and vie/you in normal language use is not a step down in explicitness from some other viable option.39 Despite this difference, there is justification for grouping all personal pronouns together under a single heading. First, they all share the feature of having correct interpretation of reference depend on knowledge of the current state of fluid speaker-addressee-other relations. And second, they also have in common a striking packaging characteristic that sets them apart from other noun phrase types. I allude here to the fact that personal pronouns paradigmatically oppose focused forms to non-focused forms when denoting direct and indirect objects. For an example of this parallel,
Subjects
compare the opposition between first person singular direct object forms mene ‘me’ (focused) and me ‘me’ (non-focused) to the third person plural forms tjax ‘them’ (focused) and gi ‘them’ (non-focused). This opposition will be discussed further in Section 3.3. The remainder of this chapter focuses on the decisions language users make in choosing among forms from the three major degrees of explicitness when packaging the grammatical subjects in their clauses. The basic premise, in very general terms, will be that speakers tend to select the least explicit form that is appropriate in a given context. This premise logically follows from the increasing physical effort and the increasing time investment required as one moves from the least explicit zero subjects to the relatively short personal pronouns and from there to the almost always longer noun phrases other than personal pronouns, put together with the assumption of a basic human inclination to accomplish one’s goals (in communication and otherwise) in the simplest way possible. This view also finds support both in the Bulgarian data examined and in the observations and conclusions reported by others in the existing literature on universal or language-specific principles. In some sense this tendency toward brevity might be viewed as having evolved into a system of conventional social norms or standards for discourse. One is reminded, for instance, of Grice’s 1975 “Cooperative Principle” for contributions to conversation. Under the heading “Manner” falls the maxim “Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)” (46), and within the “Quantity” category we find the maxim “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required” (45). For Russian literary narrative, Nichols 1985 reflects the view that zero packaging is the preferred norm. Nichols reports that in her Russian data, the “theme”, which in essence is what I have been referring to here as DT, tends to occur as a zero, unless one of a number of contextual features (external perspective or various types of discontinuities in the narrative) triggers overt packaging. Nichols’s “grammar of themehood” further suggests that among overt noun phrase types it is the personal pronoun that is the unmarked, neutral choice. More specifically, there are particular factors which trigger the use of a full noun, otherwise a personal pronoun is used. Nichols’s analysis thus views the packaging of DTs in Russian literary narrative as reflecting a hierarchy which parallels degree of explicitness: The least explicit zeros are preferred when possible. If this least explicit packaging is ruled out, then the second least explicit type, the personal pronoun, is preferred when possible. Only if both of these less explicit types have been ruled out can one expect to find the most explicit type of noun phrase.40 Specifically about Bulgarian, Andrejcˇin, Popov
Degrees of Explicitness
and Stojanov (1977:336) characterize omission of the subject as a “normal phenomenon” (obiknoveno javlenie) and, as Cyxun (1962b:120) does for South Slavic in general, describe the distribution of the zero subject in an unmarked sense — specific factors are cited which condition overtness, otherwise the non-overt variant is used. Finally I will mention here Doncˇeva’s 1975 comparative study of the use of zero subject in Bulgarian and Russian. In her closing paragraph, she writes the following, which supports the notion that the less explicit forms enjoy a certain favor in comparison to more explicit forms: “In the contemporary languages one sees a tendency toward a shortening of the sentence, toward economy of speaking time” (20).
.
Semantic explicitness
As will be seen in upcoming sections of this chapter, focus and aboutness play crucial roles in determining the degree of explicitness selected in the packaging of grammatical subject participants. Also extremely influential, however, is the need to convey successfully the informative content of the intended message itself. There are cases, in a number of varieties, in which the very need to deliver a message determines that a relatively explicit form be used, and the other features mentioned presumably play no role (or at least are incapable of countermanding the needs imposed by the content of the message itself). It is therefore appropriate here to look at some of the main types of what I will term “semantic explicitness” before moving on to the role played by the various types of emphasis and aboutness. ..
Participant identity
Perhaps the most common and probably the most obvious situation of this type is when a full noun phrase is used where failure to do so might result in the hearer or reader not knowing the identity of the participant involved.41 In many such cases the language user is introducing a new participant into the discourse or else is reintroducing one which has been inactive in the discourse long enough that the addressee cannot be reasonably expected to retrieve and “plug in” the intended participant without an explicit prompt. In (2-8), for example, the young policeman makes an appearance in the narrative for the first time, and the use of a less explicit form, either a zero subject or a personal pronoun, would make it impossible for the reader to know who came running up.
Subjects
(2-8) Full NP for Participant Identity Ne sled da˘lgo doticˇa zapa˘xtjan mlad milicioner. (IM:18) ‘Before long a young policeman came running up out of breath.’
Similarly, in the colloquial example in (2-9) the speaker uses a very explicit form, a proper noun, to introduce a new participant into the conversation. Up to this point in the discourse, the activities of other individuals had been being discussed, and a full noun phrase is needed for the speaker to successfully communicate the identity of the new intended DT. (2-9) Full NP for Participant Identity V: A Kircˇo kakvo pravi, babo? (KA:2.9x, excerpt 1) ‘V: And what is Kircˇo up to, Granny?’
The underlined explicit full noun phrase in (2-10) is not being introduced into the text for the first time. In fact, this passage occurs more than two thirds of the way into a novel in which this Dimov is one of the main characters. An explicit full noun phrase is required, however, as three full pages have elapsed since the last reference to the protagonist. These three pages describe an episode with many active participants in a courtroom, and, although he may have been present, Dimov is not mentioned even once in this episode. (2-10) Full NP for Participant Identity Dva dni sled prisa˘data inspektor Dimov nisˇto ne spomena za neja. (PV:483) ‘Two days after the ruling, inspector Dimov made no mention of it.’
A parallel use of an explicit noun phrase is seen in the colloquial material in (2-11). One speaker is telling a story about a trip to the coast, when another interjects with reference to the father of a friend. The first speaker continues with the narrative, seeming to ignore the interjection. When she does get around to responding to it, the explicit basˇta ì ‘her father’ is used to reintroduce and identify the referent. (2-11) Full NP for Participant Identity E: Ti da vidisˇ kaka˘v majtap! Otivame v Primorsko, i mojata prijatelka Katja ot Burgas — se bjaxme razbrali te da dojdat sa˘bota i nedelja tam. Obacˇe taka stana, cˇe ne bjaxme si kupili produkti ili nesˇto ot toja sort. I: A Kateto, kakvo pravi basˇta ì? Njama li s onaja riba da ni pocˇerpi?
Degrees of Explicitness
E: I trjabva da ì se obadime, cˇe sme v Primorsko, nesˇto ot toja rod. I ticˇam az ka˘m Primorsko, obacˇe po banski i edna fanelka. Tam i edin pensioner, “Ne mozˇe.” I az dogonvam Ivan. Toj pet kracˇki besˇe otminal ot posˇtata. Vikam, “svaljaj pantaloni.” Svalja Ivan negovite sˇorti. Obuv az otgore, ama to visi, bratcˇe, otvsjaka˘de. Vikam, “Taka mozˇe li?” “Mozˇe.” Vlizam v posˇtata, govorja, izlizam, sa˘buvam gi. Naroda˘t me gleda kato nenormalna. I: Cˇestno kazano. E: I Katja dojde. Basˇta ì e sˇef na, a˘, Slavjanka, zavoda za konservi … (KA:2.4, excerpt 4) ‘E: You should see what a joke! We go to Primorsko, and my friend Kate from Burgas — we had planned for them to come there Saturday and Sunday.42 But the way it worked out, we hadn’t bought ourselves groceries, or something like that. I: And Katie, what does her father do? Won’t he treat us to some of that fish? E: And we have to let her know that we’re in Primorsko, something like that. And I run toward Primorsko, but in a swimsuit and shirt. And there a pensioner [says], “It’s not allowed.” And I catch up with Ivan. He had already gotten five steps from the post office. I say, “Take off pants.” Ivan takes off his shorts. I take down some shoes, man, they’re hanging everywhere. I say, “Is it allowed like this?” “It is.” I go into the post office, talk, come out, take them off. The people are looking at me like I’m crazy. I: No kidding. E: And Kate came. Her father is a manager at, uh, Slavjanka, the canned foods plant …’
It is not always because a participant is being introduced into the discourse for the first time or is being reintroduced after a significant hiatus that an explicit form is needed. Quite often, in fact, even when a participant has just been included in the content of the discourse, an explicit form is nonetheless necessary, owing to the presence in the context of other potential referents. The more explicit form identifies which of the potential participants is the intended one. Most often a full noun phrase, with its rich semantic content, is necessary in order to avoid ambiguity. This is the case in (2-12), where replacement of the indicated full noun phrase by either a zero subject or by the personal pronoun toj ‘he’ could leave the reader wondering whether Ralcˇev or Dimov is being referred to.
Subjects
(2-12) Full NP for Participant Identity I vse pak bez kolebanija izpratixa Ralcˇev, makar cˇe do toja moment ne be polucˇaval seriozna samostojatelna zadacˇa. Dimov be ot tija xora, koito vinagi dokraj izplitaxa svoite kosˇnici. No Ralcˇev minavasˇe za talantliv kriminalist … (PV:399) ‘And yet without hesitation they sent Ralcˇev, even though he had not to date received a serious independent assignment. Dimov was one of those people who always themselves saw things through to the end. But Ralcˇev was known as a talented criminologist …’
In colloquial (2-13) the explicit full noun phrase sireneto ‘the cheese’ is used to direct the listener to a specific participant from among the three potential referents just mentioned. Either a zero subject or a personal pronoun (to ‘it’) would fail to identify the cheese uniquely as the speaker intends. (2-13) Full NP for Participant Identity K: Prjasno mljako pija povecˇe, kiselo, sirene, takiva. V: A ne te li drazni sireneto? (KA:2.11, excerpt 2) ‘K: I drink milk more, yogurt, cheese, things like that. V: But doesn’t the cheese bother you?’
In other instances, although a zero subject is not explicit enough to specify the intended participant among the set of potential referents, a maximally explicit full noun phrase is not required. Instead, owing to a difference in gender among these potential referents, a personal pronoun suffices for this specification. Note how in the next example the writer conforms to the maxim of not being more informative or wordy than necessary — the underlined personal pronoun is just explicit enough to serve communicative needs in the context. The masculine pronoun toj ‘he’ makes it clear that it was Roza’s husband rather than Roza herself who burst into laughter. (2-14) Personal Pronoun for Participant Identity Ako ne besˇe taka uvlecˇen, mozˇe bi toj sˇtesˇe ta zabelezˇi zatvorenoto vrazˇdebno lice na Roza. I v edin moment toj izbuxna v spontanen i iskren smjax. (PV:427) ‘Had he not been so carried away, perhaps he would have noticed Roza’s tense hostile face. And at one point he burst out in spontaneous and sincere laughter.’
As a final example here, note the interesting excerpt from Aleksova’s recorded material in (2-15). The speaker seems to change her mind about the degree of
Degrees of Explicitness
explicitness required as she changes the topic of conversation. She begins by using a personal pronoun, but then, realizing that the listeners may not be able to make the connection to Peta˘r during a conversation about someone else’s car repairs, she identifies him more explicitly. (2-15) Full NP for Participant Identity S: Ama, preebe li me s kalnika, az vi kazvam povecˇe. Sl: Toj, Peta˘r, dneska mi se obazˇda v dva cˇasa. Vika kolezˇkata besˇe tuka. (KA:2.6, excerpt 1) ‘S: Boy was I screwed with the fender, I’m telling you more … Sl: He, Peter, calls me today at two o’clock. He says his colleague was here.’
The relevance of potential ambiguity of reference to the issue of explicitness of packaging is supported by observations in both Scatton 1984 (350) and volume 3 of the Academy Grammar 1983 (119). These sources note that it is particularly common for first and second person subjects to be omitted. The inflectional morphology of the Bulgarian verb, put together with the contextually determined nature of the reference of these persons, is such that there is seldom any ambiguity of identity of the subject in the first and second persons in comparison to third person reference. ..
Participant involvement
Another type of situation in which explicitness is required to convey the intended content of the message has to do with more than just identifying a participant when one obviously must be involved in the action or state being expressed. Here, instead, one of the overt types of packaging, a personal pronoun or a full noun phrase (rather than a zero subject), is needed in order to make it clear that some participant is involved in the first place. Relevant here are various verbs which can be used either personally or impersonally. Used personally, the action is specified as being performed by the subject, while in impersonal usage the action is not specified in this way, instead seeming to be attributed to the general surroundings or circumstances. In this latter usage, the clauses are often equivalent in meaning to English expressions with the expletive subjects “it” or “there”. An example from a literary source is given in (2-16), with the verb zaboli ‘(begin to) hurt’, and one from the colloquial material is given in (2-17), with the verb stana ‘stand up/grow/become/happen’. For each of these I have recorded the actual example from the data base with its
Subjects
overt subject in (a). In (b) I give a modified version of the relevant clause, without the overt subject, and a possible translation. And in (c) is an unmodified example with the same verb without an overt subject. Both the Bulgarian examples and the English translations in the two (c) examples are from a Bulgarian-English dictionary (Atanasova and Rankova, eds.:1988). In (2-16a) the character is telling a miserly wine-dealer that the dealer will regret suggesting that a boot be used for a wine-tasting. (2-16a) Overtness for Personal Participant Involvement Sa˘buvam go vednaga i kato go vidisˇ, cˇe e cˇetireset i cˇetva˘rti nomer, sa˘vsem sˇte te zaboli sa˘rceto, cˇe povecˇe ot lita˘r sˇte sa˘bere. (IM:20) ‘I’m taking it right off, and when you see that it’s a size forty four, your heart is really going to hurt, since it’s going to hold more than a liter.’ (2-16b) Impersonal Zero Ø sa˘vsem sˇte te zaboli ‘it will really hurt you’ (2-16c) Impersonal Zero mnogo me zabolja ‘it hurt me very much’ (Atanasova and Rankova 1988, vol. 1:228)
The overt subject in (2-17a) is a personal pronoun referring to a dog owned by the speaker’s housemate. (2-17a) Overtness for Personal Participant Involvement M: Prez studentskite godini zˇ ivjax s edna dama v edin apartament. Ednata staja za neja, drugata za mene. Bjaxme prijateli s neja. Taja moma si vzela nemska ovcˇarka, i pet meseca zˇivja tam. Tja stana e taka. (KA:1.7, excerpt 5) ‘M: During my student years I shared an apartment with a lady. One room for her, the other for me. She and I were friends. This girl got herself a German shepherd, and it lived there five months. It got, oh, this big.’ (2-17b) Impersonal Zero Ø stana e taka ‘it happened, oh, just like that’ (2-17c) Impersonal Zero sa˘ zˇaljavam, cˇe stana taka ‘I’m sorry things have turned out the way they have’ (Atanasova and Rankova 1988, vol. 2:878)
Degrees of Explicitness
This type of overtness, where the very participation of a subject referent is indicated, very often involves the verb imam ‘have’ (or its negative counterpart, njamam ‘not have’). If a third person subject is omitted (i.e. if a third person possessing participant is packaged as the least explicit zero type), there is the potential for misinterpretation of the intended personal construction as an impersonal one. Such impersonal ima/njama constructions are used to indicate the existence/absence of the referent of the direct object. In literary (2-18) and colloquial (2-19), the (a) versions are the actual material from the sources, while in (b) I have removed the overt subject from the clause in question and have used the English translation to show how these modified clauses might now be interpreted. Note that the original in (2-18a) illustrates not only the personal use of one of these verbs (in the second clause of the second sentence), but also includes two instances of impersonal use (in the only clause of the first sentence and in the first clause of the second sentence). (2-18a) Personal Participant Involvement Njamasˇe nisˇto v kutijata. Ponjakoga imasˇe, no momcˇenceto pa˘k njamasˇe kljucˇ. (PV:396) ‘There wasn’t anything in the box. Sometimes there was, but then again the little boy didn’t have a key.’ (2-18b) Impersonal Zero no pa˘k Ø njamasˇe kljucˇ ‘but then again there wasn’t a key’ (2-19a) Personal Participant Involvement V: Tja njama takava specialnost. (KA:2.9, excerpt 2) ‘V: She doesn’t have such a major.’ (2-19b) Impersonal Zero Ø Njama takava specialnost. ‘There is no such major.’
In such cases, even in the absence of any other motivation for packaging more explicit than a zero subject, an overt form serves to avoid ambiguity, clarifying the involvement of a participant referent. ..
Additional information about the Participant
The last of the factors to be discussed in this section involves a situation in which neither a participant’s involvement nor this participant’s identity is in
Subjects
question. Here the use of a full noun phrase, rather than a less explicit personal pronoun or zero subject, allows the speaker or writer to convey additional information about a participant. Sometimes this information is contained in the semantics of a noun itself. This is the case in (2-20), where the youthfulness of some new army recruits who, while working on a crossword puzzle, come up with a military term their sergeant could not think of is expressed by using the full noun momcˇurljaci ‘boys/youngsters’ instead of a personal pronoun or a zero subject. This is despite the fact that substitution by these less explicit forms would cause no difficulty in perceiving the identity or participation of these subjects. The contrastive focus which is also present as an important factor will be discussed shortly. For now it may be noted that while this focus would preclude the least explicit packaging, i.e., a zero subject, it does not in itself explain why the most explicit type is used here instead of a personal pronoun. While a personal pronoun, here te ‘they’, would suffice from the point of view of the packaging of focused material, it would not allow the writer to convey the information about the age of these participants (or, more precisely, about the attitude of the sergeant, through whose eyes the story is told, toward these recruits he regards as impertinent upstarts). (2-20) Overtness for Additional Information Edinadeset godini sluzˇesˇe i ne mozˇa da se seti, a tezi momcˇurljaci vcˇera dojdoxa i vecˇe vsicˇko znaexa. (KC:19) ‘He’d been in the service for eleven years and he couldn’t come up with it, and these youngsters arrived yesterday and already knew everything.’
In (2-20) the relevant information is contained in the meaning of the noun itself. Quite often, however, we find that when non-pronominal overt forms are used with the goal of providing additional information, this is not the case. Instead, a noun whose semantic content adds nothing significant to the message provides a syntactic head for an adjective or adjectival phrase which does furnish relevant additional information. This common situation is illustrated by the examples in (2-21) and (2-22), where the nouns cˇovek ‘person’ and zˇena ‘woman’ are not in and of themselves informative, but do provide heads for adjectival expressions which are informative. (2-21) Overt Head for Additional Information Toja malko zatvoren, ma˘lcˇaliv i va˘nsˇno kato cˇe li nedruzˇeljuben cˇovek kato magnit pritegljasˇe svoite xora. (PV:400)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘This slightly reticent, taciturn and outwardly seemingly unfriendly person attracted his people [meaning here ‘his subordinates’] like a magnet.’ (2-22) Overt Head for Additional Information N: Taja dobra zˇena mozˇe li da te jadosva? (KA:1.8, excerpt 1) ‘N: How can you be mad at this good woman?’ [more literally: ‘This good woman can anger you?’]
Before leaving these examples, two observations should be made. First, note that by “additional” information I mean additional in comparison to what would be conveyed if a less explicit packaging were employed. This information may, in fact, also represent new information in the context of the utterance, as is the case in (2-21), where the reader learns for the first time in the novel about the indicated qualities of the main character’s boss. Frequently, however, as in (2-20) and (2-22), this is not so. In these examples, the information in question is not new or unknown. Rather, it is old or known information which is “added” to the utterance to emphasize it to the addressee in order to achieve the intended pragmatic effect in the message. In (2-20) the writer includes this known information to highlight the unexpected correlation between the levels of experience and military knowledge, and in (2-22) the information about the subject creates or at least intensifies the intended accusatory tone. Second, it may be noted that it is possible to view examples of this sort as more instances of Grice’s brevity maxim in practice. This is not obvious at first glance, since they involve the use of the most explicit type of participant packaging. They nonetheless represent a significant sort of economy of expression in that they allow the conveyance of an additional proposition without the corresponding addition of a separate clause or sentence and the connective apparatus these might entail. Compare the length of (2-23a) to that of (2-23b). In (2-23a) I give a simplified version of (2-21), and (2-23b) illustrates what this simplified version might turn into without the use of one of these “economical” explicit forms. (2-23a) Economical Overt Head for Additional Information Toja malko zatvoren cˇovek pritegljasˇe svoite xora. ‘This slightly reticent person attracted his people.’ (2-23b) Less Economical Zero Va˘preki cˇe Ø besˇe malko zatvoren, toj pritegljasˇ e svoite xora. ‘Despite that he was slightly reticent, he attracted his people.’
Subjects
.
Focus
While each of the three major concepts addressed in this study (focus, topicality, and discourse themehood) plays a part in determining the noun phrase type selected for the subject, the role played by focus is perhaps the most influential and certainly the most straightforward. Recall that the term focus is being used to denote significant emphasis within the context of the information conveyed at the clause level. As a general statement, it can be said that the presence of focus correlates to a greater degree of explicitness, precluding the least explicit zero forms and increasing the likelihood of the most explicit full noun phrases. The two factors which contribute to this association between focus and explicitness can be separated and stated more precisely as follows. First, focused participants are not expressed by the least explicit forms, i.e. non-overt zero subjects. And second, the presence of focus favors full noun phrases over personal pronouns. Although focus is not the primary factor in the choice between these two overt noun phrase types, and while both the less explicit personal pronouns and the more explicit full noun phrases are compatible with the packaging of both focused and non-focused participants, there is nonetheless a certain correlation between the presence of focus on a participant and an increased likelihood of the higher of these two degrees of explicitness. The first of these factors may seem too obvious or logical to merit special attention. From an intuitive point of view one might point out that something being emphasized in an utterance cannot be left out. From a physical, practical point of view, it may seem obvious that an overt form of some sort is needed in order to provide a segmental phonological host for the type of clause-level stress associated with this emphasis. The second factor above is less obvious, and, in fact, may be not so much a determiner in its own right as an epiphenomenon of other triggers of explicit packaging. Of central concern here are instances in the data in which language users package focused participants with full noun phrases in contexts where a less explicit personal pronoun would seem otherwise appropriate. A common denominator in the following examples of this is a relatively high level of emotion which accompanies the clause containing the focused subjects in question. What these and similar examples suggest is that such emotion is conducive to a seemingly unnecessarily high degree of explicitness, overriding the brevity maxim, and that this very high degree of explicitness can serve a stylistic purpose, rather than having any function related to
Degrees of Explicitness
referential informativeness. In (2-24), for instance, the speaker refers to the dog being discussed with the very explicit noun phrase toja zvjar ‘this beast’. The fact that referential ambiguity is not the reason for this level of explicitness is demonstrated by the same speaker’s use of a personal pronoun ( ja ‘her’) to refer to the same participant in the immediately preceding sentence. Instead, the semantic weight of the more explicit noun phrase adds to the expressiveness of the utterance. (2-24) Focused Full NP M: Podarili ja bjaxa. I toja zvjar, to bezkrajno cˇarovno zˇivotno dokato e malko, posle stava idiot. (KA:1.7, excerpt 5) ‘M: They gave it away. And this beast, an infinitely charming animal when small, later becomes an idiot.’
Another colloquial example of this expressive explicitness of a “name-calling” variety is seen in (2-25), where a backseat driver expresses his opinion that more space should be maintained between a car and the car in front of it. The driver of the car in front is packaged in this clause explicitly as toja seljanin ‘this peasant’. (2-25) Focused Full NP Cˇ: Vikam sega, toja seljanin otpred ako se seti, cˇe e zabravil nesˇto i natiska spiracˇkata i zava˘rti obratno … (KA:2.6, excerpt 3) ˇ ‘C: I’m telling you now, if this peasant in front realizes that he has forgotten something and hits the break and turns back …’
Although not an instance of name-calling, the use of a repetitive full noun phrase in (2-26) is likewise a case of expressive explicitness. Even though packaging with a personal pronoun instead would not create any ambiguity here, the use of explicit tatko ‘Dad’ can be seen as an effect of the emotion present, a perhaps sarcastic imitation of what the father may once have said to the child. (2-26) Focused Full NP Tatko e seriozen cˇovek, tatko ne biva da ba˘de obezpokojavan, a mama vinagi mozˇesˇ da ja dra˘pnesˇ za polata i da oba˘rsˇesˇ nosa v neja i da ja popitasˇ zasˇto … (IM:78) ‘Dad is a serious person, Dad should not be disturbed, but Mom you can always tug by the skirt and wipe your nose in it and ask her why …’
The example in (2-26) contains a clear, overt contrast between the participant named by the underlined subject and another (the mother). This type of con-
Subjects
trastive focus is common in both the colloquial and the literary data examined, and provides many of the most conspicuous examples of participant focus not only among subjects, but also for participants packaged in other syntactic grammatical roles. It is not, however, the contrastive nature of the focus which triggers non-pronominal explicit reference in (2-26) or similar cases. In fact, the use of personal pronouns in the packaging of focused participants in the grammatical subject role is more common when the focus is of the contrastive variety than when it is non-contrastive. In other words, while all four logical types of focused subjects listed in Table 4 occur in the data, the fourth type listed here is not as common as the others. Type 1, the contrastive full noun phrase, was illustrated in emotional example (2-26) above. A similar example is seen in (2-27). (2-27) Focused Full NP — Contrastive I: Dosta. Toj ocˇakva dosta rakija. Pone sˇestdeset, sedemdeset litra. A: A, gluposti, sˇestdeset, sedemdeset. I: E? A: Njaka˘de dvajset i pet litra sˇte izleze. (KA:1.2, excerpt 2) ‘I: Quite a bit. He is anticipating quite a bit of rakia. At least sixty, seventy liters. A: Ah, nonsense, sixty, seventy. I: Eh? A: There will be something like twenty five liters.’
Note that there is a difference between the emotional contrastive examples in (2-26) and (2-27). In (2-26) tatko ‘Dad’ could easily be replaced by a personal pronoun (toj ‘he’) with no resulting ambiguity or loss of message content. This is not true of (2-27), where dvajset i pet litra ‘twenty five liters’ involves not only contrastive focus, but also message content (i.e. a specific quantity) contained in the semantics of the explicit noun phrase itself. This type of informativeness, of course, would itself be reason enough for explicitness,
Table 4. Types of focused subjects Type 1: Type 2: Type 3: Type 4:
contrastive full noun phrase contrastive personal pronoun non-contrastive full noun phrase non-contrastive personal pronoun
Degrees of Explicitness
and it becomes impossible to prove that the focus, the contrastiveness of the focus, or the emotional nature of the contrastive focus is a factor in the explicitness. For another example of this stacking up of features causing or favoring explicitness, see (2-28): (2-28) Focused Full NP — Contrastive L: Idi, narezˇi salamcˇe. ST: A be i sirence va˘rvi. L: I salamcˇe va˘rvi, xajde. (KA:1.1, excerpt 1) ‘L: Go cut some salami. ST: Well, you know, cheese works, too. L: Salami also works, come on.’
Here the focus alone would preclude zero. But, as in (2-27), the need to convey the intended message, regardless of any focus or emotional charge, is enough to provoke the use of the more explicit of the two main overt noun phrase types. If the indicated full noun phrase were replaced by the personal pronoun to ‘it’, ambiguity of reference would result, since both participants being contrasted are neuter third person singular. Also very common in the data bases are instances of focused subjects of Type 2. As in Type 1, the focused subject is being contrasted with another participant. Again the focus precludes the least explicit zero packaging, but here the speaker does not deem it necessary to use the most explicit type of full noun phrase, and the subject is packaged as a personal pronoun. Very often these examples involve first or second person reference (illustrated with a first person form in (2-29), a second person form in (2-30), and both in (2-31)), where pronominal forms are clearly sufficient and appropriate to refer to speech event participants. Note that the focus entails overtness, even though in these cases the verbal inflection alone would be enough to specify the identity of the subject. (2-29) Focused Personal Pronoun — Contrastive Cˇ: Ne moga da ja vidja. S: Az ja vizˇdam po-cˇesto ot tebe, znacˇi. (KA:2.6, excerpt 2) ‘Cˇ: I can’t see her. S: So I see her more often than you do.’ (2-30) Focused Personal Pronoun — Contrastive M: Ti sˇte gi priberesˇ. Az i Slavi i Bobi sˇte xodim njaka˘de. (KA:2.3, excerpt 1)
Subjects
‘M: You can get them [them = a group of children]. Slavi, Bobi and I will go somewhere.’ (2-31) Focused Personal Pronouns — Contrastive Nie sme po rabota, ami ti, ti kaka˘v si? (DG:88) ‘We are here on business, and you, what’s your story?’ [more literally: ‘… what kind are you?’]
Type 3 focused subjects, as listed in Table 4, are noun phrases other than personal pronouns whose referents, although being emphasized in the utterance, are not being contrasted with another participant. In these cases the focus rules out the use of a zero subject, and emotional charge, as discussed above and illustrated in (2-24) and (2-25), and/or the need for referential clarity, illustrated in (2-32) below, leads the speaker to select a highly explicit full noun phrase rather than a personal pronoun. The indicated subject in (2-32) is being mentioned for the first time in the dialogue, and pronominal reference would leave the listener unable to identify the intended participant. (2-32) Focused Full NP — Non-contrastive V: O, zdravej. Zapovjadaj. N: Pusˇi li se tuka? V: Pusˇi se. S: Xe, kak me zavari. N: Kak sa˘m te zavaril. S: Sam li si? N: Sam sa˘m. S: Poli njama li da dojde? (KA:1.8, excerpt 1) ‘V: Oh, hi. Please. N: Can you smoke here? V: You can. S: There, so you found me. N: So I’ve found you. S: Are you by yourself? N: I am. S: Poli isn’t coming?’
Of the four types of focused subjects listed in Table 4, Type 4, the noncontrastive personal pronoun, occurs the least frequently in the data. Personal pronouns do not accomplish the type of emotional “name-calling” so common in non-contrastive focus. Thus they occur more often in contrastive
Degrees of Explicitness
situations, where the speaker expresses surprise or emphatic confirmation of the role in the situation being described played by referents whose participation in the context of the discourse has already been established. Nevertheless, occasional examples of Type 4 focused subject are found in the data, most frequently involving a first or second person referent, as in (2-33). (2-33) Focused Personal Pronoun — Non-contrastive V: Ili peesˇ xubavo, ili ne peesˇ, sega tova e. M: E, e, okaza, cˇe ne e ta˘ j … . Az sa˘m bil svidetel be. (KA:1.7, excerpt 7) ‘V: Either you sing well, or you don’t sing, now that’s it. M: Well, it showed that it’s not like that … . I’ve been a witness, boy.’
Thus far in this discussion of focused subject packaging, the examples used for illustrative purposes have come either from the colloquial, conversational data, or else from the direct speech of characters in the literary data. In these examples the utterances are either produced with sentential intonation or authors are trying to imitate such oral utterances. Because of heavy stress on focused elements, the oral mode of speech is the most conducive to the line of reasoning suggested earlier, according to which the overtness of focused elements was argued to follow from the need for a segmental host for this stress. It should be noted here, however, that in other, non-dialogic, written prose, too, focused participants are consistently overt. I illustrate this below with examples of each of the four types of focused subjects — a contrastive full noun phrase (i.e. Type 1) in (2-34), a contrastive personal pronoun (i.e. Type 2) in (2-35), a non-contrastive full noun phrase (i.e. Type 3) in (2-36), and a non-contrastive personal pronoun (i.e. Type 4) in (2-37). At least two explanations, not necessarily mutually exclusive, are available for this overtness in written expression. One might continue with the physical segmental host explanation by proposing that writing involves a sort of “silent speech” in which intonation patterns are produced mentally during the written production. Alternatively, the intuitive argument that one simply does not “omit” an element if it is a focal point of the message works just as well for the written mode as it does for oral speech. In (2-34) Margarita is twice being contrasted to other women this philanderer might have pursued. (2-34) Focused Full NPs — Contrastive Mozˇe bi idvasˇe nesˇto novo sled cjala godina, v kojato toj ne besˇe poglednal i ne besˇe doblizˇil druga zˇena, zasˇtoto Margarita mu stigasˇe. Sega se xvasˇtasˇe v lenivi misli, cˇe njama nisˇto losˇo, ako cˇovek napravi
Subjects
ludorija, no vinagi ima ka˘de da se va˘rne. Margarita besˇe negovata boginja i toj sˇtesˇe da go dokazva, kato se izma˘kva po sredata na njakoja ljubovna avantjura, za da se va˘rne pri neja … (IM:101) ‘Perhaps something new was developing after an entire year in which he had not looked at and had not approached another woman, because Margarita was enough for him. Now he was falling into idle thoughts that there is nothing wrong if a person has an escapade but always has a place to come back to. Margarita was his goddess and he would prove it when he slipped away from some love tryst in order to come back to her …’
In the contrast involved in (2-35), first a full noun phrase (Type 1, as in (2-34)) then a personal pronoun (Type 2) is used to package a focused participant. (2-35) Focused Full NP and Personal Pronoun — Contrastive Njama go vecˇe basˇta mu — tozi neumoren samarjanin na sa˘vesti, Don Kixot, vetrogon v poleto na neponjatna zabrava. Buden dux sred zaspala porjada˘cˇnost. A bludnijat mu sin? Kakvo napravi toj ot zˇivota si? (DG:80) ‘His father is no more — that tireless Samaritan of consciences, Don Quixote, a frivolous man in the field of inexplicable oblivion. A vigilant spirit amidst sleeping decency. And his prodigal son? What did he make of his life?’
The following two excerpts illustrate non-contrastive focused subjects. In (2-36) a noun phrase of the most explicit type is employed. (2-36) Focused Full NP — Non-contrastive Izglezˇda, cˇe i ubijstvata na toja svjat sa nesˇto, koeto neizbezˇno i reguljarno se slucˇva. (PV:399) ‘It seems that in this world even murders are something that inevitably and regularly happens.’
In (2-37) a less explicit form, the personal pronoun tja ‘she’, serves to express the focused subject. Note that not only is the degree of explicitness which would have accompanied a full noun phrase deemed by the writer as unnecessary here, but from the point of view of referential clarity even the personal pronoun is more explicit than necessary — reference to this woman is clear enough from the context for her to be packaged with zero subjects in both clauses of the preceding sentence. The clause in question therefore serves as a
Degrees of Explicitness
good example of it being the focus, rather than a potential for ambiguity or misinterpretation of reference, which triggers the overtness. In the clause after the one in which the participant is emphasized, the writer returns to zero packaging. (2-37) Focused Personal Pronoun — Non-contrastive Ot vreme na vreme Ø iztrivasˇe sa˘lzite si, no Ø besˇe bezpomosˇtna da gi spre. Vecˇe i samata tja be zabravila ot kolko vreme Ø placˇesˇe ta˘j, bez da mozˇe da se sa˘vzeme. (PV:516) ‘From time to time she would wipe away her tears, but she was unable to stop them. She herself had already forgotten how long she had been crying like this, unable to pull herself together.’
A further amplification of the emphasis in these examples is seen in the inclusion of the modifiers i ‘even’ in (2-36) and samata ‘herself/the very’ in (2-37). The use of such intensifiers is an additional reflection of the type of heavy emphasis that precludes zero packaging. Note, however, that the presence of such a form as a lexical or syntactic motivation is not a prerequisite for overtness caused by focus. This was demonstrated in (2-35) above. Before moving on to a discussion of the roles played by topicality and discourse themehood in the selection of noun phrase types for subjects, one more striking packaging construction occasionally encountered in the presence of heavy focus should be noted. In examples containing this construction the participant is first mentioned once outside the syntactic clause, and then is packaged again, using a personal pronoun, as subject within the clause.43 The excerpt in (2-38) illustrates a common feature of this type of construction: the first mention of the participant is a full noun phrase other than a personal pronoun. (2-38) Focused Double Packaging Da, dori dirigenta˘t, njakaka˘v avstrijski gost, i toj se prosa˘lzi i kaza, cˇe nikoga ne e stojal pred po-emocionalen orkesta˘r. (IM:118) ‘Yes, even the conductor, some visiting Austrian, even he was moved to tears and said that he had never stood before a more emotional orchestra.’
Less commonly, the first element may itself be a personal pronoun. This was the case in (2-31), repeated here for convenience as (2-39). (2-39) Focused Double Packaging Nie sme po rabota, ami ti, ti kaka˘v si? (DG:88)
Subjects
‘We are here on business, and you, what’s your story?’ [more literally: ‘… and you, what kind are you?’]
Rå Hauge (under the label “doubled subjects”), Rudin (under the label “left dislocation”), and Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov (under the label “doubling of the subject” (dublirane na podloga)) provide the following among their examples of this construction. The translation of (2-42) is mine. (2-40) Focused Double Packaging Kozata, izglezˇda, i tja razbira, zasˇtoto ma˘lcˇi. ‘The goat apparently understands as well, because it is quiet.’ (Rå Hauge 1999:208) (2-41) Focused Double Packaging Ivan — toj kupi na deteto edna kniga. Ivan he bought to child-the a book ‘Ivan, he bought the child a book.’ (Rudin 1986:33) (2-42) Focused Double Packaging Pustata ì xubost, tja ja izjade (J. Jovkov) (Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov 1977:349) ‘It was her vain good looks that consumed her.’
Rudin associates this construction with focus and perhaps topicality when she analyzes the personal pronoun in this and other types of left dislocation as occupying the syntactic FOCUS (or perhaps TOPIC) position (33). And Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov very explicitly describe the specific type of “subject doubling” involved here as occurring “in the presence of stronger emotion of the utterance” (pri po-silna razva˘lnuvanost na recˇta).44 In this section it has been demonstrated that focus must be regarded as a factor working in favor of explicitness in the packaging of participants in the role of grammatical subjects. This is most clearly seen in the complete preclusion of the least explicit zero packaging in the presence of focus. Second, at the other extreme on an explicitness scale, is the double packaging of subjects which sometimes occurs under great emphasis. In other words, the contextual presence of any focus leads to the use of an overt form, and the presence of a very high degree of emphasis may lead to the use of two overt forms rather than merely one. Between these two extremes in the role of focus in determining subject explicitness is a variety of emotional/expressive factors (including name-calling and stylistic marking) which favor packaging a focused subject
Degrees of Explicitness
participant with a more explicit full noun phrase rather than with a less explicit (although still overt) personal pronoun.
. Aboutness I have divided this section into two parts, focusing on usage in the more formal written data in the first, and on usage in the colloquial oral data in the second. While the similarities between the two are greater than the differences, this division was undertaken in an effort to make the presentation of the analysis clearer. It will allow me to lay out the major points in a more straightforward way first, phrased to describe usage in the written data. Only then will I add qualifications concerning the competing tendencies, albeit relatively minor ones, reflected in the oral data. These qualifications, together with oral examples illustrating both the similarities to and the divergences from the written material, will be included in 2.4.2. .. Aboutness in the written mode 45 The roles played by the aboutness features referred to here as topicality and discourse themehood are closely interconnected in the packaging of subjects. For this reason an attempt to discuss them separately would be impractical and likely not very successful. While it is true that it is necessary to distinguish clause-level aboutness from discourse-level aboutness when analyzing noun phrase packaging, a fact which is most clearly demonstrated in the data concerning objects in Chapter Three, it is also true that the effects of each of these two types of aboutness on the degree of explicitness of subjects can only be accurately described by including reference to the other. Therefore they are addressed here within a single section. Much of the discussion in this section will be devoted to the relatively finer points of usage reflected in the data and to how these finer points tie in to an overall pattern of influence of topicality and discourse themehood on subject explicitness. First, however, I will summarize and illustrate this overall pattern of influence, the essence of which can be captured in two general statements: 1. The features topicality and discourse themehood operate in the direction opposite to that of focus. While the presence of focus is a factor promoting increased explicitness of the subject (see the preceding section),
Subjects
topicality and status as DT work, in a mutually involved way, to favor a lesser degree of explicitness. 2. In the event of competing demands on degree of explicitness, the more explicit packaging prevails. That is, when either the presence of focus or one of the “semantic” triggers of explicitness (see Sections 2.2 and 2.3) calls for a more explicit subject, then this more explicit form is what is found in the data. An association between topicality and/or DT status and a low degree of explicitness is by no means unique to Bulgarian. The very first sentence of Nichols’s 1985 “grammar of themehood” for literary narrative in Russian, for instance, is the following: “The preferred marking of theme is an anaphoriczero subject.” (184). For colloquial Russian, Grenoble (1998:162) finds that “zero-anaphora is an extremely widespread means of tracking the discourse topic from sentence to sentence”. And more inclusively, as a “cross-language generalization”, Givón (1992:25) formulates his “grammatical code-quantity principle” as follows: “Information that is already activated requires the smallest amount of code.” This last is relevant to the present discussion in two ways. First, it supports the basic association between less explicitness and status as topic and/or DT, since topics and, especially, DTs are generally currently already activated (i.e. signaled to the listener/reader as “important” and to be used as a “file label” in the memory (Givón 1992:5)). And second, it helps account for the lack of complete correlation between low explicitness and these information structure features, since exceptions involving cases of high degree of explicitness in the presence of these features are seen in the data in situations in which the topical DT is being activated or reactivated in the clause at hand. The following literary excerpt is included here to illustrate and further discuss these basic claims. I have underlined clause-level topics, put discourselevel themes in boldface, and have numbered the subjects for convenience of discussion. (2-43) Discourse Themes and Topics Osˇte na drugata sutrin inspektor Dimov1 zamina za Pleven, snabden samo s pardesju i leka pa˘tna cˇanta. Ø2 Nastani se udobno va˘v vagon-restoranta, Ø3 zakusi porjada˘cˇno i ponezˇe kelnera˘t4 go gledasˇe malko nakrivo, Ø5 pora˘cˇa si i butilka eksportna bira. Ne mu se iskasˇe da misli za svojata misija, Ø6 ne ba˘rzasˇe da se natovarva s predvaritelni xipotezi. Mozˇe bi naj-vazˇnoto besˇe Ø prosto da vidi toja cˇovek.
Degrees of Explicitness
Juriskonsulta˘t7 rabotesˇe v edno goljamo i moderno industrialno predprijatie, koeto8 se namirasˇe izva˘n grada. Kato Ø9 pristigna v Pleven, toj10 osˇte na garata vze taksi i dade adresa. Sled cˇetva˘rt cˇas kolata11 go ostavi pred direkcijata, toj12 plati i se izkacˇi na vtorija etazˇ, ka˘deto se pomesˇtavasˇe upravlenieto13. Ne besˇe mnogo trudno da nameri vratata s nadpis “Juriskonsult”. Toj14 pocˇuka i vleze. Zad masivnoto bjuro sedesˇe okolo petdesetgodisˇen ma˘ zˇ15 s prijatna va˘nsˇnost, mnogo iziskano oblecˇen. Ma˘ zˇ a˘t16 se zabavi malko da vdigne glava ot prepiskite, taka cˇe Dimov17 imasˇe dostata˘cˇno vreme da go razgleda. Po taka˘v njakaka˘v priblizitelen nacˇin obiknoveno izglezˇdaxa m a˘ zˇ ete18 ot starite burzˇoazni familii — sˇiroko, malko bezkra˘vno i meko lice, mesesti, zˇenstveni usta, zaoblena bradicˇka. Oska˘dnata mu kosa19 besˇe mnogo grizˇlivo sresana. Kogato Ø20 vdigna pogled, Dimov21 s iznenada vidja, cˇe Ø22 ima mnogo xubavi ta˘mnosini ocˇi, pocˇti zˇenski, s mnogo prijaten izraz. (PV:488-89) ‘The very next morning Inspector Dimov1 left for Pleven, equipped with just an overcoat and a light travel bag. He2 settled comfortably in the dining car, Ø3 had a respectable breakfast, and, because the waiter4 was looking at him a bit askance, he5 ordered himself a bottle of export beer too. He didn’t feel like thinking about his mission, he6 didn’t hurry to burden himself with prior speculation. Perhaps the most important thing was (for him) simply to see this person. The jurisconsult7 worked at a large and modern industrial establishment, which8 was located outside of the city. When he9 arrived in Pleven, he10 got a cab right at the station and gave the address. Fifteen minutes later the car11 dropped him off in front of the administrative building, he12 paid and went up to the second floor, where management13 was located. It was not very hard to find the door with a “Jurisconsult” sign. He14 knocked and went in. At a massive desk sat a man about fifty years old15 with a pleasant appearance, very elegantly dressed. The man16 did not immediately look up from his paperwork, so Dimov17 had sufficient time to look him over. It was something like this way that men18 from the old bourgeois families usually looked — a wide, slightly anemic and soft face, a fleshy, feminine mouth, a small rounded beard. His scanty hair19 was very carefully combed. When he20 looked up, Dimov21 saw with surprise that he22 had a lovely, dark blue eyes, almost feminine, with a very pleasant expression.’
Subjects
In this excerpt from Vezˇ inov’s novel there are two main participants, Inspector Dimov and the lawyer Dimov has come to Pleven to interview. The first paragraph is primarily about Dimov — the reader finds out how Dimov spent his time on the train to Pleven and, at the same time, learns a little more about his cautious, self-conscious nature. The lawyer is not mentioned until the very last sentence of this first paragraph. In this last sentence, where the reader is given information about Dimov’s course of action, the overt reference to the lawyer (toja cˇovek ‘this person’) helps create a smooth transition to the second paragraph, where the lawyer becomes the discourse theme. Roughly the first third of the second paragraph gives us details about the lawyer’s place of work, and the remainder is primarily a description of the lawyer himself. This passage reflects the general statements made earlier about the influence of topicality and discourse themehood on subject packaging. In the first of these statements it was claimed that these two types of “aboutness” work together to favor a lesser degree of explicitness. Of the twenty two subjects indicated in (2-43), seven are the least explicit zero noun phrases. All seven of these are topical, and six of the seven represent the current discourse theme. Four of these (numbered 2, 3, 5 and 6) occur in the first paragraph, where Dimov is the DT, and each of these four refer to Dimov. Furthermore, all four of these zero subjects are found in clauses where the purpose is to provide information about Dimov at the clause level. It can thus be said that each of these four is both thematic at the discourse level and topical at the clause level. Opposed to this first paragraph, where Dimov is the DT and is packaged as a zero almost consistently when he is referred to in a subject role, is the second paragraph, where the lawyer is now the DT. Here, although Dimov’s character again appears in the role of subject several times, the author switches to overt reference (personal pronouns for subject numbers 10, 12 and 14; full noun phrases for 17 and 21). Only once is Dimov packaged as a zero subject in this second paragraph. This is subject number 9, in a temporal subordinate clause, where, as we will see, there is a greater tolerance for zero packaging. Note that the other two zero subjects in the second paragraph (numbered 20 and 22), while they, too, occur in subordinate clauses, do refer to the DT (the lawyer) in topical contexts. There are also in (2-43) several instances of explicit noun phrases used in the role of subject even though the referent is both a topic and a DT (subject numbers 1, 7, 15 and 16). Two of these speak directly to the second general statement made earlier about noun phrase type and aboutness, i.e. that factors favoring explicitness prevail when they conflict with factors favoring less
Degrees of Explicitness
explicit forms. First, the use of the full noun phrase juriskonsulta˘t ‘the jurisconsult’ at the beginning of the second paragraph illustrates this with regard to the need to avoid ambiguity of reference. Second, the use of a more explicit form to provide a head for an adjectival phrase providing additional information is seen in the use of a phrase meaning “an approximately fifty-year-old man” in the middle of the second paragraph. The other two overt topical DTs in this excerpt (inspektor Dimov ‘Inspector Dimov’ at the beginning of the first paragraph and ma˘ zˇ a˘t ‘the man’ about midway through the second paragraph) point to two of the refinements which need to be added to the general statements made earlier in order to more accurately characterize the role played by these features in the determination of degree of explicitness of noun phrases in the role of subject. I will address these refinements shortly. First, however, I would like to point out an illustration of the remaining aspect of the second general statement (i.e., that in the event of competing demands on degree of explicitness, the more explicit packaging prevails). The passage in (2-43) included examples of explicitness of topical DTs reflecting the need or desire to provide additional information about the participant (subject number 15) and to specify for the reader the identity of the participant (subject number 7). The underlined topical DT in (2-44), which is part of the excerpt cited earlier in (2-35), is representative of the situation in which it is focus which triggers a high degree of explicitness. (2-44) Overt Focused Topical DT A bludnijat mu sin? Kakvo napravi toj ot zˇivota si? (DG:80) ‘And his prodigal son? What did he make of his life?’
The refinements still needed at this point to more fully account for the effect of discourse themehood and topicality on the selection of noun phrase type for subject participants all have something in common. In each of the situations listed in Table 5, a feature of the context contributes to a potential ambiguity or misperception of aboutness for the participant in question, and each promotes a more explicit form than what might be expected based on the factors discussed thus far. Again one is reminded of Givón’s (1992:25) “grammatical code-quantity principle”. When the speaker or writer feels that the participant is currently “activated” in the mind of the addressee, i.e., when the producer of the message assumes that the addressee will use the participant as the “file label” for the incoming information and in this sense the participant is what the message is about, he or she deems it appropriate to use less “code” in packaging the participant. Less code equates to less explicitness as I have
Subjects
Table 5. Contextual Factors Contributing to Instability of Aboutness A. Stronger Influences [1] The topical DT occurs in a main clause after a major temporal shift in what is being reported. [2] The DT is being used as a topic for the first time in the discourse. [3] The DT is being reintroduced as a topic after intervening material in which reference is made to some other performer of a dynamic action (i.e., after reference to a “competitor” for perceived aboutness at the discourse level). (But see the qualifications described in [4] and [5].) B. Weaker Influences [4] There is a competitor for aboutness as in [3], but one which occurs only in a subordinate clause. [5] There is a competitor for aboutness as in [3], but one which occurs in a clause describing something observed by the DT. [6] The topical DT has not yet been firmly established as the discourse theme, in that the participant has only recently been introduced into the discourse and has not yet been associated with any dynamic action.
been using this term here. In the situations described in Table 5, on the other hand, the aboutness is less stable in that the speaker or writer is less sure of the addressee’s ability to interpret the aboutness of the participant. In the face of this threat to this aspect of the success of the message, the speaker is prompted to use more code (a higher degree of explicitness). The first of the three factors described as stronger has to do with the temporal structure of the material reported in the discourse. Because changes in time reference are often accompanied by changes in major participants, it appears that the speaker or writer, after signaling such a temporal shift, may not feel secure in assuming that a given participant, even if already activated in the previous utterance, will remain so (for the addressee) in the new one. In (2-45), for example, two sentences in a row have overt subjects, where there are two consecutive temporal shifts. This passage occurs in a novel just after a dialogue in which Roza informs her husband that she intends to look for a job outside the home. The first sentence thus contains a shift in temporal reference back to an earlier stage in her life, and the second sentence returns the reader to the main time frame of the narrative. (2-45) Overt after Major Temporal Shift Roza besˇe sva˘ rsˇila kursove za va˘zpitatelki v dnevni detski domove. Tja podade zajavlenie na njakolko mesta izvedna˘ zˇ. (PV:427)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘Roza had completed courses for teachers at children’s day nurseries. She submitted an application at several places simultaneously.’
Two important qualifications should be made here concerning the way temporal shifts destabilize aboutness and thus promote explicitness. First, the data makes it clear that it is only the packaging of participants in main clauses that is susceptible to this influence. Packaging with a zero subject after changes in time reference is extremely common in subordinate clauses. See (2-46), where after the temporal shift involved in the transition from the first to the second sentence a continued topical DT is a zero subject in a temporal subordinate clause. Not until the fourth sentence, where this discourse theme is mentioned in a main clause for the first time since the change in temporal reference, do we see overt packaging. (2-46) Zero in Subordinate Clause after Major Temporal Shift I mu se struvasˇe, cˇe ako Ø otide po-rano tam, Ø po-rano sˇte go vidi. Kogato Ø pristigna na letisˇteto, cˇasa˘t besˇe osem i cˇetva˘rt. Do idvaneto na samoleta ostavasˇe osˇte polovin cˇas. Toj izpi edno kafe … (PV:406-07) ‘And he figured that if he went there earlier, he would see him earlier. When he arrived at the airport, it was 8:15. There was still half an hour until the arrival of the plane. He drank a coffee …’
Second, it is not the case that every single, even minor change in time reference causes explicit packaging. This is in contrast to the situation Nichols (1985:177) reports for Russian narrative, where “[e]ven within episodes, a change — however subtle — in temporal reference necessitates overt marking of the theme”. This difference between these two languages in this regard is reflected in (2-47), where the Bulgarian original includes a zero subject in a main clause after a relatively minor temporal shift, while the Russian translator felt it appropriate to package this participant with a personal pronoun. (2-47) Zero after Minor Temporal Shift Edinstvenijat mu spravocˇnik v toja labirint bjaxa decata. No sˇto se otnasja do blokovete, dori te bjaxa na razlicˇni mnenija. Ø Va˘rvja dosta da˘lgo vreme naljavo, sled tova Ø sva˘rna nadjasno, posle Ø se va˘rna nazad. I v kraja na kraisˇtata Ø se izpravi pred prokletija blok. (PV:422) ‘The children were his only guide in this labyrinth. But as concerns the apartment buildings, even they were of differing opinions. He walked for quite a while to the left, after that he turned right, then he came back. Finally he stood in front of the damned apartment building.’
Subjects
Russian translation: Edinstvennym spravocˇnikom v etom labirinte okazalis’ deti. No i oni ploxo otlicˇali odin korpus ot drugogo. Dolgoe vremja on sˇël, svernuv nalevo, potom Ø povernul napravo, zatem snova Ø vernulsja nazad. V konce koncov on dobralsja do zakoldovannogo korpusa. (PV-R:35)
The second factor listed in Table 5 also contributes to the likelihood of explicitness due to instability of aboutness. This is the situation in which a DT, although it is a clause-level topic, is occurring with this topic status for the first time in the text. The underlined subject in (2-48) serves as an example. (2-48) Overt First-time Topic Antonija naistina besˇe v legloto si, zavita s leko pamucˇno odejalo. (PV:398) ‘Antonija was indeed in her bed, wrapped in a light cotton blanket.’
While Antonija has been mentioned in the text preceding this excerpt, it is in this first sentence of a paragraph describing her appearance that she is topical at the clause level for the first time. The preceding paragraph portrays a neighbor hesitatingly making her way to the door of Antonia’s bedroom to verify whether Antonia’s body is in fact on the bed. This context, together with the fact that the preceding paragraph concludes with the neighbor reaching the threshold and freezing in shock, suggests that it is neither concern about possible referential ambiguity nor a major temporal shift that is prompting the author to use an overt form. It is not external perspective which is causing the explicitness of packaging, as may be the case in some languages.46 This is seen later in the same novel, where the crime scene and corpse are described in conjunction with the arrival of the police: (2-49) Zero despite External Perspective Ø Besˇe oblecˇena v eleganten proleten kostjum, sˇit navjarno pri ska˘pa sˇivacˇka. (PV:402) ‘She was dressed in an elegant spring outfit, probably sewn by a highpriced seamstress.’
The idea that DTs being used as clause-level topics for the first time in a discourse would not yet be stable and would thus tend toward explicit packaging seems reasonable. Nonetheless, examples such as (2-48) which provide support for this contextual feature as an independent factor are rare. I do not mean here that zero subjects are found instead in this situation. What I wish to note is that there are very few instances in the data examined where a DT is
Degrees of Explicitness
a new topic and there is not at the same time another feature present (such as focus, major shift in temporal reference or potential for referential ambiguity) which itself would be enough to account for the observed explicitness. I have listed the contextual situation described in [3] in Table 5 as one of the stronger influences contributing to instability and thus causing explicitness, and those in [4] and [5] as weaker influences. These three contextual situations, however, are so closely related to each other, that one might wish to view all three as part of the same motivation for a higher degree of explicitness, with the first variant reflecting its purest, most potent form, and the other two involving weaker versions where we only sometimes find otherwise unexpectedly overt participant packaging. In all three of these variants, the stability of an already established DT is threatened by the introduction into the discourse of another likely candidate for discourse theme status. In both written and oral language use, writers/speakers can and frequently do switch to a new DT. A writer, for instance, may, in a relatively short stretch of text, change DTs several times, primarily giving information first about one character, then another, then switching to a third, or perhaps back to the first. Such changes very often coincide with orthographic paragraph boundaries. This is the case in (2-50), where the first paragraph is primarily about Andrej Zˇeljazkov, the second is about his wife Roza, the third has as DT Roza’s young brother Filip, and in the fourth the author returns to Roza. It is not uncommon, however, for a change in discourse themes to occur in the middle of a formal paragraph. An example of this is seen in (2-51), where in the first approximately half of the paragraph the DT is a doctor on a house call who has just been told to shut the window because a woman is suffocating with the window open. We then see a mid-paragraph switch where the woman becomes the DT as the writer gives information about her as a child, as portrayed in an old photograph which had fallen out of a blanket on her lap. In these examples I have inserted double asterisks at the beginning of each sentence where a new participant becomes the DT, and have underlined all references to these DTs as subjects. Notice how often the authors use zero subjects. (2-50) Shifts in DT at Paragraph Boundaries **Za mladija Zˇ eljazkov nastanaxa trudni dni. Kato vseki m a˘zˇ toj imasˇe malki bezobidni navici za svobodnoto si vreme. Ponjakoga na macˇ, po-cˇesto na bridzˇ s blizki prijateli, njakolko cˇasˇi vino va˘v “Vidinska sresˇta”. Sega Ø trjabvasˇe da izostavi vsicˇko tova. Vednaga sled rabota Ø se kacˇvasˇe na motopeda i ba˘rzasˇe da se pribere v ka˘sˇti.
Subjects
Koj znae zasˇto, prez tezi dni i sedmici Ø se straxuvasˇe da ostavi sama Roza. Predcˇuvstvieto, cˇe mozˇe da se slucˇi nesˇto losˇo s neja, ne go ostavjasˇe nito za mig. **A kato cˇe li, poglednato otva˘n, nisˇto ne podskazvasˇe takava va˘zmozˇnost. Roza se da˘rzˇesˇe vse taka spokojno i xladno, njakaka˘v ednovremenno studen i mracˇen bljasa˘k se be pojavil v ocˇite ì. I Ø ne mu pozvoljavasˇe dori da ja dokosne s pra˘st — Ø spjaxa na razlicˇni legla v edinstvennata staja, kojato im sluzˇesˇe i za spalnja. Ø Mnogo rjadko govoresˇe, no razumno i spokojno. Samo s Filip Ø be njakak osobeno dobra i nezˇna, no i v taja nezˇnost ne se cˇuvstvuvasˇe blizost — sjakasˇ Ø sa˘cˇuvstvuvasˇe i zˇalesˇe ne svoeto bratcˇe, a njakaka˘v cˇuzˇd cˇovek. **I momcˇenceto se da˘rzˇesˇe tva˘rde stranno. Besˇe estestveno, cˇe Ø e ma˘lcˇalivo, pecˇalno i zatvoreno. No Ø nito vedna˘zˇ ne popita: “Ka˘de e basˇta mi?” Ø Nito vedna˘zˇ ne zagovori za nego. Mozˇe bi Ø usesˇtasˇe s detskata si intuicija kakvo e stanalo. Mozˇe bi vse pak Ø be uspjalo da cˇue ot njakogo nesˇto? Tova ne mozˇaxa nikoga da razberat. No Ø ne xodesˇe vecˇe da igrae s decata nava˘n, po cjal den Ø cˇetesˇe knigi, obiknoveno knigi za va˘zrastni ot tjaxnata biblioteka. Roza ne mu precˇesˇe, ne go karasˇe da se zanimava sa˘s svoite ucˇebnici. Nisˇto, neka Ø cˇete, neka Ø otvlicˇa mislite si po stranicˇni nesˇta. **A Roza vse taka dobre se grizˇesˇe za domakinskite raboti, Ø xodesˇe na pazar, Ø gotvesˇe sa˘vsem dobrosa˘vestno, po dva pa˘ti na den Ø grizˇlivo izba˘rsvasˇe poda na celija apartament. Ø Nikoga predi tova ne besˇe go pravila. Mozˇe bi kato basˇta si Ø se ma˘cˇesˇe da izmie uzˇasnija spomen za uzˇasnite nesˇta, koito se bjaxa slucˇili. (PV:426) ‘**Difficult days began for Zˇeljazkov. Like every man, he had small harmless habits when it came to his free time. Sometimes to see a match, more often to play bridge with friends, a few glasses of wine at “The Vidin Rendezvous”. Now he was having to give all this up. Right after work he would get on the moped and hurry home. Who knows why, during these days and weeks he was afraid to leave Roza alone. The premonition that something bad might happen to her did not leave him even for a minute. **But it was as if, viewed from the outside, nothing suggested this possibility. Roza was behaving as calmly and cooly as ever, a sort of simultaneously cold and dark gleam had appeared in her eyes. And she wouldn’t even let him touch her at all — they slept in different beds in the only room, which also served as their bedroom. She spoke very
Degrees of Explicitness
rarely, but rationally and calmly. Only with Filip was she somehow especially kind and tender, but even in this tenderness one did not sense closeness — it was as if she were sympathizing not with her little brother, but with some outsider. **The little boy, too, was behaving very strangely. It was natural that he was quiet, sad and reticent. But not even once did he ask: “Where is my father?” Not once did he bring him up. Maybe he sensed what had happened with the intuition of a child. Maybe despite everything, he had managed to hear something from someone. They were never able to figure this out. But he no longer went to play with children outside, he would read books all day, usually books for adults from their bookcase. Roza did not stand in his way, did not make him study his textbooks. So what, let him read, let him distract his thoughts with other things. **But Roza took care of the household chores as well as ever, she went to the market, she did the cooking very conscientiously, twice a day she carefully cleaned the floor throughout the apartment. She had never done it before this. Maybe like her father she was trying to wash away the terrible memory of the terrible things that had happened.’ (2-51) Shift in DT within Paragraph **Inacˇe toj se zadusˇavasˇe, no vse pak tja si besˇe domakinja i mozˇesˇe da se razporezˇda. Ø Podcˇini se i prozoreca˘t be otnovo zatvoren, mezˇduvremenno Ø otkri, cˇe do nego ima vrata, kojato vodi ka˘m goljama terasa-pokriv, na neja visesˇe kala˘f za va˘zglavnica. Kogato Ø se oba˘rna, Ø vidja nesˇto po-interesno. **Ot odejaloto ili po-skoro zaedno s nego besˇe izpadnala snimka. Polumomicˇe, polumomcˇe v toreadorski kostjum i samo ocˇite bjaxa poznati. Neestestveno razdalecˇenite ocˇi prinadlezˇaxa bez sa˘mnenie na zˇenata sresˇtu nego. Sa˘sˇtestvoto ot snimkata be dosta po-edro i po-debelo, pa˘lno s zˇiznenost i sila, gotovo vseki mig da se razsmee ili da te nabie, koeto za nego verojatno sˇtesˇe da ba˘de edno i sa˘sˇto. (IM:13) ‘**The other way he felt stifled, but nevertheless she was mistress here and could give orders. He obeyed and the window was again closed. Meanwhile he discovered that there was a door nearby which led to a large roof-terrace, on it hung a pillowcase. When he turned around, he saw something more interesting. **A photo had fallen from, or rather together with, the blanket. A half-girl, half-boy in a toreador costume, and only the eyes were familiar. The unnaturally wide-set eyes belonged
Subjects
without a doubt to the woman facing him. The creature in the photo was considerably bigger and heavier, full of vitality and force, ready any moment to burst into laughter or to give you a beating, which for her most likely would amount to the same thing.’
There is a clear connection between topicality and discourse themehood. While not every clause-level topic is the current theme at the discourse level, and not every reference to the current DT is topical in its clause, there is a noticeable tendency for the two to coincide. This follows from the fact that it is the amassing within a given stretch of discourse of a significant number of clauses about a particular participant that allows us to claim this participant to be the DT of this given stretch of discourse. When, even momentarily, a speaker or writer uses another dynamic participant as a clause-level topic, this creates the impression for the addressee that there is at least the possibility that a shift in DTs is under way. What the data suggests is that when this happens, even though the language user may have no intention of switching to a new discourse theme, the stability of the earlier established one has been undermined, and explicitness of packaging is triggered by this instability. It is true that this type of introduction of a “potential competitor” for DT status often creates another motivation for explicitness — the potential for referential ambiguity. But this is not always the case. Even in instances in the data where the use of a zero subject would not be ambiguous as to whether it referred to the established DT or the “potential competitor” we find overt forms (cf. (2-53) and (2-54) below). This supports the contention that perceived competition for aboutness can be a reason in and of itself for explicit packaging, independently of of the need for referential clarity. Before continuing this discussion of instability and competition for perceived themehood, I would like to address an important issue raised by an anonymous reviewer. This reviewer objects to the way my descriptions frequently create the picture of the language controlling the speaker, rather than the reverse. He or she points out that the speaker is the one who selects among available information packaging options, while my analysis suggests “a mechanism which is driven by language, not by speakers.” This is a significant, basic theoretical issue, and I certainly accept that there is more than one way to visualize the processes resulting in the observed data. Nonetheless, I would argue that my approach does in fact reflect a plausible view of the effects of packaging conventions and discourse context on linguistic usage. The speaker may not be controlled by the language, but I would contend that in a very real sense
Degrees of Explicitness
the speaker is at least constrained by a combination of the linguistic packaging conventions of the speech community put together with the need to communicate effectively in a given context. Lambrecht (1994:334) articulates this position in the concluding chapter of an extensive study of information structure (emphasis mine): The pragmatic structuring of propositions is done in terms of a speaker’s assumptions concerning the hearer’s state of mind at the time of an utterance. Pragmatically structured propositions are then paired with appropriate lexicogrammatical structures. The assumption that information structure is part of grammar, rather than of general human communicative competence, is based on the existence of a great number of grammatical features and feature combinations — morphosyntactic, prosodic, lexical — which have the unique purpose of signaling information-structure distinctions. These features are grammatical in the sense that the relationship between them and their interpretations is determined by linguistic convention …
Language users can thus be viewed as constrained by the number of packaging methods available in the language, the conventional association of these available packaging methods with particular information structure statuses, and the context of the existing discourse at the time of the utterance. A speaker may not absolutely have to use a less explicit form in contexts where this would be the accepted norm, but if a more explicit form is selected, there is the risk of misinterpretation of intended information structure as the addressee searches for motivation for the departure from the norm. (For an example of this, see the discussion following (1-4) above.) Conversely, an insufficient level of explicitness may lead to failure of the communication. A speaker, for example, may opt to use a pronominal form rather than a more explicit noun phrase, but doing so after a second referent has been introduced into the discourse (by the speaker in question or by some other discourse participant) may lead to ambiguity or misinterpretation of reference: (2-52) Insufficient Level of Explicitness A: I saw Paul1 at the airport. B: Then Dave showed up too. C: What did he1 have to say about the exam?
Speaker C here is constrained by the content of the preceding discourse. Speaker B has rendered the selection of pronominal packaging by speaker C infelicitous for reference to Paul.
Subjects
Returning to the discussion of instability of aboutness, the excerpts in (2-53) and (2-54) provide examples of potential competition for discourse themehood in its most potent form — the inclusion of reference to some other performer of a dynamic action in a main clause. In (2-53) the discourse theme is a group of girls who act inappropriately during their dance recital. They are packaged as zero subjects in the early parts of this excerpt. Then we see several clauses about how the audience reacted. After this comes the strong, dynamic potential competitor for status as DT — the instructor who, as described in a main clause, kicks the girls out. The author makes no further reference to this competitor, and when she returns to reference to the actual DT (the girls) as a topical subject as she begins a description of their trip home, she does not employ the zero packaging she had been using before the inclusion of the competitor. Instead, in keeping with the prediction in [3] of Table 5, the instability of aboutness created by this competition results in a greater degree of explicitness in packaging (the underlined te ‘they’) than would otherwise be called for in this context where there is no focus or referential ambiguity. (2-53) Overt after Strong Competition … na edin koncert v malka cˇitalisˇtna sgrada, po sredata na xoroto Ø prixnaxa da se smejat, Ø zarazixa i ostanalite i nakraja Ø klecˇaxa po da˘skite xvanati za korema, smexa˘t se prexva˘rli i va˘rxu publikata, kojato be dosˇla organizirano i po zada˘lzˇenie, no izvedna˘zˇ se okaza prijatno iznenadana i gotova da se prisa˘edini, makar i ne na sa˘sˇtite oboroti. Edinstven ne se smeesˇe ra˘kovoditeljat na ansamba˘la, toj gi izgoni osˇte sa˘sˇtata vecˇer i ponezˇe ne sˇtesˇe da cˇue nito sekunda povecˇe za tjax, te se pribraxa na avtostop … (IM:26-27) ‘… at a concert at a small community center, in the middle of the horo dance they burst out laughing, they infected the others as well and eventually they were squatting on the floor clutching their stomachs, the laughter carried over to the members of the audience too, who had been organized to come and had done so out of obligation, but who suddenly turned out to be pleasantly surprised and ready to join in, albeit not at the same volutions. The only one not laughing was the group instructor, he kicked them out that very evening and, since he wasn’t going to hear another word about them, they hitched a ride home …’
Similar to the example in (2-53) is that in (2-54). Here the DT is a fatherdaughter duo who engage in a mean-spirited game involving drawing and destroying caricatures of people they know. Their DT status is threatened by
Degrees of Explicitness
reference to Stefka (the wife/mother), who gives them suspicious looks as they return home. The initial zero packaging is replaced by an overt form after the clause containing the competition. Once thus restabilized, reference to the DT then reverts to the less explicit zero. (2-54) Overt after Strong Competition Kato Ø se nasmivaxa do nasita, Ø se pribiraxa s guzen vid i Stefka gi gledasˇe podozritelno, no te ne se interesuvaxa, zasˇtoto Ø znaexa, cˇe tajnata … (IM:37) ‘When they would get their fill of laughing, they would go home with guilt on their faces and Stefka would give them suspicious looks, but they didn’t care, because they knew that the secret …’
I would like to pause briefly in this discussion of stability of aboutness in order to use the example in (2-54) to point out an important fact about the triggering of explicitness and the analysis of this feature of participant packaging in the data. Very often when one encounters a relatively explicit form it is not possible to definitively pinpoint a singular reason that a less explicit form is not used, owing to the fact that more than one contextual or communicative factor working in favor of explicitness is present. In (2-54), for instance, it is quite possible that the writer would have selected the overt packaging for the indicated subject on the basis of focus resulting from a contrast between this thematic participant and the competitor. In the majority of cases (as in (2-53)) I have attempted for illustrative purposes to cite only examples in which the contextual feature under current discussion is isolated as the sole reason for explicitness. Such examples, however, are not typical, it being that the cooccurrence of two or more explicitness-prompting factors is so common in communication. In (2-55) we see an example reflecting the seemingly lower degree of competition created by the inclusion of reference to the performers of non-dynamic actions. The verbs associated with such interjected topics describe stative, background “actions”, which apparently are not felt to interfere with the stability of the actual discourse themes in their status as what the current discourse is about. Notice how a return to the actual DT as a topical subject in (2-55), unlike what we find in (2-53) and (2-54), does not entail explicit packaging. The author feels free to continue to use the least explicit form available — a zero subject. (2-55) Zero after Weak Competition I makar v grada dosta otdavna da ne be valjal nikaka˘v da˘zˇd, vse pak Ø uspja da se izkalja edva li ne do usˇite.
Subjects
Edinstvenijat mu spravocˇnik v toja labirint bjaxa decata. No sˇto se otnasja do blokovete, dori te bjaxa na razlicˇni mnenija. Ø Va˘rvja dosta da˘lgo vreme naljavo, sled tova Ø sva˘rna nadjasno, posle Ø se va˘rna nazad. I v kraja na kraisˇtata Ø se izpravi pred prokletija blok. (PV:422) ‘And although it had not rained in the city in quite some time, he still managed to get covered in mud just about up to his ears. The children were his only guide in this labyrinth. But as concerns the apartment buildings, even they were of differing opinions. He walked for quite a while to the left, after that he turned right, then he came back. Finally he stood in front of the damned apartment building.’
It may be that the fact that the potential competitor here (the children) is a rather vague, non-individualized entity also decreases the sense of competition for aboutness. This does not, however, appear to be the decisive factor in the selection of degree of explicitness for DT participants. Note, for example, the overtness of the indicated DT in (2-56) below, where the competitor for aboutness is also semantically non-individualized — any of the set of cats that the DT would habitually encounter. Another example of an overt DT after a non-specific potential competitor will be seen in (2-58). Another type of relatively weak competition for perception as discourse theme described in Table 5 is the situation in which the action performed by the potential competitor is indeed a dynamic one, but this interruption to the aboutness of the intended DT is contained within a subordinate clause. One might refer to this situation as a context with “variable thematic stability”, comprising a sort of gray area in the language user’s judgment as to the stability or instability of aboutness.47 There are examples in the data where this aspect of the contextual environment seems to be the only motivation for overtness (see (2-56)). There are also, however, instances where this same situation fails to trigger a packaging more explicit than zero. See (2-57), where the only dynamic action performed by the potential competitor is found in a relative clause. In these two examples I have indicated the relevant subordinate clauses through italicization. (2-56) Overt after Weak Competition Ø Vizˇdasˇe gi otdalecˇe i Ø spirasˇe uzˇ da si opravi vra˘zkite na obuvkite ili da ì kazˇe nesˇto mnogo vazˇno i pod oko Ø da˘rzˇesˇe otdalecˇavasˇtoto se zˇivotno, ako obacˇe kotkata promenesˇe posokata i tra˘gvasˇe neocˇakvano ka˘m tjax, toj zabravjasˇe da se prestruva i tja go vizˇdasˇe kato malko dete ba˘rzo da izcˇezva v njakoj vxod ili da zastava zad ogromnija stvol na gradinsko da˘rvo. (IM:52)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘He would see them [=cats] a long way off and would stop, ostensibly to adjust his shoelaces or to tell her something very important, and he would keep an eye on the animal as it went off into the distance, but if the cat changed direction and started coming toward them unexpectedly, he would forget to pretend and she would see him quickly disappear into some entrance or go stand behind the large trunk of a tree in a garden like a small child.’ (2-57) Zero after Weak Competition Tova besˇe bluza, kojato posle da˘lgi godini Ø nosesˇe i dazˇe imasˇe momenti, v koito Ø seriozno mislesˇe da se ota˘rve ot neja, no Ø ne uspjavasˇe, Ø zabravjasˇe ja i vinagi se namirasˇe njakoj mnogo usluzˇliv, kojto ì ja vra˘sˇtasˇe, Ø izcapa ja, Ø zalja ja s vino na edin rozˇden den i ja zaxva˘rli, no se nameri prijatelka, kojato ja natopi v belina i ja izpra i stana kato nova, Ø ta˘kmo mislesˇe da objavi, cˇe ì e omaljala, no Ø otslabna i ì stoesˇe cˇudesno, nakraja stana taka, cˇe Ø se ozˇeni s neja. (IM:33) ‘This was a blouse she then wore for many years and there were even moments when she seriously considered getting rid of it, but she wasn’t able to. She would leave it behind and there would always be someone very helpful who would return it to her, she stained it, she splashed it with wine at a birthday and she discarded it, but then there was a friend who soaked it in bleaching solution and got it washed out and it became like new, she was just thinking of announcing that it had become too small for her, but she lost weight and it fit her beautifully. In the end it worked out that she got married in it.’
The situation described in [5] in Table 5 is similar to [4] in that it has to do with weak competition from a potential competitor for DT status resulting in what can be thought of as “variable thematic stability”. More specifically, this contextual environment is one where the threat to stable perception of aboutness comes from a participant who performs a dynamic action presented as an observation made by the actual DT participant. Again, this sometimes appears to be a motivating factor prompting overtness of the DT, as in (2-58), while in other cases it is followed by zero packaging in the subsequent reference to the DT, as in (2-59). The excerpt in (2-58) is about a girl who has been invited to visit her older brother at his place of work. (2-58) Overt after Weak Competition I tja tra˘gvasˇe. Pri nego telefonite zva˘njaxa nepreka˘snato, vlizaxa i izlizaxa xora, bez da iska, tja se vslusˇvasˇe v razgovorite na tezi … (IM:46)
Subjects
‘And she went. At his office the telephones rang continuously, people came in and went out, without wanting to, she listened in on the conversations of these …’
In (2-59) the DT, a woman who furtively leaves supplies out at night for a son in trouble with the authorities, observes a number of things, described beginning with the fifth sentence of the first paragraph. The majority of the actions referred to in the author’s description of what the woman sees and hears are dynamic events described in main clauses. But because, it seems, the reader is expected to perceive all of these events as though through the eyes and ears of the DT, this DT’s aboutness is felt to be stable enough to allow for continued zero packaging as soon as she again becomes a topical subject at the beginning of the second paragraph. (2-59) Zero after Weak Competition Tja razbra vsicˇko. Slamata prosˇumja pod krakata ì. Ø Pritisna se do stenata i Ø ne smeesˇe da pomra˘dne. Ø Boesˇe se da ne ja zabelezˇat dvamata do da˘rvoto. A te postojaxa osˇte malko, zakacˇixa baka˘rcˇeto na mjastoto mu i otmaxnaxa ka˘rpata. Posle si kazaxa nesˇto i se razdelixa — edinijat poe ka˘m gornija kraj na dvora, drugijat preskocˇi duvara. Pak prolaja kucˇe, pak zaka˘krixa kokosˇkite. Vjata˘ra˘t izsviri v slamenija pokriv i posle stana mnogo tixo. Vecˇerta Ø ne izleze da zanese baka˘rcˇeto s mljako. Prez celija den Ø stoja na … (KC:102) ‘She understood everything. The straw rustled beneath her feet. She pressed close to the wall and didn’t dare budge. She was afraid that the two by the tree would spot her. And they stayed a bit longer, hung the pot in its place, and removed the cloth. Then they said something to each other and split up — one set out for the upper end of the yard, the other jumped over the wall. Again a dog barked, again the hens burbled. The wind whistled in the thatched roof and then it became very still. In the evening she did not go out to take the pot of milk. The whole day she stayed on …’
In the final context found in the data which I will suggest is a case of “variable thematic stability” the material examined again reveals a contextual feature which sometimes is associated with otherwise unmotivated overtness, but which in other instances fails to trigger a degree of explicitness any greater than zero for topical DTs. This feature has to do with position in the discourse
Degrees of Explicitness
just after a shift in DT has taken place in cases where the new DT has thus far since the shift performed no dynamic actions. It is as if the language user feels that the aboutness of the DT has not yet been firmly enough established, or reestablished, for the addressee, and so does not yet find it appropriate to change over to zero packaging. An example of this is seen in (2-60). Notice how after the indicated overt packaging the author does then switch to expression with zero subjects in referring to the now firmly established DT. (2-60) Overt Weakly Established DT … na drugija den Velicˇka idvasˇe osˇte po-rano, kato cˇe li ne be spala ot neta˘rpenie da slozˇi napra˘stnika i zapocˇne troposkite, i cˇak sled ma˘cˇitelnata proba idvasˇe golemijat zor, zasˇtoto plata˘t trudno se sa˘birasˇe, i njaka˘de v ka˘snija sledobed se podavasˇe na vratata i kazvasˇe: gotovo. Togava Stefka ot domakinja po domasˇni drexi se prevra˘sˇtasˇe v domakinja, izljazla v studa na pazar, bezformenoto palto stoesˇe kato izljano na bezformenata ì figura i po vsicˇko licˇesˇe, cˇe e prednaznacˇeno da pazi ot studa, i nisˇto povecˇe. Stefka ba˘rkasˇe v golemite dzˇobove, Ø kimasˇe odobritelno: sˇtesˇe da se sa˘bira v tjax i nosna ka˘rpa, i stotinki, i belezˇki za tova i onova, i njakoj i drug bonbon, cˇe dokato Ø visesˇe na da˘lgi opasˇki, Ø obicˇasˇe da raztvori knizˇkata na mentov ili fure i da si go sxruska, Ø imasˇe osˇte zdravi za˘bi. (IM:32) ‘… the next day Velicˇka would come even earlier, as if she had not slept from an impatience to put on the thimble and begin the basting, and not until after the agonizing trying-on would the real effort come, because the fabric was difficult to gather up, and sometime in late afternoon she would poke out at the door and would say: “Ready”. Then Stefka would be transformed from a housewife in house clothes into a housewife who came out into the cold to the market, the shapeless coat hung as if poured onto her shapeless figure and in every way it appeared that it was designed to protect against the cold, and nothing more. Stefka would rummage in the large pockets, and Ø would nod approvingly: into them would fit a handkerchief, and coins, and notes about this and that, and a few candies, since when she stood in long lines she liked to open the wrapper of a mint or pastille and to crunch it — she still had healthy teeth.’
That such overtness is “variable” rather than automatic, however, can be seen in (2-61). In this excerpt, the character in question is mentioned in the novel for the first time. Note how the author switches immediately to zero packaging
Subjects
in the second sentence after introducing the character in the presentative first sentence.48 (2-61) Zero Weakly Established DT Po ulicata va˘rvesˇe momcˇe. Ø Nika˘de ne ba˘rzasˇe, Ø zazjapvasˇe se po vsicˇko iz pa˘tja. (PV:395) ‘A boy was walking along the street. He wasn’t hurrying anywhere, he gaped at everything along the way.’
The preceding pages in this section outline the picture that emerges when one analyzes the role played by participant aboutness in the packaging of grammatical subjects in the examined literary data base. The data suggest that in the absence of focus and any semantic motivation for overtness (see Sections 2.2 and 2.3), the tendency is to package “stable” discourse themes in the role of subject using the least explicit zero noun phrase. A number of contextual features, however, can be regarded as powerful destabilizers of DT aboutness, leading to more explicit DT packaging. The powerful destabilizers illustrated above are major temporal shifts in the content of the discourse, first-time use of the DT with topic status at the clause level, and reintroduction of the DT as a clause-level topic after “strong” competition for aboutness in the form of reference to a performer of a dynamic action in a main clause not presented as something being observed by the DT itself. A lesser degree of destabilization, resulting in what I have been calling “variable thematic stability”, with correspondingly variable degrees of explicitness in the data base, obtains when the competition for aboutness is contained within a subordinate clause and/or is presented as an observation made by the established DT. A similar variability between zero and overt forms is seen in contexts where the DT could be described as being so far only weakly established as such. This is the case in the last two examples cited, where a participant (overt in (2-60), zero in (2-61)) has only recently been introduced as the theme of discourse and has not yet been associated with a dynamic action. ..
Aboutness in the oral mode
In an effort to streamline the preceding discussion of the influence of aboutness on subject packaging, I have cited only literary examples. I have thus far put off any reference to the colloquial data examined and the special comments the degree of explicitness of subjects found in these data entails. As will be seen, the substantial similarities between these two modes of communication in this
Degrees of Explicitness
regard greatly outweigh the differences. I will address these similarities before moving on to the most important of the differences. First and foremost, as in the literary material, topical discourse themes, in the absence of any other factors motivating overtness, favor the least explicit packaging available — the zero noun phrase. Again, this is in line with the relevant aspects of Grice’s 1975 “Cooperative Principle” (“Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)” (46) and “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required” (45)), and also with Givón’s 1992 “grammatical code-quantity principle” (“Information that is already activated requires the smallest amount of code” (25)). This characteristic, which is of central and fundamental importance in the packaging of subjects, is reflected in the utterances contributed to the conversation by speaker “T” in the example in (2-62). The status of Stojan as DT has been established in the preceding part of the discourse. (2-62) Zero Topical DT A: A Stojan njama da se ozˇeni. T: E, za kakvo Ø da se zˇeni, kato Ø sedi i ima postojanno naj-razlicˇni xubavi mladi? (KA:4.4, excerpt 1) ‘A: But Stojan’s not going to get married. T: Well, why should he get married, when he sits tight and constantly has all sorts of pretty young ones?’
Another example is found in (2-63). A couple is talking about a boy as they show pictures to a visitor. (2-63) Zero Topical DT ST: Tuka Ø e padnal ta se e ubil, pa˘k … L: Tuka Ø e na devet meseca, na deset. ST: E … L: Na godina i dva-tri meseca maj. ST: Na godina i … L: Zimata. Cˇakaj sega. Na oktombri Ø e roden. A tova e njaka˘de januari. ST: Ø Besˇe padnal. (KA:1.1, excerpt 1) ‘ST: Here he has fallen and hurt himself, and … L: Here he is nine months old, ten. ST: Well … L: A year and probably two or three months. ST: A year and …
Subjects
L: Winter. Wait a minute. He was born in October. And this is maybe January. ST: He had fallen.’
Second, in addition to this basic influence of topicality and discourse themehood in the direction of less explicitness, it can also be said that the same contextual features listed in Table 5 as motivations for overtness in the literary sources are relevant also in the colloquial material examined. Each of these features is present in conversational examples where there is no other apparent cause for the use of an overt subject for a topical discourse theme. In (2-64), for instance, parallel to the literary examples in (2-45) and (2-46), an overt pronoun is the subject of the first main clause after a major shift in temporal reference. A woman here is describing her husband as she recalls their early days together. Note that the speaker packages this topical DT as a zero before the time shift, in a subordinate clause containing the shift, and then again in a clause after the one in which aboutness is reestablished with overt packaging. (2-64) Overt after Major Temporal Shift K: Gladen, zˇaden, Ø ni rakijca pijnal, ni jadene. I kato Ø se ozˇenixme, toj vika na bratovcˇed si, “Sipi,” Ø vika, “da se napiem.” (KA:2.3, excerpt 1) ‘K: Hungry, thirsty, he took neither brandy nor food. And when we got married, he says to his cousin, “Pour,” he says, “so we can get drunk.”’
The indicated overt subject (tja ‘she’) in (2-65), as is the case in the literary excerpt in (2-48) above, is a DT being used as a clause-level topic for the first time after being introduced into the discourse with non-topical status (Ljubcˇo Bosˇkova). Beyond what is given in (2-65), the conversation continues to center around this DT, touching on her appearance and the speakers’ attitude toward and experiences with her. (2-65) Overt First-time Topic S: I v ponedelnik sˇte ja zanesa na Ljubcˇo Bosˇkova. Ne mozˇe da ne znaesˇ, sresˇtu, Ilijan sedi e taka, tja sedi tuka.49 (KA:2.8, excerpt 3) ‘S: And on Monday I’ll take it to Ljubcˇo Bosˇkova. You know, across from, Ilijan sits like this, she sits here.’
Overtness motivated by competition for perception of aboutness from another participant performing a dynamic action in a main clause was illustrated with the literary examples in (2-53) and (2-54) above. Colloquial (2-66) displays this
Degrees of Explicitness
same phenomenon in non-literary usage. Again the explicitness cannot be ascribed to emphasis or the need to avoid referential ambiguity. (2-66) Overt after Strong Competition M: A, Mitra si gi misli. E: Ø Vcˇera vliza. Osˇte ot vratata Ø pocˇva da mi govori. Kakvo Ø me narecˇe? A: Ne znam. Az ne bjax. M: Ovca? Kakvo? E: Tja kazva, cˇe … M: Ne zagubena? E: Aˇ , zagubena. “Po-zagubena ot tebe njama.” Ne znam tam osˇte kakvo. I az vecˇe se jadosax. Tja, kato Ø useti, cˇe se jadosvam, stava meka kato pamuk. (KA:4.1, excerpt 5) ‘M: Ah, Mitra thought them up. E: She comes in yesterday. As soon as she comes through the door she starts talking to me. What did she call me? A: I don’t know. I wasn’t there. M: A “sheep”? What? E: She said, that … M: Not a “lost cause”? E: Uh, a “lost cause”. “There’s no greater lost cause than you.” I don’t know what else. And at that point I got angry. When she noticed that I was angry, she becomes soft as cotton.’
It will be recalled that when reference to this type of competitor for aboutness is restricted to a subordinate clause, the threat to the stability of the actual DT was earlier described as variable, sometimes triggering overt packaging of the topical DT in the literary sources (see (2-56)), sometimes failing to do so (see (2-57)). This variability of subject packaging in the presence of this contextual feature is observed in the colloquial material as well. Compare the overt tja ‘she’ in (2-67) to the underlined zero in (2-68). (2-67) Overt after Weak Competition S: Ø Moma li e, Ø razvedena li e, ne znam. No Ø kaza, cˇe Ø e gospozˇica, zasˇtoto az vikam gospozˇa, i tja me popravi vedna˘ zˇ pred Ilijan. (KA:2.8, excerpt 3) ‘S: Whether she has never been married, whether she is divorced, I don’t know. But she said that she is a Miss, because I say Mrs., and she corrected me once in front of Ilijan.’
Subjects
(2-68) Zero after Weak Competition I: Ø Cˇarsˇafi svaljam ottam. Ø V banjata gi xva˘rlix da gi pera. A be, uzˇas. I Ø samo vikam da dojde Ljudmil, da se va˘rne ot rabota da go vzeme da go zakara na baba mu, zasˇtoto Ø sˇte umra. I Ljudmil kato dojde, Ø bjax slozˇila kafe. (KA:1.5, excerpt 2) ‘I: I take the sheets out of there. I threw them in the bathroom to wash them. But boy, a nightmare. And I just call for Ljudmil to come, to return from work to get him to take him to his grandmother, because I’m about to die. And when Ljudmil came, I had put some coffee on.’
An additional factor here may be that the less explicit packaging in (2-68) involves a first person participant. The relevance of grammatical person in subject packaging in the oral material is discussed below. The second context resulting in variable thematic stability was listed in [5] in Table 5. Here the competition for aboutness is mitigated by the fact that the action performed by the potential competitor is described as something experienced by the actual DT. In the colloquial data, as in the literary material, this sometimes leads to overtness of the topical DT (see literary (2-58) above and colloquial (2-69) below). In other cases the language user regards the status of the DT/observer as stable enough to use a zero subject (as in literary (2-59) above and colloquial (2-70) here). In (2-69) a woman who has been asked what someone has been doing tells how this person got into a traffic accident. (2-69) Overt after Weak Competition R: Ami toj bil s Ivan v kolata i edno drugo momcˇe. I ka˘m deset cˇasa na petnajseti e bilo, vecˇerta, zdracˇkavo takova. I izskocˇili iz nevidelica. I toj gi bla˘snal. (KA:2.9x, excerpt 1) ‘R: Well, he was with Ivan and another boy in the car. It was about ten o’clock on the fifteenth, in the evening, that sort of twilight. And they darted out of nowhere. And he hit them.’
In the excerpt in (2-70) the DT is a mischievous boy whose behavior is being described by the speaker. The competition for aboutness presented by the speaker herself as a participant (referred to in the second person for effect) in her admonishment to the child does not here prevent continued zero packaging. (2-70) Zero after Weak Competition S: … i toj, molja ti se, kato nameril otnjaka˘de taja volejbolnata topka, i kato Ø ja mjata po televizora, ti mu objasnjavasˇ: “Nedej be detence”, Ø sˇte gra˘mne, cˇe Ø ne udari. (KA:1.8, excerpt 1)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘S: … and when he, don’t you know, found this volleyball somewhere, and when he throws it at the television set, you explain to him: “Don’t, little one”, he’ll blare that he didn’t hit it.’
Finally, the two excerpts from colloquial conversations given in (2-71) and (2-72) are parallel to the literary examples in (2-60) and (2-61). These reflect the variable thematic stability associated with recently and weakly established DTs which have not, prior to the clause in question, had any dynamic action ascribed to them. Within each of these pairs of examples, the first contains a subject which is packaged overtly for no other apparent reason. The second, with a zero subject in a parallel contextual environment, shows that this status in the structure of the discourse does not obligatorily require a higher degree of explicitness of the discourse theme. In both (2-71) and (2-72) I begin the excerpt with the utterance with which a speaker switches to the new DT. The first of these two passages is especially illustrative of the variable nature of the influence of weakly established aboutness on subject explicitness. Despite the fact that the pen has only been referred to in a non-dynamic role (that of patient), speaker A feels the aboutness to be stable enough for the selection of the indicated zero form. It appears that speaker I does not assess the situation in the same way when she responds using an overt form in reference to this same participant. (2-71) Zero and Overt Weakly Established DT A: Ne pipaj ximikala. Tova mi e ljubimija ximilal. Vsicˇki go pipat. Ne trjabva da go pipat. I: Zasˇto? A: Zasˇtoto ne trjabva. I: Ama zasˇto ne trjabva? A: Zasˇtoto kato pipate i ot mnogo pipan e, Ø sˇte se razvali. Vizˇ kaka˘v ximikal imam. I: Toj pisˇe ta˘nko … (KA:1.2, excerpt 4) ‘A: Don’t mess with the pen. That’s my favorite pen. Everybody messes with it. They shouldn’t mess with it. I: Why? A: Because they shouldn’t. I: But why shouldn’t they? A: Because when you mess with it and it’s messed with by a lot of people, it gets ruined. Look what a pen I have. I: It writes in a fine line …’
Subjects
(2-72) Zero Weakly Established DT T: Tvoeto babcˇe kakvo e? I: Ø Dobre e. (KA:4.4, excerpt 2) ‘T: How’s your grandma? I: She’s well.’
The examples cited in the preceding discussion suggest a very high level of similarity between the oral and the written data bases with respect to motivations for the varying degrees of explicitness for packaging participants in the grammatical subject role. This discussion has outlined a set of factors relevant in the choice language users make in regard to this explicitness. Certain semantic factors, for instance, lead the language user toward a higher degree of explicitness. Among these factors were the need or desire, first, to avoid referential ambiguity, second, to avoid an impersonal reading, and third, to convey additional information about the participant. Next, focus on the participant is a very strong motivator for explicitness — primarily favoring overtness over zero packaging, and secondarily favoring the most explicit non-pronominal forms of reference over the use of personal pronoun subjects. Finally the status of the participant as a clause-level topic and a discourse-level theme was shown to be relevant. This compound status of aboutness on two levels favors the lowest degree of explicitness. It thus works in the opposite direction from focus, and invariably loses when in conflict with this latter. Finally, zero packaging is avoided, to varying degrees, in the presence of certain contextual features which have the potential to destabilize the perception of aboutness connected to the DT. Three strong destabilizing features and three weaker ones were presented in Table 5. Throughout this entire discussion I have attempted to illustrate the relevance of each of these numerous factors for both written and oral subject packaging. I emphasize this similarity here in an effort to prevent the following remarks on the two most prominent differences in subject explicitness between the oral and the written data from overshadowing the fundamental correspondence between them. These two most notable differences are briefly described in (2-73). (2-73) Additional Characteristics of Subject Explicitness in the Oral Data 1. A significant number of more explicit forms occur as speakers negotiate aboutness, repeat what they have just heard, express solidarity with the previous speaker(s) as to a given participant’s status in the conversation and sometimes perhaps attempt to ensure that others present share the same perception of themehood in the ongoing discourse.
Degrees of Explicitness
2. A significant number of least explicit zero forms occur even in the presence of topic shifts. This phenomenon applies most noticeably to first and second person subjects, which suggests that on some level the actual participants in the conversation itself retain a sort of permanent potential for aboutness or relevance to the content of the discourse.50
Before looking at some examples of these phenomena in the conversational data base and at some of the details of the major trends described, two observations should be made. These observations have to do with the relationship of these two additional characteristics of oral subject packaging to each other, the way they relate to the formulation suggested earlier and to the written data, and how they represent more than merely unmotivated differences in style or register between the oral and the written modes of communication. First, it can be noted that the two additional characteristics of oral usage described in (2-73) work in opposite directions in regard to the overall relative frequency of the least explicit zero subjects and the more explicit overt forms. The first characteristic results in overt packaging in the oral data in contexts where one finds a more frequent use of zero subjects in the written data. More specifically, for instance, this feature of oral usage involves overt subjects for participants which are not emphasized, which seem to have been firmly established as discourse themes in the preceding context of the discourse, and whose referential identity would remain clear even had the speaker opted for zero packaging. The second feature suggested in (2-73), on the other hand, results in the use of zero forms in contexts of topic shifts in the discourse, where the written mode favors overt reference. Second, note that it is possible to view both of the additional characteristics of subject packaging in oral communication listed in (2-73) as logical and natural by-products of the interaction of the universal need to maintain clarity of aboutness with materially different addressor-addressee relationships. In written communication, the writer alone is responsible for this clarity. He or she must establish discourse themehood firmly, but, once this is accomplished, it is expected that the reader will accept this aspect of information structure and will react in a predictable way to signals of changes in the structure or to the absence of such signals. In oral conversations, on the other hand, the participants in the conversation frequently exchange addressor-addressee roles in the discourse. All are thus responsible (or at least are potentially so) for the maintenance of the formal reflection of the aboutness of the discourse. The
Subjects
two characteristics in (2-73) can both be seen as following from this cooperative discourse-building. In this environment it is not surprising that we find otherwise unmotivated overtness as speakers confirm or reaffirm a DT, perhaps to ensure that everyone involved is working with the same perception of aboutness. This type of seemingly unnecessary overtness also frequently occurs as a speaker repeats all or part of what the preceding speaker has just said, to express either agreement or disagreement with the comment made about an explicitly packaged subject. The second characteristic in (2-73), i.e. the frequent use of zero forms for first and second person reference in seemingly unstable contexts, may reflect a sort of mutual acceptance of the importance and relevance of each language user in a conversation to the matter being discussed. One does not engage another person in conversation about a matter if this individual is not expected to care about the matter. Furthermore, it would be socially improper to engage another individual in this manner without accepting, at least to some extent, that person’s right to contribute.51 In this way, judging from the oral data examined, the actual participants in the conversation (i.e., the individuals who would be referred to in the discourse with first and second person forms) enjoy on some level a permanent relevance. This relevance can be accessed as topical new or renewed DT subjects without the explicit packaging normally associated with the instability created by shifts in aboutness in a discourse. The examples in (2-74) through (2-76) illustrate the first characteristic listed in (2-73), i.e. the use of explicit forms in the oral data in contexts where we might expect zero subjects in the written mode. In (2-74) the first speaker introduces a participant into the content of the discourse in her last sentence. The second speaker continues to use overt packaging in reference to this participant, establishing his DT status more firmly rather than assuming this status to already be perceived by all individuals (listeners and potential speakers) present. This type of acknowledging and reaffirming is much more important in oral conversations with their multiple “authors” and with the continual and increased potential for shifts in aboutness. (2-74) Oral Explicitness I: Cjalata Zimnica mirisˇesˇe na dzˇibri, da ti kazˇa. Pred vsjaka ka˘sˇta, pred vsjaka ka˘sˇta edni takiva ogromni ba˘cˇvi zalozˇeni s dzˇibri. Vri i kipi tam. Tatko Van’o tuka do edna-dve sedmici trjabva da svari rakijata. A: Toj sˇte izvadi sigurno povecˇe rakija. (KA:1.2, excerpt 2)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘I: All of Zimnica smelled of marc, I can tell you.52 In front of each house, in front of each house some of these huge barrels set with marc. It bubbles and ferments there. Papa Van’o will probably brew the rakia here within a week or two. A: He will no doubt get more rakia.’
The underlined overt subject used for reference to an established DT in (2-75) occurs in a clause where the speaker mimics the speech of the preceding speaker, expressing agreement with the validity of the information contained in the comment made about this topical DT. (2-75) Oral Explicitness B: … ne mu se jadosvaj, zasˇtoto nie bez tova sˇte go pravime, majko. I: Nie i bez tova sˇte go pravime. (KA:2.8, excerpt 1) ‘B: Don’t be angry at him, since we will do it anyway, Mom. I: We will do it anyway.’
The clause containing the indicated overt subject in (2-76) is very similar to that in (2-75). Again the speaker mimics the previous speaker’s utterance, including the use of a form that is now more explicit than would otherwise seem to be necessary. This time, however, it is disagreement with the content of the preceding comment that is expressed. (2-76) Oral Explicitness V: Toj taka se kazva — “Cveten kvartal”. X: Ne, toj ne se kazva taka. (KA:4.3, excerpt 1) ‘V: That’s what it is called — “Flower District”. X: No, it isn’t called that.’
In many cases in the data the overtness of subjects used in this type of conversational context might also be attributed to feature [6] in Table 5. That is, many explicit subjects used in situations where the speakers seem to be confirming DT status or repeating the structure of an utterance with which they are expressing agreement or disagreement also involve participants whose themehood can be described as weakly established. Recall that this status results from the participant having become what the discourse is currently about only recently and not yet having been associated with any dynamic action. The excerpt in (2-77) contains several such overt subjects. (2-77) Overt Weakly Established DTs ST: Irina besˇe. L: Irincˇeto besˇe, i ti besˇe.
Subjects
V: I az bjax. No az bjax malka. L: Ti malka besˇe. (KA:1.1, excerpt 1) ‘ST: Irina was (there). L: Irina was, and you were. V: I was (there) too. But I was small. L: You were small.’
Examples of the second characteristic of subject packaging in conversational Bulgarian described in (2-73) illustrate the reverse correlation when compared to typical written usage. Here participants which would be expected to be overt, according to the tendency toward explicitness for new or reintroduced topics, are packaged as zero subjects by speakers. It was suggested above that this phenomenon is connected with a type of constant aboutness for the first and second person speakers and hearers in the dialogue itself. The underlined zero subjects in (2-78) and (2-79) are representative. In (2-78) Speaker R tells Speaker S to repeat what he has just said. Speaker M then adds a comment about Speaker S, using a third person zero subject for this established DT. It is the following utterance by Speaker V that is of interest here. She changes to a new topical DT, herself, and immediately employs a zero form for this first person reference. (2-78) Oral First Person Zero S: Da, strasˇno te obicˇam, do … R: Dokumentira, dokumentira se vecˇe. Kazˇi go osˇte vedna˘zˇ. M: Njama da ti kazˇe. Njama da ti kazˇe. V: Dobre sa. Ø Iskam da va˘rsˇa rabota. Daj se prenesem v kuxnjata. (KA:1.3, excerpt 4) ‘S: Yes, I love you terribly, till … R: It’s now documented, documented. Say it once more. M: He won’t say it to you. He won’t say it to you. V: They’re good. I want to do some work. Let’s move to the kitchen.’
The speakers in (2-79) have been discussing how a woman, not present at the time of the conversation, lost her job. Despite Speaker I’s quite abrupt switch to a new DT, she uses zero packaging in reference to this second person subject. Note that even though Speaker T has been caught off guard and the question must be repeated, a zero subject is again judged to be sufficient for reference to the new DT in this clarification as well. (2-79) Oral Second Person Zero I: Nali Ø jadete luk? T: Aˇ ?
Degrees of Explicitness
I: T: ‘I: T: I: T:
Nali Ø jadete luk v salatata? Ø Jademe, da. (KA:4.4, excerpt 2) You eat onion, don’t you? Huh? You eat onion in your salad, don’t you? We do, yes.’
Of course not all such first and second person topical DT subjects are nonovert in the oral data. The two underlined pronominal subjects in (2-77) illustrate this. In this chapter I have identified and illustrated a number of factors relevant in the decisions speakers of Bulgarian make in regard to the degree of explicitness employed in the packaging of grammatical subjects. The major degrees of explicitness themselves were discussed in Section 2.1. Sections 2.2 and 2.3 then outlined a number of communicative features which trigger or promote an increased level of explicitness. These were divided into “semantic” factors (the need to specify identity, involvement or other “additional” information about the participant in question), on the one hand, and factors involving various levels and types of emphasis, on the other. These powerful influences on subject explicitness can be seen as involving specific types of motivations away from an otherwise preferred less explicit packaging. This is reflective of the presumedly universal tendency toward economy of both time and energy, but with limitations being imposed by the need to convey successfully to the addressee important aspects of the intended message. In Section 2.4 attention was turned to the relationship between subject explicitness and the status of the relevant participant as what the current message or discourse is about. The fact that aboutness is conducive to a relatively low degree of explicitness is a function of the general correlation between established aboutness and the appropriateness of communicative economy. The expectation of continued participant aboutness makes possible a lower degree of explicitness because the speaker or writer, when formulating a message about a given entity in a context in which he or she believes the addressee expects him or her to do precisely that, feels less need to expend the time and energy in referring to this entity explicitly. It appears that mutual understanding of these communicative dynamics among language users has led to the development of a sort of aboutness-marking through zero packaging. (Recall here Grenoble’s (1998:162) statement cited above about a similar convention in
Subjects
Russian: “zero-anaphora is an extremely widespread means of tracking the discourse topic from sentence to sentence”.) It was seen, however, that a number of contextual features, with varying degrees of strength, have the potential to destabilize this aboutness and lead to increased explicitness. Much of Section 2.4 was devoted to an examination of these potentially destabilizing factors and to their illustration drawing upon first written then oral data. Finally, the chapter concluded with remarks on two observable differences in tendencies in subject packaging between the otherwise very similar written and oral material: The oral conversational material exhibits both a relatively greater overall likelihood of explicitness in the presence of established aboutness, and, at the same time a decreased likelihood of explicitness of first and second person subjects even in the face of shifts in aboutness.
C
Direct and indirect objects
.
Degrees of explicitness
As is the case with subjects, referents packaged grammatically as direct and indirect objects are participants in the actions (in a broad sense of the term) communicated by the verbal elements in utterances. Participants packaged as objects are generally the undergoers, beneficiaries or experiencers of the verbal actions. Their participation is thus less direct, less active than that of the majority of subjects, which most often represent the performers of the actions. Among these major participant categories, the type of involvement ascribed to direct objects is the easiest to characterize, at least if one is satisfied with broad, generally expressed characterizations. Participants packaged as direct objects represent the patients, the direct undergoers of the actions conveyed by verbal forms. These are the participants most directly affected by the actions or the new states these actions create.53 The degree to which the direct object participant is affected by the described action depends on a number of factors, most notably the semantics and aspect of the verb. At the high end of the scale of this degree of affectedness, the entity in question is portrayed as actually beginning or ceasing to exist. Examples of this extreme affectedness are seen in (3-1a) and (3-1b) with the perfective of verbs meaning “to write” and “to destroy”. (3-1) High Degree of Affectedness a. Momicˇeto napisa pismo. ‘The girl wrote a letter.’ b. Majkata unisˇtozˇi pismoto. ‘The mother destroyed the letter.’
At the other extreme end of the scale are actions expressed with verbs whose semantics entail much less effect on the patient. In (3-2), for instance, the effect of the action on the direct object is negligible. (3-2) Low Degree of Affectedness Basˇtata ta˘rsesˇe pismoto. ‘The father was looking for the letter.’
Degrees of Explicitness
Between these two extremes is a wide range of degrees of affectedness. Sometimes participants are the direct objects of imperfective verbs with meanings entailing a potential for a high degree of affectedness (as in (3-3a)). In other cases we are dealing with perfectives of verbs whose meanings entail less change in the object (as in (3-3b) and (3-3c)). In yet others we have the imperfectives of these latter verbs (as in (3-3d) and (3-3e)). In (3-3a) the letter is described as being in the process of being brought into existence. Whether this full effect was ever achieved is not stated. In (3-3b) the letter enters a state of being better known (and perhaps physically worse for wear). In (3-3c) the letter changes locations. And in (3-3d) and (3-3e) these last two changes of state (i.e. the change in status in (d) and the change in location in (e)) can be envisioned as potential results of activities under way at the reported point in time. (3-3) Intermediate Degrees of Affectedness a. Momicˇeto pisˇesˇe pismo. ‘The girl was writing a letter.’ b. Momcˇeto procˇete pismoto. ‘The boy read the letter.’ c. Ucˇitelkata vze pismoto. ‘The teacher took the letter.’ d. Momcˇeto cˇetesˇe pismoto. ‘The boy was reading the letter.’ e. Ucˇitelkata vzemasˇe pismoto. ‘The teacher was taking the letter.’
Degree of affectedness is a very complex issue, subject to many other factors (e.g. definiteness of the object, negation, verbal tense and mood). For the purposes of the present analysis, however, the type of general characterization presented above will suffice. For a detailed, systematic treatment of these and some additional related factors, see Hopper and Thompson 1980, where aspect, modality, negation, object individuation and other parameters, including object affectedness itself, are tied together within a theory of “transitivity” of clauses. The types of participation involved when participants are packaged as indirect objects are more difficult to characterize and to subsume under a single definition. This difficulty, present even when a relatively narrow conception of the participant category is assumed, is compounded by the fact that I will adopt here a fairly broad definition in order to maximize the scope of the
Direct and indirect objects
relevant parts of the analysis which follows. I will describe and use examples to illustrate the range of participant roles involved momentarily, but the simplest way to relate how I determined which noun phrases would be taken to belong under the heading “indirect object” involves a mix of formal and (negatively stated) semantic features: I regard as an indirect object any participant packaged in what will be called a “dative” form and which does not qualify as a possessor. The set of noun phrases in the data which pass this test for indirect object status is made up of those referring to participants in the content of the utterances within a semantic range that can roughly be described as “indirectly affected parties”, which itself is fairly useless as an investigative tool.54 Breaking this down into three main subsets, the borders between which are admittedly indistinct, to some extent provides a clearer picture of the types of participant involvement speakers convey when they use indirect objects. Many indirect objects, for instance, can be described as “recipients” of things which are in some sense given or transmitted: (3-4) Indirect Objects — Recipients Ivan ni kaza, cˇe tja mu dade/napisa/izprati/prodade pismoto. Zasˇto se oplakvasˇ na mene? Zanesi gi na Malinka. ‘Ivan told us [=said to us], that she gave/wrote/sent/sold him [=to him] the letter. Why are you complaining to me? Take them to Malinka.’
Others might be better termed “beneficiaries” of the positive, or sometimes negative, results of actions: (3-5) Indirect Objects — Beneficiaries Vsicˇko tova sa˘m go kupil/postroil samo na decata. Vcˇera im se rodi deseti sin. ‘I bought/built all of this just for the children. A tenth son was born to them yesterday.’
The example in (3-6) highlights the difficulty sometimes involved in this type of subdivision. One might view this indirect object as either the beneficiary of the type of emotion the subject gives off or as a recipient of a transmitted feeling. (3-6) Indirect Object — Beneficiary or Recipient? Toj vda˘xva nadezˇda/nedoverie na vsicˇkite, koito s nego govorjat. ‘He inspires hope/distrust in everyone who talks to him.’
A third major subset consists of indirect objects that might be termed “experiencers”:
Degrees of Explicitness
(3-7) Indirect Objects — Experiencers Struva mi se, cˇe mu stava neudobno. Zatvori prozoreca — na deteto e studeno. ‘It seems to me that it is becoming uncomfortable for him. Shut the window — the child is cold.’
As in (3-6), the examples in (3-8) illustrate the vagueness involved in this type of semantic subdivision. The verb licˇa means to “be in evidence”/”be obvious”. It is not easy to decide whether the third person masculine singular indirect object, the affected party, is a recipient, a beneficiary, or an experiencer. Both the Bulgarian examples and the English translations in (3-8) are from a BulgarianEnglish dictionary (Atanasova and Rankova, eds. 1988, vol 1:398). (3-8) Indirect Objects — Recipients, Beneficiaries, or Experiencers? Licˇat mu godinite. Bolen e, no ne mu licˇi. ‘He looks his age. He is ill but he does not look it.’
Direct and indirect objects exhibit a significantly larger inventory of packaging options than was outlined for subjects in Chapter Two. I will continue to use the expression “degrees of explicitness” when comparing these formal options. In most cases a juxtaposition of two of these means of packaging objects produces the type of difference in semantic explicitness encountered in comparing among the forms used in packaging subjects. It will be demonstrated, however, that a comparison of the usage of certain object types suggests that the difference between the two is one of compatibility with contextual communicative features. Even if the members of such pairs of forms may be equivalent in terms of the amount of semantic information they convey, it will be suggested that their differing markedness values in regard to clause-level topicality or focus are such that it is still appropriate to view one as more explicit than the other. Before turning to the analysis itself and illustrating it with examples from the real written and oral data, it may be useful to provide a systematic formal description of the various direct and indirect object packaging methods. I begin this with a list of these options in Table 6.55 For ease of reference later, I am assigning each an abbreviated label. As will be seen in this chapter, the issue of object explicitness and selection among object types is a complex one. The sheer quantity of packaging options contributes to this complexity. Also complicating the issue is the fact that a given object type may be highly explicit along one parameter, but among the least explicit along another. See, for example, the positions of the R-PP (redu-
Direct and indirect objects
Table 6. Direct and indirect object types Z = zero SPP = short (form) (clitic) personal pronoun LPP = long (form) (non-clitic) personal pronoun R-PP = reduplicated personal pronoun FNP = full noun phrase R-FNP = reduplicated full noun phrase
Table 7. Object types and degrees of explicitness Explicitness of Reference Low Degree Z
High Degree SPP LPP R-PP
FNP R-FNP
Explicitness of Focus Low Degree
High Degree
R-PP FNP R-FNP
Z SPP LPP
Explicitness of Topicality Low Degree
High Degree
Z SPP LPP FNP
R-PP R-FNP
plicated personal pronoun) in the three parts of Table 7. This object type has an intermediate degree of explicitness when it comes to identifying referents, an extremely low degree of explicitness in indicating or reflecting focus, and a very high degree of explicitness in expressing topicality. Much of the remainder of Chapter Three is devoted to a discussion of the details of these differing degrees of explicitness and how they are relevant in the packaging of Bulgarian direct and indirect objects. First, however, I give in Table 8 a sample direct and indirect object form of each of the object types. I
Degrees of Explicitness
Table 8. Examples of object types a. Z
Direct Object: Indirect Object:
b. SPP
Direct Object: Indirect Object:
c. LPP
Direct Object: Indirect Object:
d. R-PP
Direct Object: Indirect Object:
e. FNP
Direct Object: Indirect Object:
f. R-FNP
Direct Object: Indirect Object:
Ne Ø pisˇa na Ivan. ‘I am not writing Ø to Ivan.’ Ne Ø pisˇa tova pismo. ‘I am not writing Ø this letter.’ Ne go pisˇa na Ivan. ‘I am not writing it to Ivan.’ Ne mu pisˇa tova pismo. ‘I am not writing him this letter.’ Nego ne pisˇa na Ivan. ‘I am not writing it to Ivan.’ Na nego ne pisˇa tova pismo. ‘I am not writing this letter to him.’ Nego ne go pisˇa na Ivan. ‘I am not writing it to Ivan.’ Na nego ne mu pisˇa tova pismo. ‘I am not writing this letter to him.’ Ne pisˇa tova pismo na Ivan. ‘I am not writing this letter to Ivan.’ Ne pisˇa tova pismo na Ivan. ‘I am not writing this letter to Ivan.’ Tova pismo ne go pisˇa na Ivan. ‘I am not writing this letter to Ivan.’ Na Ivan ne mu pisˇa tova pismo. ‘I am not writing this letter to Ivan.’
use here third person singular forms for illustration. For other pronominal object forms, see the paradigms in Tables 9 and 10 below. Each of the object forms in Table 8 has been situated within the context of a very simple sentence. These sentences are obviously manufactured for this purpose in such a way as to simplify comparison of the forms themselves, and some of them may sound strange without the appropriate context which would indicate the necessary combination of focus and topic features. Each of these object types occurs in the natural Bulgarian spoken and written data and will be illustrated with examples in context in the remaining sections of this chapter. Their lack of phonetic substance makes the zero direct and indirect objects the easiest to describe morphologically, but among the most difficult to locate in the data. They can be viewed as occurring in two major varieties. The first variety, whose very “presence” in the utterance is subject to debate, can be characterized as parallel in essence to the zero subjects Rå
Direct and indirect objects
Hauge labels “unspecified”. Zero subject constructions of this type, illustrated in Chapter Two with the first zero subject in (2-1) and also the zero subject in (2-2), repeated here for reference, involve third person plural verbal forms used without an overt subject. They allow speakers and writers to report an action without specifying by whom the action was performed. (2-2) “Unspecified” Zero Subject Vcˇera mi razkazaxa edna slucˇka, kojato me nakara da se razmislja. ‘Yesterday I was told about an incident that made me reflect.’ (Rå Hauge 1999:201)
Because of the strong English prohibition against subjectless sentences, the English passive construction is an appropriate translation tool here from the viewpoint of communicative load. The performer of the action, which may in fact be singular rather than the plural morphologically suggested by the Bulgarian verbal form, goes unidentified. The speaker may not know or remember the performer’s identity, may not wish to share this information with the addressee, or simply may view this identity as completely irrelevant to the content of the message. What I am leading up to is that one finds in the Bulgarian data, both written and oral, similar examples where it is an object instead which is left completely unspecified. The language user reports an action which, because of its nature, clearly must involve a participant (an undergoer and/or a beneficiary/recipient). This participant is not specified overtly, but, if it had been specified, it would have appeared as a grammatical direct or indirect object. Parallel to the omission of the unspecified subjects, however, the speaker or writer leaves this participant out completely, either because it is in some sense unidentifiable (forgotten, not perceived in the first place, or completely non-specific) or else simply unimportant to the message. The excerpt from a short story in (3-9), for instance, describes soldiers, who are supposed to be on guard duty, doing crossword puzzles instead of being attentive to their assignment. (3-9) “Unspecified” Zero Objects Vjarno, podcˇasite mozˇexa da cˇetat Ø, no tova besˇe drugo nesˇto. Zabiexa li glava v kra˘stoslovicata, cˇak kogato gi povikasˇe razvodacˇa˘t, togava stavaxa. Uzˇ obesˇtavaxa Ø, no toj usesˇtasˇe, cˇe proda˘lzˇavaxa narusˇenijata. (KC:18) ‘True, the relief sentries could read Ø, but this was another thing. Once they’d become immersed in the crossword puzzle, they wouldn’t get up
Degrees of Explicitness
until the corporal of the guard summoned them. Supposedly they made promises Ø, but he [= a sergeant, not the corporal] was aware that the violations continued.’
The zero direct object in the first sentence stands for any reading material whatsoever — books, magazines, newspapers, and so on. The act of reading inherently entails an object, but the author here leaves the ultimately unspecific patient completely unspecified. The zero indirect object in the last sentence has somewhat more specific reference in the real world: the promises must have been made to some individual or individuals, who would have been packaged as dative indirect objects if overtly mentioned. But the precise identity or identities of the recipient(s) are not given — either the narrator/sergeant does not know to whom the promises were made, or else sees this information as completely irrelevant to the story he is telling. It might prove interesting to investigate speaker preferences in various contexts for the Bulgarian equivalents of “She likes to read Ø” versus “She likes to read things”, or “He gave the ticket away Ø” versus “He gave the ticket away to someone”. For the present, however, this “unspecified” variety of zero object will be set aside (as was done concerning parallel subject packaging) in favor of a closer examination of what might be termed referentially “specified” participants. The formally identical zero objects of this second variety are very different from the first in referential meaning. In the first variety, described above, either the speakers/writers do not have specific participants in mind or else, if they do, they do not expect the hearers/readers to be able to identify them. This first variety, I suggested, is in this way similar to the unspecified subjects found with third person plural verbal forms where the zero subject has “unspecified” reference. Zero objects of the second variety, on the other hand, are those which do have specific reference and, in fact, involve participants the speakers or writers do expect the addressees to be able to identify and to “fill in” for themselves in processing the utterance. These zero objects are thus like the majority of zero subjects cited or discussed in Chapter Two, where a variety of factors, including an absence of emphasis and an absence of potential for referential ambiguity or misinterpretation, among others, license or favor this sort of least explicit packaging. It would probably be descriptively preferable to refer to the two sorts of zero objects as “referential” and “non-referential”, rather than as “specified” and “non-specified”, since the difference between them has to do with whether or not they have recoverable reference, not whether or not some
Direct and indirect objects
referent is formally specified within the clause in question. I will continue to use the latter terms, however, in order to highlight the parallels to zero subjects, for which I adopted terminology from Rå Hauge in Chapter Two. Two examples of zero direct objects of the “specified” sort are found in the short excerpt from the colloquial material in (3-10). Three different verbal forms describe actions where the direct object/patient is a bottle of Sprite. Only with the first, however, is this participant mentioned overtly. (3-10) Specified Zero Objects E: Sega trjabva da ima edna butilka sprajt, ako namerisˇ Ø, obacˇe trjabva da izticˇasˇ da kupisˇ Ø, zasˇtoto na dzˇina cjalata mu prelest e da ba˘de razvodnen sa˘s nesˇto. (KA:4.6, excerpt 2) ‘E: Now there needs to be a bottle of Sprite, if you find one, but you have to run out to buy one, because gin’s whole charm is to be diluted with something.’
The literary excerpt in (3-11) also includes two formally zero objects with reference to participants the addressee (reader) can be expected to identify. The first is a direct object and the second is an indirect object. These lines are part of a description of a woman’s telephone call to the police to report finding a body. The person on the police station end of the line has already had to ask the woman to calm down once, and is apparently having trouble recording all the necessary information. The first zero clearly refers to the information the woman is giving and represents the undergoer of the action of the verb zapisˇa ‘write down’. The second indicated zero object refers to the woman who placed the call to the police. She is the understood indirect object of the verb kaza ‘said’. (3-11) Specified Zero Objects —… Ulica “knjaz Dobroslav” nomer edinajset … — Etazˇ? — Treti etazˇ … — Moment, da Ø zapisˇa! — kaza Ø glasa˘t. (PV:399) ‘“… Prince Dobroslav Street number eleven …” “Floor?” “Third floor …” “Hang on, let me get it down!” the voice said Ø.’
Next in order of increasing degree of explicitness are the SPP (short personal pronoun) objects. This type of packaging is comprised of forms which belong
Degrees of Explicitness
to one of two complete paradigms of personal pronouns used as direct and indirect objects. Since they contain less phonetic material than the forms belonging to the other pronominal paradigm, they are frequently referred to as short (form) (personal) pronouns. These short form pronouns are clitics, forming a single phonological word with the host to which they attach, creating a single accentual unit (the stress almost always being on the host, rather than on the clitic pronoun). The typical and prescribed word order placement of these short pronominal objects is position immediately before the verbal form they are the objects of (as in (3-12a), where the short form pronouns are underlined), unless this would result in their occurring at the absolute beginning of a clause. In this latter event they are placed instead in postverbal position (as in (3-12b)). If both a direct and an indirect object clitic are present, the latter precedes the former. (3-12) Prescribed Word Order Placement of Short Form Personal Pronouns a. Ne mu gi davam. ‘I am not giving them to him.’ b. Davam mu gi. ‘I am giving them to him.’
The complete paradigm for these short form objects is given in Table 9. Note that I will be using the terms “accusative” for the direct object forms and “dative” for the forms which can be used to package indirect objects. These terms are useful not only in the interest of brevity of reference to the participants in question, but also in order to have formal terms which can be divorced from particular grammatical roles.56 Long form personal pronouns comprise a third object-packaging technique. Unlike the short form pronouns, these long forms are not clitic, and each consists of or includes an independent phonological word. Another fundamental difference is that the strict word order restrictions described above for SPP objects are not applicable for LPP objects. These long forms enjoy a very high degree of freedom in word order placement, occurring in a variety of positions relative to subjects, verbal elements and other components of the sentence or clause. The fragments in (3-13) are illustrative. In these excerpts we see LPP objects positioned before a verb in (a), after a verb in (b), before both subject and verb in (c), after both subject and verb in (d), and between verb and subject in (e).
Direct and indirect objects
Table 9. Short form (clitic) personal pronouns
Singular 1st Person 2nd Person 3rd Person masc./neut.a fem. Plural 1st Person 2nd Person 3rd Person
Accusative
Dative
me te
mi ti
go ja
mu ìb
ni vi gi
nic vic im
a
Although there is a three-way gender distinction for nominative personal pronouns in the third person singular (see Table 3 in Chapter Two), in the accusative and dative the masculine and neuter pronouns are formally identical. b The diacritic is an orthographic convention. c Note the formal identity between the accusative and dative pronouns in the first and second persons plural.
(3-13) Word Order Variation for LPP Objects a. object — verb … a na vas sˇte otmerja drugo po-xubavo. (IM:26) ‘… and for you I’ll measure off another, better one.’ b. verb — object … ako ostane na mene … (IM:16) ‘… if it’s left to me …’ c. object — verb — subject … neja risuvaxa i dvamata ednovremenno … (IM:36) ‘… both of them would draw her at the same time …’ d. subject — verb — object … koito ot svoja strana nabljudavaxa tjax. (IM:34) ‘… who for their part were watching them.’ e. verb — object — subject B: … i podrezˇda mene tja. (KA:2.2, excerpt 1) ‘B: … and she sets me up.’
The LPP forms themselves are given in Table 10. In the chart I have listed the forms or constructions generally prescribed in grammars, and in several cases
Degrees of Explicitness
Table 10. Long form personal pronouns Accusative
Dative
Singular 1st Person 2nd Person 3rd Person masc./neut. fem.
mene (men) tebe (teb)
na mene (na men) na tebe (na teb)
nego neja
na nego na neja
Plural 1st Person 2nd Person 3rd Person
nas vas tjax
na nas na vas na tjax
I have included a very common variant in parentheses. Some other variation in form is noted below the chart. Here are some additional points to be made in regard to the forms listed in Table 10: 1. The dative forms listed in the chart consist formally of the accusative forms of the long pronouns as objects of the preposition na ‘of/on/to/for’. Although syntactically these comprise prepositional phrases, they function as a unit in expressing indirect object participants, and I will refer to them as dative forms. 2. The formally prepositional constructions in the dative column in the chart are a manifestation of the movement in the language from synthetic to analytic expression of noun phrase case roles. Synthetic dative forms of the long personal pronouns (e.g. nemu for na nego, nam for na nas, tjam for na tjax), as well as synthetic variants of FNP indirect object forms described below (e.g. komu for na kogo ‘for/to whom’, njakomu for na njakogo ‘for/to someone’) are now regarded as archaic and are not preferred (Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov 1977:173, 182, 186; Rå Hauge 1999:43, 57). 3. The inclusion of the preposition na with the accusative pronominal forms in the dative constructions in the chart reflects standard, prescribed usage. Non-standard, colloquial omission of the preposition, however, does occur in the oral data base. We find, for example Men sa mi kazali, cˇe … (KA:4.5, excerpt 1), ‘I’ve been told, that …’, with men rather than na men. This phenomenon, under the label “na-drop”, is discussed
Direct and indirect objects
in detail in Vakareliyska 1994. Vakareliyska’s investigation found a high tolerance of these prepositionless indirect objects among native speakers not only for all of the personal pronouns, but also as variants of the datives of other noun phrases as well. As Vakareliyska points out, however, “nadrop is not possible in Bulgarian in the absence of a dat[ive] reduplicative PC [= pronominal clitic]” (130). This formally moves occurrence of this phenomenon into the realms of the reduplicative object types. See the description which follows here and further discussion in later sections of this chapter. R-PP (reduplicated personal pronoun) objects formally result when speakers or, less often, writers use both an SPP short form pronoun and an LPP long form pronoun, coreferentially, within a single clause. This double packaging, where both pronominal forms refer to the same participant in the same event, is one variety of what will be termed here “reduplication”. The short pronoun is said to be “reduplicating” the long pronoun.57 Being coreferential and describing the same participant role in relation to the verbal element, the reduplicating clitic logically agrees with or matches the reduplicated form in case, number, person and, in the third person singular, also in gender. Manufactured examples were presented using a third person neuter singular accusative form and a third person masculine singular dative form, respectively, in the sentences in d in Table 8. Examples of these reduplicated objects used by native Bulgarians in real written and oral expression are seen in (3-14), (3-15) and (3-16). These three excerpts illustrate reduplication of objects of all three grammatical persons (first, second and third persons in the presented order), of both indirect (in (3-14)) and direct (in (3-15) and (3-16)) objects, and in a writer’s literary prose narrative (in (3-16)), in the represented speech of a character in a piece of prose fiction (in (3-14)), and in natural oral speech (in (3-15)). Note also the word order characteristics reflected in these examples. The long form pronouns, as is true when they occur without the reduplicating short form pronouns, enjoy a relative freedom in linear position. Compare preverbal teb and nego in (3-15) and (3-16) to postverbal na mene in (3-14). In all of these examples the clitic components of the construction occur in immediate preverbal position, as they generally do in nonreduplicative use. Following the pattern described earlier for short form pronouns, this typical preverbal position would be replaced by postverbal position if it would otherwise result in the short pronouns appearing clauseinitially. (Thus, for instance, if in (3-14) the negative particle were removed
Degrees of Explicitness
and no other word order changes were effected, the clitic mi would be moved to position after the verb trjabva — Trjabva mi na mene taka˘v zˇivot. ‘I need that kind of life.’.) (3-14) R-PP Indirect Object Ne mi trjabva na mene taka˘v zˇivot. (PV:419) ‘I don’t need that kind of life.’ (3-15) R-PP Direct Object I: Va˘prosa˘t e, cˇe toj … V: Cˇe teb te nervira. (KA:1.5, excerpt 2) ‘I: The problem is that he … V: That he irritates you.’ (3-16) R-PP Direct Object No nego nikoj ne mozˇesˇe da go ograbi, nito pa˘k izla˘zˇe. (KC:31) ‘But no one was able to rob him, nor yet cheat him.
This reduplication of direct and indirect objects, including the R-FNP variety which will be addressed shortly, is not an equal part of the linguistic system of all Bulgarians in all situations. Stated very generally it can be said that reduplication occurs more frequently in western than eastern Bulgarian dialects, and that it is found more often in colloquial styles and oral contexts than when language users, even those who do reduplicate in their everyday speech, employ the language in more formal, especially written contexts. The geographical component of this distribution has been noted in the literature on the construction. Mention of the western nature of the construction can be found, for instance, in Popov 1963 (165), Popov 1973 (170) and Volume 3 of the Academy Grammar 1983 (186). References to reduplication as a colloquial, conversational or popular feature in the language are especially common.58 Particularly detailed are the treatments of the differing frequencies of use of reduplicated objects in differing registers or modes of communication in Popov 1973 (170-86) and Manolova 1974. The results of an examination of the data used in the current study are in keeping with these general observations. Reduplication figures prominently in the colloquial oral material. In the written artistic prose it occurs more frequently in the represented speech of the characters in the stories than in the authors’ narrative.59 Nonetheless it is worth emphasizing here that reduplicated objects were found in all the sources analyzed and do occur in the written narrative as well as in real or artistically created fictional conversations. Even more important here is that the marked-
Direct and indirect objects
ness features which will be assigned to reduplicated objects based on their distribution vis-à-vis clause-level topic-comment structure are uniform regardless of the particular mode of communication.60 This suggests that although not all speakers reduplicate in all types of communication, there is a consistent structural constraint applied when reduplication is in fact employed. Objects expressed with overt forms other than personal pronouns are more explicit (in the sense indicated in Section 2.1 on subject packaging) than zero or personal pronoun objects. These will be referred to as FNP objects. Some examples, with nominative (subject) forms in parentheses for comparison, are given in Table 11. The forms in Table 11 reflect the general situation in Contemporary Bulgarian in regard to the morphological (lack of) marking of these case roles — the accusative (direct object) forms are identical to the nominative (subject) forms, and datives (indirect objects) consist of prepositional phrases with the accusative forms as the objects of the same preposition na which figured in personal pronoun objects of the LPP and R-PP varieties. There are, however, some exceptions of various levels of vitality in the language to this otherwise extremely straightforward paradigm: 1. In the literary language, as prescribed by grammars, there is a formal distinction between nominative and non-nominative forms of the postpositive definite article for masculine nouns in the singular (or their modifiers, the article in Bulgarian being attached to the first word of the noun phrase). Thus, for example, nominative studenta˘t ‘the student’, or with a modifier novijat student ‘the new student’, should be used as subjects or nominative predicates, while non-nominative studenta ‘the student’ and novija student ‘the new student’ should be the forms found as direct objects and also as the grammatical objects of prepositions (including the na as part of the dative indirect objects). While this conventional formal distinction is reflected in my literary sources, this is not always the case in the colloquial material. As Rå Hauge (1999:31) points out, this distinction Table 11. FNP objects Accusative
Dative
(Nominative)
zˇenata pismo Ivan vsicˇki
na zˇenata na pismo na Ivan na vsicˇki
(zˇenata) (pismo) (Ivan) (vsicˇki)
‘the woman’ ‘letter’ ‘Ivan’ ‘everyone’
Degrees of Explicitness
is an artificial construct, and is not based upon actual usage in any Bulgarian dialect. It is observed only in writing and in very careful speech. In most other style levels of the spoken language, either the long form or the short form is used in all syntactic positions.
I have normalized in favor of the prescribed convention in the examples presented in this study. 2. There are a number of pronouns (other than personal pronouns) for which remnants of the earlier synthetic case morphology still occur. For example, kogo ‘whom’ is the preferred accusative form (used both as direct object and as object of the preposition na in expressing the indirect object) corresponding to nominative koj ‘who’. The historically synthetic dative komu is considered archaic, na kogo being the prescribed indirect object form. In the colloquial language, the historically nominative form is expanding its range of usage. Rå Hauge (1999:57) cites Koj ta˘rsisˇ ? ‘Who(m) are you looking for?’ as an example of this. 3. Vakareliyska 1994 reports some tolerance for the omission of the preposition na (although less so than with personal pronoun objects). Again, however, as in the case of the absence of the preposition with personal pronoun indirect objects, this na-drop is apparently only acceptable (and then only to some speakers) in the presence of a reduplicating dative short form pronoun. Such examples, therefore, would formally belong to a different type, in this case R-FNP. Some examples of FNP objects from the literary data base are given below in (3-17), and parallel colloquial examples are seen in (3-18). I have included in each of these sets illustrations of both direct objects (in (a) and (b)) and indirect objects (in (c) and (d)). The excerpts in (3-17) and (3-18) also give some idea of the variation in word order position for these FNP forms, with objects in postverbal position in (a) and (c) opposed to the preverbal objects seen in (b) and (d). (3-17) Literary Use of FNP Objects a. Postverbal Direct Object Znae si rabotata mojat nacˇalnik. (DG:87) ‘My boss knows his job.’ b. Preverbal Direct Object I tozi nabor pak ti sˇte poemesˇ, kaza mu podpolkovnika˘t. (KC:15) ‘“You’ll take this group too,” the lieutenant-colonel said to him.’
Direct and indirect objects
c.
Postverbal Indirect Object Ne iskal da ba˘rza, istinskite ucˇeni nikoga ne ba˘rzali, no toj — djadoto, kazal na drugarja Metodiev, cˇe … (DG:89-90)
‘He [=Metodiev] didn’t want to rush — real scholars never rushed, but he, the old man, told Comrade Metodiev, that …’ d. Preverbal Indirect Object Nevena ì nosesˇe ot sladkisˇite si da gi opita, vsa˘sˇtnost tja nosesˇe na vsicˇki, no na Margarita davasˇe naj-xubavoto parcˇe. (IM:106) ‘Nevena would bring her some of her desserts to try, in fact she brought them for everyone, but she would give the best piece to Margarita.’ (3-18) Colloquial Use of FNP Objects a. Postverbal Direct Object E: Va˘obsˇte ne sme si bili ot dva do cˇetiri. Nie kupuvaxme terakota vcˇera. (KA:1.6, excerpt 1) ‘E: We weren’t home at all from two to four. We were buying terra cotta yesterday.’ b. Preverbal Direct Object A: Spokojstvie izla˘cˇvat tija dvamata. (KA:1.2, excerpt 1) ‘A: Both of them radiate tranquility.’ c. Postverbal Indirect Object E: Ami, tja se obadila na majka mi. (KA:1.6, excerpt 1) ‘E: Well, she made a call to my mother.’ d. Preverbal Indirect Object V: Na Irina onija struvaxa dvajset … (KA:1.7, excerpt 2) ‘V: Those cost Irina twenty …’
R-FNP objects are similar to R-PP objects in that the participant is referred to twice within a single clause. In R-FNP object constructions it is an accusative or dative noun phrase other than a personal pronoun (i.e. FNP) that is reduplicated by a coreferential accusative or dative short personal pronoun (i.e. SPP). In (3-19a-d) and (3-20a-d) I provide examples of objects of this type which parallel exactly the examples in (3-17a-d) and (3-18a-d) in terms of variation in type of source (literary or colloquial), grammatical participant role (direct or indirect object), and linear ordering in relation to the verb (postverbal or preverbal). Note that the labels preverbal and postverbal here refer to the position of the non-pronominal element. As in other object types where they occur, the short pronouns are in immediate preverbal position except to avoid occurring clause-initially.
Degrees of Explicitness
(3-19) Literary Use of R-FNP Objects a. Postverbal Direct Object Oba˘rkaxa gi i seljanite s taja arxeologija — vmesto da si gledat vnucite, tra˘gnali po bairite — i te minaloto da otkopavat. (DG:89) ‘The villagers too were caught up in this archeology — instead of looking after their grandchildren, they were off in the hills — so that they too could dig up the past.’ b. Preverbal Direct Object Vjarno, cˇe dnesˇnite pesni ne gi bivasˇe mnogo, no imasˇe i xubavi. (KC:21) ‘It’s true that the songs popular then weren’t all that great, but there were some good ones.’ c. Postverbal Indirect Object Vreme mu besˇe na d-r Dragomirov da se namesi, inacˇe … (IM:120) ‘It was time for Dr. Dragomirov to intervene, otherwise …’ d. Preverbal Indirect Object Na Ralcˇev mu se struvasˇe stranno ubitata da otide na rabota v najnovija si kostjum. (PV:404) ‘It seemed strange to Ralcˇev that the slain woman had gone to work in her newest outfit.’ (3-20) Colloquial Use of R-FNP Objects a. Postverbal Direct Object I: Ami, po-razumno e taka. Vizˇ kak sa˘m gi ma˘knala tija cvetja v edin kasˇon ot Zimnica do tuka. (KA:1.2, excerpt 1) ‘I: Well, it makes more sense this way. Look how I got these flowers here from Zimnica in a cardboard box.’ b. Preverbal Direct Object A: Trjabva da xodja za dvajset minuti na sresˇta s nego. V: Az tvoite dvajcet minuti gi znam. Dvajset po dvajset. (KA:1.2, excerpt 5) ‘A: I have to go for twenty minutes to meet with him. V: I know your twenty minutes. Twenty times twenty.’ c. Postverbal Indirect Object M: Zasˇto, kakvo ì e na pecˇkata? (KA:2.3, excerpt 1) ‘M: Why, what’s wrong with the stove?’ d. Preverbal Indirect Object E: Na Zˇorko da mu naleja li vodicˇka? Iska li osˇte? (KA:4.6d, excerpt 1) ‘E: Should I pour a little water for Zˇorko? Does he want more?’
Direct and indirect objects
.
Semantic explicitness
In upcoming sections I will address the role played by emphasis and aboutness features in the choices language users make when selecting among the various degrees of explicitness in the packaging of direct and indirect objects. Here, however, attention will be turned first to the influence exerted by the need to convey successfully the content of the message itself. As in the previous chapter on subject packaging, I will refer to these factors which cause or promote higher degrees of explicitness as resulting in a relatively high level of “semantic” explicitness, since they involve the need for clarity of participant identity, (type of) participant involvement, or the provision of additional information about the participant. The term “semantic” is appropriate, owing to the common concern here with successful interpretation of the content of the intended message. As was true in the case of subjects (cf. 2.2.2 above), some of the motivations for object explicitness which involve participant involvement (cf. 3.2.2 below) might also be described as grammatical. First, though, a more purely semantic motivation for avoiding less explicit forms in favor of more explicit packaging options will be discussed and illustrated in 3.2.1. ..
Participant identity
As outlined concerning subjects in 2.2.1, an obviously crucial element in the successful conveyance of a message is that the listener or reader is able to identify correctly (in terms of speaker/writer intention) the participants in the reported action. A speaker or writer’s failure to accurately assess this ability results in inappropriate or even unsuccessful messages. Underestimation of the addressee’s ability to identify an object participant in a given context results in transgression of a brevity requirement in a conversational cooperation principle.61 This is illustrated to an extreme in (3-21a) as opposed to the more appropriate (3-21b). (3-21a) Underestimation of Identifiability Vcˇera bjax v universiteta i sresˇtnax Ivan. Sresˇtnax Ivan pred bibliotekata i kazax na Ivan, cˇe … ‘Yesterday I was at the university and ran into Ivan. I ran into Ivan in front of the library and I told Ivan that …’ (3-21b) Appropriate Assessment of Identifiability Vcˇera bjax v universiteta i sresˇtnax Ivan. Sresˇtnax go pred bibliotekata i (mu) kazax, cˇe …
Degrees of Explicitness
‘Yesterday I was at the university and ran into Ivan. I ran into him in front of the library and I said (to him) that …’
Overestimation of the addressee’s ability to identify a participant, on the other hand, may result in a failure to convey (part of) the meaning of the intended message. This would be the case, for instance, if (3-22a), rather than (3-22b), were the first utterance in a new discourse and no contextual factors pointed to reference to Ivan. (3-22a) Overestimation of Identifiability Vcˇera bjax v universiteta i go sresˇtnax. ‘Yesterday I was at the university and ran into him.’ (3-22b) Appropriate Assessment of Identifiability Vcˇera bjax v universiteta i sresˇtnax Ivan. ‘Yesterday I was at the university and ran into Ivan.’
Avoidance of this last sort of referential ambiguity very often necessitates the packaging of an object with the most referentially explicit object types (FNP and R-FNP) which consist of or include a full noun phrase other than a personal pronoun. The relatively frequent occurrence of explicit objects, as opposed to subjects, with this type of purely semantic motivation is in keeping with and is expected from observations made in the literature, including Georgieva 1974 specifically on Bulgarian, and Givón 1976 and Lambrecht 1994 more universally. In her detailed analysis of Bulgarian word order, Georgieva includes descriptions of two major tendencies, the frequent convergence of which results in a relatively greater proportion of subjects than objects which are referentially identifiable without explicit packaging. Under the heading “grammatical word order” (“gramaticˇen slovored”) Georgieva (39) characterizes as basic or principal (“osnoven”) the positioning of the subject before the predicate (the latter of which would include any direct or indirect objects present). Under the heading “topical word order” (“aktualen slovored”) Georgieva (65) describes the linear ordering topic (“tema”) before comment (“rema”) as the stylistically neutral (“neutralni v stilisticˇno otnosˇenie”), usual (“obicˇajnata”) and statistically confirmed (“statisticˇeski potva˘rdenata”) order. This, put together with the fact that it is so often the case that topics are given participants whose identity is recoverable from the preceding context, while comments very often consist of or include the new, unpredictable information contained in the clause, results in a relatively more frequent need for explicitness on a semantic basis for objects than for subjects. This reasoning is consis-
Direct and indirect objects
tent with and supported by Givón’s (1976:152) observation of a “consistent and highly universal pairing of the discourse function “topic” and the semantic function “agent” into one highly universal ag[g]regate function “subject””. Combining this with the correlation Givón draws between topic and old information again leads one to expect a greater need for semantic explicitness for objects than for subjects. Lambrecht (1994:136) can be cited here as another researcher who takes a “strong correlation between subject and topic” to be one of the “universal features of natural language”. Some examples of the need for the high degree of semantic explicitness provided by the use of overt noun phrases other than personal pronouns in the packaging of objects are provided in (3-23) and (3-24). Replacement of these most explicit forms by less explicit pronouns or zero noun phrases could lead to ambiguity or misinterpretation of the identity of the object participants. In the colloquial example in (3-23) the identity of the indirect object participant, the children, could not be conveyed to the listeners with a less explicit type of packaging. Neither a personal pronoun nor a zero noun phrase could be expected to lead the listeners to this interpretation of the message, given the absence of mention of the children in the recent preceding dialogue. (3-23) Full NP for Participant Identity G: Cˇe mnogo ti e xubav serviza˘t. R: Omra˘znal mi e da go gledam vecˇe. G: Trjabvasˇe da go dadesˇ snosˇti na decata. Da cˇupjat. (KA:1.7, excerpt 5) ‘G: Boy, your tableware is very nice. R: I’m already sick of looking at it. G: You should have given it to the children last night. For them to break it.’
The indicated direct object in literary (3-24) similarly cannot be replaced by zero or by a pronoun meaning “it” without loss of the addressee’s ability to identify the participant which was being gnawed away. This sentence is found in the second paragraph of a short story where no indication has been given yet that there even was any snow on the ground. (3-24) Full NP for Participant Identity Edno protjazˇno, tixo sa˘skane se proma˘kvasˇe prez raztrozite na prozoreca: Da˘zˇda˘t i zatoplenata zemja grizjaxa vkoravenija snjag. (KC:97) ‘A protracted, quiet hissing was coming through the fussing of the window: the rain and warm ground were gnawing at the hardened snow.’
Degrees of Explicitness
An object need not refer to a participant being introduced into the discourse for the first time for an explicit form to be required. The speaker or writer will also use explicit packaging to ensure correct interpretation of reference by the addressee after what he or she feels has been a substantial interval since the previous mention of the participant. This type of reintroduction of a participant is what is involved in the use of the explicit indirect object na decata ‘to the children’ in (3-23) above. The children had been referred to earlier in the dialogue, but the intervening material is substantial both in terms of length (approximately forty speaker-turns) and also in terms of changes in themes of discourse. Another example of explicit mention after a substantial hiatus is seen in the literary excerpt in (3-25). Here I have included not only the sentence containing the reintroduction of the participant itself (underlined), but also the earlier mentions (italicized) and the intervening material. (3-25) Full NP for Participant Identity —Ama ne se sa˘rdete de … Tuka e kljucˇa˘t, Ø njama ka˘de da ba˘de … A vie ot koi ste? Ot koi bjaxte, vikam? Te ka˘de sa˘m go turil, prokletijat. Ama ne. Toja e ot va˘tresˇnata vrata. Mene djadkata vze da mi dopada. S takiva kato nego si toplja prikazkata vecˇer. Vmesto da legna rano kato nacˇalnika i da se zalisvam s knigi, sjadam pri starcite — s tjax mi e dobre. Pijat si vince, bistrjat politika, opjavat zemjata. Ako me nadusˇat ka˘de rabotja, zaklevat me — da ne gi izdavam. Goljam smjax. Kakvo ima da im izdavam na starci? Ta toja djadka, nedopobeljal, podstrigan kato momcˇe ot gimnazijata — vse si ta˘rsesˇe kljucˇa … (DG:87) ‘“Now don’t get angry … The key is here, there is no other place for it to be … And who sent you? Who sent you, I say? Here’s where I put it, the damned thing. But no. This one is for the inner door.” I began to like the old guy. With the likes of him I can shoot the breeze in the evening. Instead of going to bed early like the boss and passing my time with books, I sit with the old men - I feel good with them. They drink their wine, talk politics, go on about the land. If they sniff out what I do for a living, they make me swear not to betray them. What a joke. What is there to betray old men for? So this old guy, partially grayed, with a schoolboy’s haircut, kept looking for the key …’
Even very recent reference to a given participant does not ensure the appropriateness of less explicit packaging. The presence in the recent context of
Direct and indirect objects
another potential referent may trigger highly explicit packaging. In literary (3-26), for instance, the use of the personal pronoun go ‘him/it’ instead of the explicit nikaka˘v nozˇ ‘any knife’ might lead to an interpretation in which the murderer, rather than the murder weapon, is the undergoer of the action. (3-26) Full NP for Participant Identity — Ostava sega da namerim i nozˇa! — izma˘rmori Ralcˇev povecˇe ugrizˇen, otkolkoto obnadezˇden. — I ubieca, skrit v garderoba — obadi se fotografa˘t. No ne namerixa nikaka˘v nozˇ … (PV:403) ‘“Now we just have to find the knife too!” muttered Ralcˇev, more worried than hopeful. “And the killer, hidden in the wardrobe,” the photographer replied. But they didn’t find any knife …’
In other cases, owing to a difference in number and/or gender between the intended referent and any potential unintended referent in the context, a personal pronoun suffices to avoid ambiguity and misinterpretation on the part of the addressee. The speaker or writer can thus adhere to the maxim of brevity by avoiding repetition of a full noun phrase in favor of a less explicit (and shorter) pronominal packaging. We see this in the colloquial example in (3-27), where the feminine pronoun ja ‘her’ makes it clear that it is the daughter, rather than the son the speaker has also been talking about, that was being fed. A second example can be seen in the literary excerpt in (3-28), where again the feminine pronoun ja ‘her’ rules out the masculine field-keeper as the participant undergoing the act of shoving and unambiguously leads the reader to interpret the main character, the woman who is packaged as a zero subject in the first sentence of the passage, as the direct object. (3-27) Personal Pronoun for Participant Identity I: … i toj nali spesˇe ottata˘k i se sa˘buzˇda. Ama ta˘kmo sa˘m pocˇnala da ja xranja, i … (KA:1.5, excerpt 2) ‘I: … and he was supposed to be sleeping on the other side, and he wakes up. And I’ve just begun to feed her, and …’ (3-28) Personal Pronoun for Participant Identity Ne mozˇa da obue dori galosˇite si. Do porticˇkata na gradinkata stoesˇe oficer. Na dvora se besˇe svil selskijat pa˘dar. Da˘ zˇda˘t se sticˇasˇe po ska˘sanata kozirka na sˇapkata mu. Policajat ja bla˘sna … (KC:99)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘She wasn’t able even to put on her galoshes. By the gate to the little garden stood an officer. The village field-keeper cowered in the yard. The rain was streaming down the torn visor of his cap. The policeman shoved her …’
The underlined object in (3-29) is similar to these last two examples in that a pronoun suffices to identify the participant (in this case the reader knows that it is the recently mentioned male sibling rather than the female sibling referred to by the possessive ì ‘her’ that the mother loved exclusively). The use of a long form pronoun (LPP) instead of a short form pronoun (SPP) like those seen in the previous two examples involves the same degree of referential explicitness. The difference between them (specifically, the positive markedness of the LPP forms for focus) will be addressed in Section 3.3 below. (3-29) Personal Pronoun for Participant Identity … majka ì vinagi besˇe obicˇala samo nego. (IM:111) ‘… her mother had always loved only him.’
It is not uncommon to find in the data the use of pronominal packaging in instances where the writer or speaker can be confident of the addressee’s ability to apply logic and knowledge of how things work in the real world in order to correctly identify object participants. In these cases, even though there is present in the context some other participant whose number and gender features would be grammatically compatible with the object pronoun, such reference would result in a nonsensical or at least highly unlikely message, and the addressee is expected to reject this interpretation. In (3-30) the packaging of the plural direct object with the pronominal form gi ‘them’ produces no real threat of the addressee interpreting the message to mean that the tomatoes or the squash should be asked rather than the people. (3-30) Personal Pronoun for Participant Identity Utre sˇte padne snega˘t. Sutrinta zavix plastovete gore. Xorata domatite i tikvite si zavivat, a az — zemja. Idi gi pitaj — koj ti ne recˇe, deka sa˘m sˇtur. (DG:88) ‘It’s going to snow tomorrow. In the morning I covered the layers up there [at an archeological dig site]. Other people cover their tomatoes and squash, but I cover soil. Go ask them — anyone will tell you that I’m crazy.’
The excerpts in literary (3-31) and colloquial (3-32) and (3-33) are particularly interesting in that they contain examples where the speakers and writer appear
Direct and indirect objects
to change their minds about the degree of referential explicitness necessary to ensure that the addressees will correctly identify the intended participants. In (3-32) the difference in grammatical gender between the pronoun (masculine/neuter go ‘it’) and the more explicit full NP (feminine furnata ‘oven’) may reflect a change in reference (from the food item in the oven to the oven itself) rather than the type of change in perception of required explicitness we see more clearly in the other two examples. Note also that the indicated object in (3-31) is reduplicated. The switch from na nego to na Garev here nonetheless represents a decision to use a more explicit form (R-FNP instead of R-PP). (3-31) Pronoun, then Full NP for Participant Identity Dve godini, otkakto prie dla˘ zˇnostta starsˇina na rota, novobrancite vse na nego, na Garev, mu gi davaxa. (KC:15) ‘Two years since he accepted the appointment as company first sergeant they were always giving the new recruits to him, Garev.’ (3-32) Pronoun, then Full NP for Participant Identity I: Zˇoro, izkljucˇi go, izkljucˇi furnata, Zˇore, napa˘lno. (KA:1.2, excerpt 1) ‘I: Zˇoro, turn it off, turn off the oven, Zˇoro, all the way.’ (3-33) Pronoun, then Full NP for Participant Identity K: I nas, zˇenite, pa˘lno otdelenie, ni sga˘stixa taka i zapocˇnaxa da ni prexva˘rljat v rodilno … (KA:2.11, excerpt 3) ‘K: And they crowded us, the women, together, a whole ward, like that, and they began to move us to a maternity ward …’
This last example is interesting also in that it is the identity of an object referred to in the first person that is in question. The speaker adds an explicit form to ensure that the listener understands exactly who the “us” is who underwent the action. This is unusual in the data. Generally, and most obviously in the singular, first and second person pronominal forms are sufficiently explicit in identifying the speaker/writer or addressee(s) as the relevant participant. Thus far the discussion and illustration of degrees of object explicitness according to the competing demands of referential clarity and conversational brevity have been highly parallel to the discussion of these same factors in the packaging of subjects presented in 2.2.1 in the preceding chapter. Among the examples of objects in (3-23) through (3-33), just as was the case among the examples of subjects in (2-8) through (2-15), there were instances where highly explicit full noun phrases were necessary to enable the addressee to identify new participants, reintroduced participants and participants which
Degrees of Explicitness
would not be the only logical referent of a pronominal form. There also were examples where both for subjects and for objects a pronominal form was sufficient to enable the addressee to identify unambiguously the intended participant. And finally there were included examples of cases where the language user appears to change his or her mind about the degree of explicitness required, adding a more explicit form after initially selecting a pronoun. Much of the remainder of the earlier discussion of subject packaging was aimed at analyzing the contexts under which language users do and do not package specific subject participants with the least explicit non-overt zero noun phrases. One of the obvious prerequisites to the appropriateness of this extreme lack of explicitness in a successful message is that the identity of the participant in question be apparent to the addressee even without any overt mention. This prerequisite is very often perceived by speakers and writers as fulfilled, to judge by the high frequency of occurrence of zero subjects in the oral and written data bases. Seemingly parallel instances of zero direct and indirect objects whose specified referents (as opposed to the “unspecified” variety discussed in 3.1 and illustrated in (3-9)) are identifiable by the addressee can also be found in the data. One example from the colloquial material can be seen in the last clause in (3-23) above (Da cˇupjat Ø. ‘For them to break it.’). Another is presented here in (3-34), where again the identity of the direct object participant is so clear that no overt mention is felt by the speaker to be necessary to ensure a successful communication. There is no doubt that it is a typewriter that the zero refers to. (3-34) Zero Object M: Prostak. Imasˇ li pisˇesˇta masˇina? R: Imam Ø. (KA:1.3, excerpt 5) ‘M: Fool. Do you have a typewriter? R: I do.’ [more literally: ‘I have Ø.’]
The literary excerpt in (3-35) contains both a zero direct object and a zero indirect object. I have co-indexed these zeros with earlier overt references. The first zero refers to the radio and the second to the individual who is also the indirect object in the first sentence and in the first clause of the second sentence. (3-35) Zero Objects Boksi sigurno mu2 e kupil tranzistora1. Osˇte minalata sedmica mu2 Ø1 obesˇta, no togava ne Ø2 go donese, zasˇtoto se ulisal i go zabravil vka˘sˇti. (KC:27)
Direct and indirect objects
‘Boksi must have bought him the radio. Even last week he promised it to him, but then he didn’t bring it (to him), because he was preoccupied and forgot it at home.’
While such zero packaging of specified direct and indirect objects does occur, an examination of the data reveals a much lower frequency of this phenomenon for objects than for subjects. There are at least two reasons for this difference in relative prevalence of usage. The first, the fact that there is a strong tendency for speakers to package as subjects rather than as objects the type of old, given information which is more likely to be viewed as referentially identifiable and thus is susceptible to zero packaging, has already been noted (see the discussion of the frequent correlation between topic status and grammatical subject role above). The second is the extremely common use of another, more explicit object type for identifiable, specified participants in the grammatical role of direct and indirect objects. I refer here to the SPP, the short form clitic personal pronouns. Numerous examples of the packaging of identifiable participants with short form pronouns can be found in previously cited excerpts, including mu ‘to him’ and both occurrences of go ‘it’ in the second sentence of (3-35). More examples of this phenomenon are seen in (3-36). (3-36) Short Form Pronouns for Identifiable Participants Zˇenata vnezapno se jadosa … Toja vnezapen gnjav, koj znae zasˇto, izvedna˘ zˇ ja uspokoi, vnese ì cˇuvstvo za obiknovenost i delnicˇnost. (PV:399) ‘The woman suddenly became angry … This sudden anger, who knows why, immediately calmed her, brought a feeling of normalcy and banality to her.’
This apparent preference for overt pronominal forms (albeit of a short, clitic variety) over zero for object participants whose identity is completely recoverable by the addressee appears, at first glance, to represent a lack of parallelism with the state of affairs observed in the expression of subject participants, where zero noun phrases are the preferred method of packaging participants, other factors permitting. In other words, assuming as a universal the tendency within languages for subsystems to develop in a direction toward parallelism rather than away from it, it may seem surprising that the formally least explicit zero objects are not favored in the same or similar contexts as are the formally least explicit zero subjects. One possibility at this point would be simply to note and accept this apparent asymmetry between the systems of packaging
Degrees of Explicitness
decisions for subjects and objects. Another way of analyzing the data is available, however, which to a great extent dispels or at least minimizes the appearance of asymmetry. The claim here would be that it is the preferred short form pronouns, rather than the less common zero objects, which represent the formal counterparts to the preferred zero subjects. What I have in mind is the adoption into one’s analysis of a view of the clitic objects not as syntactically independent pronouns in and of themselves, but rather as something akin to morphosyntactic verbal object-agreement markers.62 The crux of one argument in favor of such an analysis is the observation that in cases of both SPP object packaging (the short personal pronouns) and so-called zero subjects, the relevant participant is formally represented by an element (a clitic pronoun or an inflectional morpheme on the verb) which: (1) gives some information about the participant (number, gender and/or person), (2) lacks its own independent word-level stress (forming a single prosodic word with the element which precedes it), and (3) occurs in a predictable position in relation to that of the verb. According to this view, the short form pronoun in (3-37a) should be seen as formally more akin to the inflectional morpheme -me ‘1 pl’ underlined in (3-37b) than to the overt subject pronoun nie ‘we’, a syntactically and prosodically independent element, in (3-37c). (3-37a) Short Personal Pronoun Object Ivan ni obicˇa. Ivan us loves-3sg ‘Ivan loves us.’ (3-37b) Inflectional Subject Agreement with Zero Subject Ø Obicˇame go. Ø love-1pl him ‘We love him.’ (3-37c) Overt Subject Nie go obicˇame. we him love-1pl ‘We love him.’
Furthermore, it is possible to view the short pronoun object packaging and the zero subject packaging as sharing not only the pragmatic characteristic of being the preferred form, other factors permitting, for readily identifiable participants, but also the syntactic characteristic of deriving through pronoun deletion of a redundant independent noun phrase:
Direct and indirect objects
(3-38) Pronoun Deletion a. Object Deletion Ivan ni obicˇa nas. > Ivan ni obicˇa Ø.63 Ivan us-loves-3sg us > Ivan us-loves-3sg Ø ‘Ivan loves us.’ b. Subject Deletion Kakvo Ø kazvasˇ? Kakvo ti kazvasˇ? > what you are-saying-2sg > what Ø are-saying-2sg ‘What are you saying?’
There are some clear and arguably significant differences between the pronominal clitic objects and the inflectional subject agreement morphemes which make this problematic. First, the elements showing verbal subject agreement are clearly morphemes, never optional, always forming a prosodic word with the verb stem, and never deviating from their position at the end of this stem. The short pronominal objects, on the other hand, exhibit a certain degree of independence. They occur sometimes after the verb stem, but generally before it. They sometimes form a prosodic unit with the verbal element, but more often cliticize to some other sentential element. And perhaps more problematic yet are their distributional characteristics. They do not always appear in the absence of any other overt reference to the object participant (i.e. in object type Z), making it difficult to support an explanation based on some sort of automatic trace realization or overt feature checking phenomenon that might be an appealing option when looking at the more numerous SPP objects. And when there is another overt reference to the participant present (in R-PP and R-FNP), the presence of the short pronoun (creating a reduplicative construction) will be claimed below to function instead to mark the topic-comment structure at the clause level. Although interesting and clearly important, the syntactic derivation of the various means of packaging Bulgarian objects cannot become the focus of this study of the contextual factors relevant in the distribution of these means. My sole purpose in the preceding brief excursus was to point out the possibility of viewing the short form pronominal objects in Bulgarian as formal as well as functional parallels to zero subjects. ..
Participant involvement
In some cases the use of an overt form rather than a non-overt form, or a reduplicated rather than a non-reduplicated construction, can be seen as clarifying
Degrees of Explicitness
participant involvement as opposed to clarifying participant identity. This type of explicitness serves to indicate either (1) the very involvement of a participant in the first place, or (2) the specific role played by a participant. The first of these is very common, the second is rare and of a questionable status in the literary language. Each of these two types of clarification of participant involvement through object explicitness occurs in two varieties. In the first variety of the first type, an overt indirect object represents an experiencer. In these cases the absence of the overt forms would make possible a reading in which the message is interpreted as a description of a general state or condition, relevant to all appropriate individuals. In the excerpt from a short story in (3-39), for instance, the main character (and ostensible narrator) ascribes the good feeling to himself, rather than to just anyone who is with the old men. Without the overt dative pronoun, the clause would be better translated as ‘it is good (to be) with them’. (3-39) Overt Form for Specific Experiencer Involvement Vmesto da legna rano kato nacˇalnika i da se zalisvam s knigi, sjadam pri starcite — s tjax mi e dobre. (DG:87) ‘Instead of going to bed early like the boss and passing my time with books, I sit with the old men — I feel good with them. ‘
A similar example is seen in the colloquial data in (3-40). The first speaker is responding to a question about how a girl has been doing in kindergarten. The second speaker rephrases her question, asking more specifically whether the girl has finally begun to find kindergarten interesting. (3-40) Overt Form for Specific Experiencer Involvement A: Vsicˇko e sa˘vsem normalno. V: Ama interesno, sega kazva li, cˇe ì e interesno? (KA:1.2, excerpt 2) ‘A: Everything is quite typical. V: But (is it) interesting, does she now say that she finds it interesting?’
Note that in both (3-39) and (3-40) the overt object is better viewed as indicating that there is a specific relevant experiencer rather than as identifying this specific experiencer for the addressee. It is certainly true, especially in (3-39) with a first person singular object, that the overt form does in fact identify the experiencer. Nonetheless, the indication of the relevance of some specific experiencer still seems to be the primary purpose of opting away from a lesser degree of explicitness — if a less explicit form (zero) is used, it is an impersonal interpretation, not ambiguity of specific reference, which results.
Direct and indirect objects
In cases such as these, the listener or reader would have no difficulty correctly selecting the intended individual as the specific experiencer, so long as he or she somehow knew that the speaker or writer did not intend the message to convey a general state applied to all possible experiencers. The second common sort of situation in which overt packaging of an object can best be viewed as asserting the involvement of a participant (as opposed to identifying the specific individual for the addressee) involves various actions that one typically performs for or on oneself. The inclusion of an overt object indicates the involvement of some other participant, where its replacement by a zero noun phrase would be interpreted as implying the reflexive reading. Compare, for instance the English “Sarah is lucky to know Ryan. He found Ø a thousand dollars yesterday.” to “Sarah is lucky to know Ryan. He found her a thousand dollars yesterday.”. In the first, where a zero indirect object is used, the natural assumption is that it is Ryan who will be the primary beneficiary of the find. Sarah is lucky perhaps because of some association with this stated beneficiary. In the second version, with an overt indirect object referring to Sarah, Sarah herself is the stated recipient of the money. Both Bulgarian examples below of this situation where an overt dative form avoids an otherwise natural reflexive interpretation involve forms of the verb kupja ‘buy’. An example from the literary data, a sentence which was part of (3-35) above, is given in (3-41), and (3-42) is from the conversational material. (3-41) Overt Form for Non-reflexive Participant Involvement Boksi sigurno mu e kupil tranzistora. (KC:27) ‘Boksi must have bought him the radio.’ (3-42) Overt Form for Non-reflexive Participant Involvement P: … i mojata majka si mi go e kupila. (KA:d.bp, excerpt 1) ‘P: … and my mother bought it for me.’
One of the ways in which a relatively explicit form can be seen as clarifying the specific role in the predication played by a participant (as opposed to indicating involvement in the first place) involves the use of an overt direct object form as opposed to its packaging as a less explicit zero noun phrase. A second, in two sub-varieties, involves the use of reduplicative forms as opposed to non-reduplicated object types. Two qualifications are in order. First, it would be possible to view these benefits of explicitness as grammatical or syntactic motivations, rather than semantic, since each results in the clarification of the syntactic role of a participant. Second, each of the situations
Degrees of Explicitness
described below should be regarded as peripheral, at best, among the set of motivations for explicitness discussed in this chapter. In the case of the non-reduplicative variety and the first sub-variety of the reduplicative type, it is not at all clear that we are here dealing with the actual reasons for the explicitness. We may instead be seeing collateral benefits of explicitness triggered by other motivations (such as reflecting or signaling participant aboutness — see Section 3.4). And in the second sub-variety of the reduplicative packaging, the construction involved is viewed by at least most speakers as substandard even within the spoken language. The first of these situations where explicitness makes a participant role absolutely clear to the addressee is closely connected with the fact that nominative and accusative case are no longer morphologically distinguished in most noun phrases. This sometimes results in clauses in which the presence of an overt pronominal direct object (which is morphologically marked as being an object rather than a subject) makes it clear that some other noun phrase (which is morphologically compatible with either nominative or accusative usage) must in fact be the nominative subject. See the examples in colloquial (3-43) and literary (3-44). (3-43) Pronominal Object Clarifies Subject NP M: Izvinjavaj, ne sa te celunali deset kolezˇki, zasˇtoto ti besˇe prez cjaloto vreme s mene. (KA:1.3, excerpt 1) ‘M: Pardon me, ten (female) colleagues didn’t kiss you, because you were with me the whole time.’
Because the noun phrase deset kolezˇki ‘ten (female) colleagues’ is not morphologically marked as nominative rather than accusative, the replacement of the overt accusative pronoun te ‘you’ by a zero object could, theoretically, give rise to a reading of the clause in which the colleagues are the direct object and the subject is an unspecified third person party (‘(they) didn’t kiss ten (female) colleagues’/’ten (female) colleagues were not kissed’). And in (3-44), because zˇenata ‘the woman’ is not morphologically marked for case, omission of the overt object go ‘him/it’ would theoretically allow a reading in which zˇenata is the direct object (‘He took the woman by the elbow and led her, confused, into the kitchen.’). (3-44) Pronominal Object Clarifies Subject NP No momcˇeto vecˇe ne slusˇasˇe, xlipasˇe uzˇaseno. Zˇenata go xvana za laka˘tja i va˘vede oba˘rkana v kuxnjata. (PV:397)
Direct and indirect objects
‘But the boy was no longer listening, he was sobbing in terror. The woman took him by the elbow and, confused, led him into the kitchen.’
I used the term “theoretically” when describing the possibility of variant readings in these examples if the direct object were not expressed overtly. In reality, while it cannot be denied that the explicitness of the object formally rules out the misinterpretation, I actually ran across not a single example in the data in which some other factor working in favor of successful communication was not present as well. In the majority of cases the context of the clause makes the intended meaning clear.64 The utterance in (3-43) for instance, occurs just after another speaker has claimed to have been kissed by ten colleagues. In many other cases pragmatic knowledge of the real world would be enough to distinguish between possible participant roles: Momicˇeto pisˇe. ‘The girl is writing (it)’, for example, involves no danger of misinterpretation of the girl as object. And in other cases, as in (3-44), word order norms alone, in the absence of any signs to the contrary, suggests the intended reading to the addressee.65 As in the examples in (3-43) and (3-44), the degree of explicitness used in packaging the direct object participants in (3-45) and (3-46) makes absolutely clear for the addressee which participant is the undergoer (direct object) and which is the performer (subject) of the action expressed by the verb. Unlike the examples in (3-43) and (3-44), where the use of an SPP accusative short form as opposed to a zero noun phrase is what clarifies these roles, here it is an accusative short pronoun forming part of an R-FNP reduplicative object which can be viewed as performing this function. In each example there is both a third person singular feminine full noun phrase (tazi vezˇlivost ‘this civility’ in (3-45) and taja razlika ‘this distinction’ in (3-46)) and a third person singular masculine full noun phrase (baj Ganjo ‘Baj Ganjo’ in each), either of which is morphologically compatible with either subject or direct object status in the predication with a third person singular verb form. The inclusion of the explicitly feminine reduplicating clitic pronoun ja in each, however, leaves no doubt whatsoever that it is the feminine noun phrase in each that must be the object, leaving baj Ganjo as the subject. (3-45) Reduplication Clarifies Direct Object Status Tazi vezˇlivost baj Ganjo ja pusˇta sa˘s smetka … (AK:54) ‘Baj Ganjo let loose this civility with calculation …’ (3-46) Reduplication Clarifies Direct Object Status Vprocˇem taja razlika baj Ganjo ne ja sesˇtasˇe … (AK:77) ‘But Baj Ganjo did not sense this distinction …’
Degrees of Explicitness
The potential for reduplicative pronouns to indicate the direct object rather than the subject role of the reduplicated noun phrase, especially one located in the initial position more typical of subjects, is frequently noted in the literature. Some of the observations made about the connection between reduplication and a case-marking function are very strongly stated. Popov 1973 (185) describes as a “grammatical necessity” (gramaticˇna neobxodimost) and Scatton 1984 (373) as “obligatory” the reduplication of initial direct objects in cases where the subject and object are not morphologically transparent as such. Maslov’s (1981:152) stance on this issue is particularly clearly stated in his discussion of the means available in Bulgarian for distinguishing direct objects from subjects. One of these means he cites is reduplication (boldface mine): The use of short form oblique personal pronouns with the noun. Thus the word order in the sentence Marija obicˇa Stojan can be changed and the direct object can begin the sentence only if one inserts after it the short form third person accusative personal pronoun which agrees with it in number and gender: Stojan go obicˇa Marija ‘Maria loves Stojan’.
Manolova 1974 (164) does not even include a morphological ambiguity condition in her description of this phenomenon when she writes: “In our literary language there is a requirement for obligatory reduplication of objects moved to preverbal position”, a rule she acknowledges is broken in practice. It is evident that Manolova’s omission of the morphological condition is not accidental from the fact that she includes the sentence in (3-47), which is taken from the publication Septembrijcˇe, among those illustrating obligatory reduplication. The pronoun az ‘I’ is morphologically nominative, and is clearly the subject of the verbal construction sa˘m vizˇdal ‘have seen’ (where, moreover, the verbal element vizˇdal is morphologically singular and the auxiliary sa˘m is marked as first person and singular). This leaves the third person plural noun phrase onezi xora ‘those people’ the only possible direct object, with or without the reduplicating pronoun gi ‘them’. The translation in (3-47) is mine. (3-47) Reduplication Clarifies Direct Object Status? Onezi xora az ne sa˘m gi vizˇdal nikoga, no si gi predstavjax. (from Septembrijcˇe, cited in Manolova 1974 (165)) ‘I have never seen those people, but I imagined them.’
And Rusinov (1974:142), similarly, includes among his examples cases where the morphology of the noun phrases and/or the verb phrases make the case
Direct and indirect objects
roles clear when he claims that the preverbal position of the direct object must be changed if the reduplicating clitic pronoun is removed. Many other researchers have correctly noted the potential for a casemarking function of accusative reduplicating pronouns and have appropriately refrained from making such strong or prescriptive claims. Among those whose treatments can be viewed as characterizing this case disambiguation as one of the functions, a potential function or an occasional beneficial side effect of reduplication are Cyxun (1968:110), Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov (1977:376), Nicolova (1986:55), Dyer (1992:42), Vakareliyska (1994:125-26), Rå Hauge (1999:209) and Rudin (1986:17), who very distinctly states that “this is clearly not its only function in the modern language”. There are a number of facts about object reduplication which support the view that case marking is at best an occasional function or, probably better, a potential side effect of its main function, rather than the sole or even primary function of the construction. Several of these facts are particularly clearly laid out and illustrated in Nicolova 1986 (55). First, contrary to some of the stronger claims made in the literature, not all preverbal direct objects are reduplicated. The indicated direct objects in colloquial (3-48) and literary (3-49), for instance, are not accompanied by reduplicating pronouns. (3-48) Nonreduplicated Preverbal Direct Object I: I, i obsˇto vzeto cˇisteneto pravja. (KA:1.5, excerpt 4) ‘I: And as a rule I do the cleaning.’ (3-49) Nonreduplicated Preverbal Direct Object Na edno ot momicˇetata majkata rabotesˇe v operata i uspja da vzeme ot garderoba kostjumite na cjal spektaka˘l, slucˇi se “Karmen”, rokljata na Karmen, razbira se, otma˘kna samoto momicˇe, koeto … (IM:28) ‘The mother of one of the girls worked at the opera and managed to get the costumes from an entire show from the wardrobe, it turned out to be Carmen, the very girl who … made off with Carmen’s dress, of course’
One might argue that the indicated objects in these two excerpts are not good examples of the absence of reduplication of a case-marking variety since, for each of them, object status is clear on some other basis. In (3-49) the semantics of the verb and relevant noun phrases make the relationship clear — it must have been the girl who made off with the dress, rather than the other way around. And in (3-48) not only semantics, but also verbal inflectional agreement with the subject rules out a subject role for the preverbal direct object —
Degrees of Explicitness
third person cˇisteneto ‘the cleaning’ cannot be the subject of first person pravja ‘(I) do’. This argument, however, does little to strengthen the case for a primary case-marking function for reduplication. The presence of other factors in the context which allow the addressee to discern the case role of the direct object is the norm, rather than the exception. Finding examples in the data where a preverbal object could “freely” be interpreted as a subject was not an easy task, and those I did encounter were all non-reduplicated, as in (3-50). (3-50) Non-reduplicated Preverbal Direct Object B: Ama ka˘de go sresˇtnax toja boklukcˇija, ta da, ta zˇivota da mi otrovi. (KA:2.2, excerpt 1) ‘B: Oh where did I run into this trashman for him to poison my life.’/(‘Oh where did I run into this trashman for life to go and poison (him) on me.’)
Neither semantics nor morphology preclude a subject reading for this nonreduplicated direct object in preverbal position.66 A second reason against placing too much emphasis on a case-marking function of reduplication is also illustrated in (3-50). Note that the reduplicated object in the first part of the passage (ka˘de go sresˇtnax toja boklukcˇija ‘where did I run into this trashman’) is not in the preverbal position typical of subjects and, furthermore, is incompatible with a subject reading owing to the discrepancy in grammatical person — the verb is morphologically marked for agreement with a first person subject while the noun phrase in question is third person. The point here is that a problem with claiming that the function, or even a primary function, of reduplication is to indicate case relations is that it is so often encountered in contexts where there would be no ambiguity in this regard even without reduplication. This is true of the great majority of instances of the reduplication of accusative full noun phrases (R-FNP direct objects, as in the example just cited). And misinterpretation as subject is even more obviously precluded in the case of the other varieties of reduplicative constructions — R-PP direct objects, where the reduplicated long pronoun is expressly non-nominative, and indirect objects of types R-PP and R-FNP, where the preposition na formally indicates that the noun phrase is neither subject nor direct object.67 Third, even when reduplicative short pronouns are included, this high degree of explicitness still sometimes fails to disambiguate case roles. This further calls into question a fundamental connection between reduplication and case marking. As Nicolova (1986:55) points out, “the short forms unam-
Direct and indirect objects
biguously indicate the object only if it differs from the subject in gender or number.” Nicolova cites the Bulgarian sentence in (3-51) as an example of one which, despite the presence of a reduplicating pronoun, remains ambiguous as to which noun is the subject and which is the direct object. The reduplicating short pronoun is masculine, third person and singular. Since both the preverbal and the postverbal noun phrases are also masculine, third person and singular, the pronoun could be coreferential with either, and thus either could be the reduplicated object. And since both of these nouns are compatible with the inflection of the verb udari ‘struck’, either is also compatible with subject status. (3-51) Reduplication Fails to Disambiguate Case Roles Peta˘r go udari Ivan. (Nicolova 1986:55) Peta˘r him struck Ivan ‘Ivan struck Peta˘r./Peta˘r struck Ivan.’
Using a similar test sentence, Rudin (1986:17-18) reports that while her informants consistently volunteered a reading in which the preverbal noun phrase is interpreted as the reduplicated object, they almost always also accepted the other reading when it was pointed out to them. My own work with informants suggests an even greater degree of ambiguity, with two of six native speakers actually preferring the interpretation of the postverbal noun phrase as the object. Another type of situation in which the reduplicating pronoun fails to unambiguously explicate the case role of the reduplicated object, and, from a formal point of view, is not even unambiguously an instance of reduplication, is illustrated in (3-52). (3-52) Reduplication Fails to Disambiguate Case Role Ili ne, bozˇe moj, dano ne e vjarno, va˘prosnijat Vlado go njama i ti si pokanila njakoj drug … (IM:50) ‘Or no, my God, may it not be so, the Vlado in question isn’t here and you’ve invited someone else …’
Although not reflected as such in my translation, the clause containing the reduplicated object is ambiguous. From a grammatical point of view it would be possible to interpret Vlado as the subject of the verb njama ‘not have’ used personally and go ‘him/it’ to be an instance of an SPP direct object in its own right. This produces the reading ‘the Vlado in question doesn’t have it.’ The reader, however, because of the context of the utterance, selects instead the
Degrees of Explicitness
reading suggested in the translation ‘the Vlado in question isn’t here’ (with Vlado go as the reduplicated R-FNP direct object of the verb njama used impersonally with existential meaning). The point to be made here is that the case role remains ambiguous even with the clitic pronoun inserted, again casting doubt on a primary case-marking function for reduplication. The fourth, and arguably the strongest, reason to view accusative case marking as a side effect rather than as a primary (or even independent) function of reduplication is the availability of a more inclusive explanation of the phenomenon. This alternative analysis accounts for virtually every instance of reduplication in the data, regardless of whether the reduplicated object is accusative or dative, pronominal or a full noun phrase, preverbal or postverbal, potentially ambiguous as to case role or not.68 This explanation, which revolves around assigning a clause-level topic-marking function to reduplication, will be a central theme of Section 3.4. The last type of situation to be examined here in which the use of a relatively high degree of explicitness in the packaging of objects can have the effect of clarifying the case roles of the participants will be referred to as “nadrop”, following Vakareliyska 1994. Again reduplication is involved, but in this case we have to do with a very specific type of indirect object reduplication, one which, even in comparison to other varieties of object reduplication, is highly colloquial and viewed by most as substandard, even by colloquial standards. Na-drop involves the omission of the preposition na in the expression of indirect objects. When this na is omitted, reduplication is automatic and obligatory. This claim is supported both by the data examined (where, reflecting the highly colloquial nature of the phenomenon, examples are rare and occur only in the conversational material and very occasionally in the directly reported speech and thoughts of the characters in the written prose fiction) and by the few treatments of the construction in the existing literature. An example from the literary data base is seen in (3-53), which is part of the passage cited in (3-25), and one from Aleksova’s conversational corpus is given in (3-54). (3-53) Reduplicated Na-drop Mene djadkata vze da mi dopada. S takiva kato nego si toplja prikazkata vecˇer. Vmesto da legna rano kato nacˇalnika i da se zalisvam s knigi, sjadam … (DG:87)
Direct and indirect objects
‘I began to like the old guy. With the likes of him I can shoot the breeze in the evening. Instead of going to bed early like the boss and passing my time with books, I sit …’ (3-54) Reduplicated Na-drop R: Tjax ka˘ sˇta ne im trjabva, ama pari im trjabvat, zasˇtoto imat zaemi. (KA:1.6, excerpt 2) ‘R: They don’t need a house, but they do need money because they have loans.’
Note that without the preposition na, the long pronouns mene ‘me’ seen in (3-53) and tjax ‘them’ in (3-54) are typically the LPP forms used to package accusative direct objects. The inclusion of coreferential dative short pronouns (mi in (3-53) and im in (3-54)) can be seen as signaling the unusual use of these forms to package indirect objects. The obligatory nature of this reduplication of indirect objects with a case-marking function when the preposition is left out is observed by Nicolova (1986:34) as part of her description of the relative dearth of morphologically dative forms in Bulgarian as compared other Slavic languages: The full dative forms are replaced by a combination of na + accusative form, i.e. tjam = na tjax, nemu = na nego, etc. The full forms for the dative case nemu, nej, nam, vam have now dropped out of usage, but the forms mene and tebe can still be encountered in the colloquial language and in belles lettres in certain constructions where they are obligatorily accompanied by the short forms, which are the sole indicator of case (means of denoting an indirect object), since mene and tebe are also accusative forms.
Note that (3-54) above, where a third person plural indirect object is reduplicated, and (3-55) below, with a third person singular form, show that a characterization of the occurrence of this phenomenon in the contemporary spoken language should not be restricted to first and second person singular forms. (3-55) Reduplicated Na-drop L: Nego malko zor mu besˇe kato prevodacˇ, tova onova. (KA:2.9, excerpt 3) ‘L: He had a little trouble as an interpreter, this and that.’
Note also the following example of a non-pronominal object undergoing nadrop cited by Maslov (1981:304-05), who also describes the reduplicating pronoun as “the sole morphological indicator of the syntactic function of the given noun”.
Degrees of Explicitness
(3-56) Reduplicated Na-drop Zemjata ì e vse edno tvoja li e, obsˇta li e. (V. Genovska) ‘To the land it is all the same whether it is yours or communal.’
The great majority of instances of na-drop in my data do involve first and second person singular pronoun forms, but the examples in (3-54), (3-55) and (3-56) suggest a potential for a wider range of usage. The extent of this range, as well as a perhaps surprising tolerance for this non-standard construction, established through testing with native informants, has been described and illustrated in detail by Vakareliyska (1994). Vakareliyska not only concurs that these are cases where the dative reduplicating short pronoun “operates as the sole dative marker for the reduplicated object NP” (121), but also goes a step further in proposing that this may suggest a “strong case-marking function” for reduplicative pronouns in general in Bulgarian (141). While I am not convinced of this last proposal regarding reduplication beyond the na-drop variety, the data and reasoning provided by Nicolova and Vakareliyska do make very clear that reduplication in na-drop indirect objects does mark the object as dative. Moreover, the data I have examined suggest that this is the one specific type of reduplication where case-marking is in fact the primary motivation for this relatively high degree of explicitness in the packaging of objects. All other examples of reduplication in both the oral and written data bases can be explained using the analysis based on a function of marking the topic-comment structure (specifically the clauselevel topicality of the object) which will be laid out in Section 3.4. In the case of na-drop reduplication, however, while it is true that the majority of such prepositionless reduplicated indirect objects are likewise topics (as in each of the examples cited so far), there are a few instances where this account based on clause-level topic-comment structure will not work. That is, there are in fact a very few cases in the data where the object reduplicated in a na-drop construction is not a topic. The first person pronoun in (3-57) is one of these. (3-57) Reduplicated Na-drop (Non-topical) Kakvo mi dra˘nkasˇ ti mene za turcite, cˇe bile pomilostivi. (AK:196) ‘Why are you jabbering to me about the Turks, that they’re more merciful.’
Examples such as this, as rare as they may be, suggest that at least for some speakers the degree of explicitness employed in na-drop reduplication may
Direct and indirect objects
have acquired a case-marking function, independent of a topic-marking function. The connection between participant focus and the selection of a long form pronoun in the first place is addressed in Section 3.3 below. ..
Additional information about the participant
As described for subject packaging in 2.2.3, so too in the case of direct and indirect objects we find examples where the motivation for the use of a high degree of explicitness is one of conveying additional information about the participant. In each of the examples of this provided below, a very explicit object type consisting of or including a full noun phrase other than a personal pronoun (i.e. an FNP or R-FNP object) is used to package the object participant. An examination of these examples and their contexts makes it clear that for purposes of identifying the participants or their roles in the predication, a pronominal form, sometimes even a zero noun phrase, would have sufficed. Even in those instances in which emphasis is placed on the object, a long form pronoun (LPP) would have been possible, as we will see in the next section. In each case, however, the speaker or writer has opted for the more explicit packaging, thereby conveying additional information about the object participant. In the first three examples, the additional information is contained in the semantics of the explicit form itself. This type of explicitness is illustrated in the packaging of indirect objects in conversational (3-58) and literary (3-59), and an example involving a direct object from the oral material is given in (3-60). (3-58) Explicitness for Additional Information Sl: Predstavjam si na Zˇoro kakvo mu e bilo. Sigurno mu se e prirevalo na gorkicˇkija. (KA:2.6, excerpt 3) ‘Sl: I can imagine what it was like for Zˇoro. The poor guy surely felt like screaming.’ (3-59) Explicitness for Additional Information … dokato Koljo mezˇdu dve napivanija se dosesˇtasˇe za pricˇinata na uzˇasnoto ì nastroenie, izvikvasˇe ja, karasˇe ja da si oblecˇe va˘prosnata zˇalka drexa, sled tova ja celuvasˇe po glavata i ì kazvasˇe, cˇe nikoga ne ja bil vizˇdal tolkova xubava, i tova besˇe dostata˘cˇno, zasˇtoto vecˇe njamasˇe znacˇenie koj kakvo misli, dori tja sama kak namira tazi roklja, sˇtom na basˇta ì xaresvasˇe, zapocˇvasˇe da ja slaga s udovolstvie i … (IM:30-31)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘… while Koljo between two drinking binges figured out the reason for her terrible mood, would call her in, make her put on the pitiful garment in question, then he would kiss her on the head and tell her that he had never seen her so lovely, and this was all it took, because it no longer mattered who thought what, even how she herself regarded this dress, now that her father liked it, she began to put it on with pleasure and …’ (3-60) Explicitness for Additional Information S: Trjabva da slusˇasˇ zˇena si. (KA:1.1, excerpt 1) ‘S: You ought to listen to your wife.’
In (3-58) the speaker uses an explicit form (even though the participant’s identity would have been clear with less explicit, pronominal reference), thereby adding to her communication the fact that in her opinion the referent of the object should be seen as an object of pity. Recall that “additional information” is conceived here not necessarily as new information that supplements the addressee’s knowledge set about the participant in question, but rather as information that is additional in relation to what would have been communicated had a less explicit packaging been employed. This is the case in (3-59), where the reader already knows that Koljo is the girl’s father, but the writer emphasizes this relationship as he develops further the characterization in the novel of the main character as a “Daddy’s girl” in this passage where he has just described how the mother’s opinion did not matter to this girl.69 We see this particularly clearly in (3-60), where the speaker directs this admonition at a man who has just exchanged conflicting opinions with his spouse. Pronominal or zero packaging (creating the equivalent of English “You ought to listen to her” or “You ought to listen”) would in no way cause ambiguity of direct object reference. The speaker is obviously not adding to the addressee’s knowledge about the woman when he refers to her as the addressee’s wife, but does add to the communication the nuance that one’s spouse ought to be heeded. As was the case with subject packaging, not all additional information conveyed through object explicitness is contained in the semantics of the explicit noun itself. Sometimes, instead, the noun itself conveys no relevant information, but its inclusion in the utterance provides a head for an adjective or adjective phrase which does provide such additional information about the participant. In (3-61), for instance, reference to the diploma just mentioned would be clear even had the speaker used a pronominal or zero object in the last clause. Repetition of the more explicit noun diploma ‘diploma’, however, provides a head for the additional information about its source.
Direct and indirect objects
(3-61) Explicit Head for Additional Information L: Donesi diplomata, da ne sa˘m goloslovna, da vidi moskovskata diploma Krasito. (KA:1.1, excerpt 1) ‘L: Bring the diploma, so that I’m not speaking without substantiation, so that Krasi can see the diploma from Moscow.’
We thus see that the provision of additional information, the specification of participant identity and the clarification of participant involvement comprise a number of semantic motivations for increased object explicitness. All of this finds parallels in the packaging of subjects discussed in the preceding chapter.
.
Focus
There is a very clear connection between degree of explicitness in the packaging of direct and indirect objects and the type of relatively great clause-level emphasis on the participant referred to in this study as focus. A three-part statement which captures the essence of this connection is this: (1) The presence of contextual focus on the participant packaged as an object rules out the use of the two least explicit object types (Z, the zero noun phrase, and SPP, the short personal pronoun); (2) the absence of contextual focus rules out one of the more explicit packaging options (LPP, the long personal pronoun); (3) the remaining highly explicit object types (R-PP, the reduplicated personal pronouns, FNP, the non-reduplicated full noun phrases, and R-FNP, the reduplicated full noun phrases) are all compatible with both contextual focus and the absence of this emphasis. Table 12 summarizes the markedness values for contextual focus of each of the object types as suggested in this gen-
Table 12. Markedness values of the object types for focus Object
Focus
Z SPP LPP R-PP FNP R-FNP
− − + +/− +/− +/−
Degrees of Explicitness
eral statement. Note that this analysis involves a lack of markedness (+/−) for three of the object types, positive marking (+) for one, and an actual markedness for absence of the feature (−) in two cases. The positive, negative and lack of markedness values for focus represented in Table 12 are supported not only by the distribution of the object packaging types in the data examined, but also to some degree by an examination of the prosodic characteristics of the forms themselves and by observations made in the analyses presented by others. The logic of the indicated compatibilities with focus derived from the prosodic features of the elements is clearest in the case of the first three object types. One might regard as obvious, for instance, the incompatibility of Z and SPP objects with contextual focus, since focus entails clause-level accent, and these are the two packaging methods which produce forms that have no independent word-level stress.70 The long form personal pronouns, on the other hand, can be viewed as a logical choice for use in contexts where there is special emphasis on a pronominal object participant since, unlike the short pronouns, they are independent words with their own word-level stress. The existing literature includes numerous conclusions in keeping with this sort of logic. Particularly straightforward is the following statement from Volume 2 of the Academy Grammar (1983:192): The short forms of the personal pronouns as components of the sentence/ clause cannot bear the logical stress. If the object denoted with a personal pronoun is a logical predicate, i.e. if it is the new thing which is communicated in the sentence/clause (as per the judgment), a full pronominal form is used, e.g… .
Among the many others who have noted the correlation between emphasis, focus or “logical stress” and the use of long pronouns are Cyxun (1962b:122), Ivancˇev (1978 [1968]:171), Rå Hauge (1976:2) and (1999:44), Maslov (1981:301), Scatton (1984:372) and Nicolova (1986:46). Specific reference to the absence of this contextual feature in short form pronouns can be found in Cyxun 1962b (122), Maslov 1981 (301), Nicolova 1986 (46), Dyer 1992 (59) and Rå Hauge 1999 (44). There is less consensus in the literature concerning the markedness for focus or emphasis of the reduplicated object types, particularly the reduplicated pronominal R-PP forms. Claims of at least some degree of association between emphasis or logical stress and reduplication are seen in Manolova
Direct and indirect objects
1974 (167), Maslov 1981 (301), Rudin 1986 (17-18) and Vakareliyska 1994 (126). Lopasˇov (1973:83), on the other hand comes out against such an association, and Nicolova (1986:50) claims that only in the case of reduplicated long form personal pronouns can one speak of emphasis, and even then only if the long pronominal form is in postverbal position — otherwise (i.e. in preverbal R-PP objects and in all instances of R-FNP objects) reduplicated constructions “are devoid of any sort of emphasis”. In a sense, I believe, both those in favor of a connection between reduplication and emphasis and those who are skeptical are correct. While the data examined in this study include numerous instances of focused reduplicated objects, the majority of participants packaged with these R-PP and R-FNP objects are not being emphasized. This would seem to speak in favor of those opposed to any close association between emphasis and reduplication, and it certainly rules out assigning a positive markedness value for this feature to the forms in question. Nevertheless, at least in comparison to the set of all direct and indirect objects as a whole, the set of reduplicated objects which are in fact focused is a relatively large minority.71 One way of explaining and reconciling these contrary indications, proposed in Leafgren 1997 (140), makes use of and in effect supports the claim elaborated upon in the following section that reduplication is an overt marker of topicality. This explanation runs as follows. First, topics are generally packaged as subjects rather than as objects — this partially explains the relative infrequency of object reduplication in the first place. Second, topics are generally not focused — this is in keeping with the numerous instances of non-focused R-PP and R-FNP objects in the data. And third, in the relatively rare situations where a topical participant is atypical in that it is being focused and is packaged as an object, the language user is especially likely to employ the type of explicit topic-marking afforded by reduplication, precisely because these two features (object status and focus) are so atypical of topics. In other words, the idea here is that when a topic simultaneously has two features so often associated with comments, a speaker or writer will be more inclined than usual to use an overt signal in order to make the intended topicality clear to his or her addressee. In what follows I discuss further and illustrate the compatibility of each of the object types with the presence and/or absence of focus on the referent of the object. For those types which are compatible with focus, I give examples involving both contrastive and non-contrastive focus.
Degrees of Explicitness
Because Z objects are negatively marked for this feature, any instance of packaging with a zero noun phrase serves as an example of the absence of contextual focus on the referent of this least explicit object type. This, for instance, is true in the case of the indicated zero objects in (3-10), where the emphasis has shifted from the bottle of sprite which is needed, to what must be done if one cannot find it, and in (3-11), where neither the zero direct object nor the zero indirect object represents a participant receiving any special emphasis. More illustrations of the absence of focus on the referents of zero objects among the data cited above can be seen in (3-34) and (3-35). One more example is given here in (3-62). Here the new recruits are non-overt in their direct object role toward the end of a list of things a sergeant is instructed to do to them. The emphasis at this point is on the actions, rather than the undergoers of these actions. (3-62) Non-focused Zero Object (Z) I tozi nabor pak ti sˇte poemesˇ, kaza mu podpolkovnika˘t. Sˇte gi raztropasˇ, sˇte gi pooga˘nesˇ, sˇte gi pootcˇupisˇ. Sˇte Ø topisˇ tu v goresˇtoto, tu v studenoto, tu v goresˇtoto, tu v studenoto … (KC:15) ‘“You’ll take this group too,” the lieutenant-colonel said to him. “You’ll knock them about, you’ll bend them a little, you’ll break them in some. You’ll dip them now in hot, now in cold, now in hot, now in cold …”
The situation with SPP short form personal pronouns is similar, since this packaging method also involves negative marking for focus. As with zero objects, an addressee, when he or she encounters a direct or indirect object expressed with one of these clitic pronouns, knows that the speaker or writer is placing no special emphasis on the participant to which the pronoun refers. Because of this consistent markedness value it is once again the case that any of the objects packaged this way will serve as an example. Note for instance the three SPP references to the new recruits in the second sentence in the example just cited in (3-62). In this context where the actions rather than the participants are being emphasized, the author (or the character in the short story whose speech the author is creating) uses short personal pronouns three times before switching to the even less explicit zero packaging pointed out in the third sentence. Among the many other occurrences of SPP objects (all of which illustrate the absence of focus on these forms) in data presented in earlier examples in this study are the indicated third person pronouns in (3-36). The referent of these personal pronouns is well established in the context of the discourse, being mentioned with another noun phrase type in an earlier
Direct and indirect objects
sentence, and there is no contrast or other emphasis being placed on this participant in the clauses in question. Illustrations of second and first person SPP objects for non-focused participants as direct and indirect objects are seen in the forms te ‘you-accusative’ and mi ‘me-dative’, respectively, in (3-63): (3-63) Non-focused Short Form Personal Pronouns (SPP) I: Pak kazva sega, cˇe ne e interesno. Kazvam “Botka, Slavcˇo, djado ti Slavcˇo sˇte te zakara na detskata gradina v ponedelnik.” I tja mi kazva, “Nikakvi detska gradina ne iskam, koga sˇte sva˘rsˇat detskite gradini?” (KA:1.2, excerpt 2) ‘I: She still says now that it is not interesting. I say, “Botka, Slavcˇo, your Grandpa Slavcˇo will take you to kindergarten on Monday.” And she says to me, “I don’t want any kindergarten, when will kindergartens end?”’
Directly opposed to Z and SPP objects are the long form personal pronouns. These forms, with their positive markedness for focus, are found only in contexts in which the speaker or writer is placing relatively heavy emphasis on the participant the pronoun refers to. This emphasis may or may not be of a contrastive variety. The following two examples, both involving the emphasis that is a prerequisite to LPP object packaging, demonstrate this range. The focused indirect object in (3-64) is of the contrastive variety. The fictional speaker is juxtaposing herself, packaged as a focused LPP first person form, to the person who has already been served. (3-64) Long Form Personal Pronoun (LPP) — Contrastive Focus — Sipi kafe na cˇoveka. Zˇozefina besˇe progovorila i onzi tutaksi se razdvizˇi. Njaka˘ de izpod stola, na kojto be sednal d-r Dragomirov, toj izma˘kna sa˘vsem cˇista cˇasˇa i nalja sˇtedro ot polunastinalata ta˘ mna tecˇnost, kojato se krepesˇe v ogromna kafevarka na kraja na masata. Nikoj ne predlozˇi zaxar, piesˇe go sladko, no njamasˇe kak. — Sipi i na mene. (IM:11) ‘“Pour coffee for the man.” Josephine had spoken, and he got right on it. From somewhere under the chair Dr. Dragomirov was seated on he produced a perfectly clean cup and poured generously from the now lukewarm dark liquid which was being kept in a huge coffeepot on the edge of the table. No one offered sugar. He took it sweet, but it couldn’t be helped. “Pour some for me, too.”’
Degrees of Explicitness
The participant packaged with an LPP object in (3-65) is also being focused by the speaker. The emphasis in this example, however, is of the non-contrastive variety. The speaker is expressing surprise that the subjects would sell horses to the individual mentioned by the previous speaker. (3-65) Long Form Personal Pronoun (LPP) — Non-contrastive Focus R: V momenta pravi bisnes s edin turcˇin. V: Ama gi prodavat na nego? (KA:1.7, excerpt 3) ‘R: Right now he’s doing business with a Turk. V: Wait, they sell them to him?’
The three remaining object packaging types are all compatible with an absence of focus as well as with both contrastive and non-contrastive focus on the participant in question. It would appear that the Bulgarian language has evolved in such a way that language users are able to refer to a participant in both emphatic and non-emphatic contexts in each of these packaging techniques. This allows them to take full advantage, as they feel this necessary, of a high level of explicitness along other parameters. More specifically, I refer here to explicitness of clause-level topic-comment structure in the case of the reduplicated personal pronouns, explicitness of semantic content in the case of the non-reduplicated full noun phrases, and both these types of explicitness in the case of the reduplicated full noun phrases. It is quite common, for instance, to encounter the use of reduplicated pronouns both for focused and for non-focused participants. We see a direct object packaged with this type of construction whose referent receives no special emphasis in the literary excerpt in (3-66). The focus in this clause, which is part of a character’s response to someone’s complaint about his snoring, is on the snoring rather than on the individual who cannot sleep (or, more literally, whom sleep does not catch). (3-66) Reduplicated Personal Pronoun (R-PP) — Non-focused — A, xa˘rkaneto mi, nali kato me njamasˇe pet dena i mi se obadi po telefona cˇak v Xarmanli da mi kazˇesˇ, cˇe bez tova moe xa˘rkane ne mozˇesˇ da zaspisˇ, ama az xubavo ti kazax togava, cˇe teb sa˘n ne te lovi i s xa˘rkane, i bez xa˘rkane. (IM:83) ‘Ah, my snoring, isn’t it true that when I wasn’t here for five days and you called me on the telephone all the way in Harmanli to tell me that without this snoring of mine you can’t fall asleep, and didn’t I get it
Direct and indirect objects
through to you then that you can’t sleep either with snoring or without snoring.’
This same absence of focus is involved when a speaker packages an indirect object using a reduplicated pronoun in colloquial (3-67). The speaker here is reacting to a perceived look of surprise or perhaps skepticism on the part of one of his addressees, and his emphasis is on the thing which causes this odd look (a thing the very existence of which he is questioning). (3-67) Reduplicated Personal Pronoun (R-PP) — Non-focused V: Dnes do koga si spal? A: Koj? V: Ti. A: V osem cˇasa me sa˘budixa. Sa˘vsem seriozno. Zasˇto taka me gledate? Nesˇto ima li mi na mene? (KA:1.2, excerpt 2) ‘V: How late did you sleep today? A: Who? V: You. A: They woke me at eight. Seriously. Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something wrong with me?’
Opposed to (3-66) and (3-67) are the following three excerpts, where the indicated R-PP objects refer to focused participants. This focus is of the contrastive sort in the first two examples, and is non-contrastive in the third. In (3-68) the point of comparison is the addressee, to whom the speaker juxtaposes herself as another recipient of an impression made by the tiles. (3-68) Reduplicated Personal Pronoun (R-PP) — Contrastive Focus B: Bezˇovi kato na onazi sa po-xubavi ot na Vasja. Po-sa˘vremenni sa. I: Xubavi sa, sˇtom … B: Njama da gi pipame tam. I: Plocˇkite i na mene mi xaresaxa. Taka sˇte si ostanat. (KA:2.8, excerpt 1) ‘B: Beige ones like that are better than Vasja’s. They’re more contemporary. I: They’re good, since … B: We won’t mess with them there. I: I too liked the tiles. So they’ll stay.’
The contrast involved in the use of an accusative R-PP object in (3-69) is also between the speaker and the addressee. The speaker is saying the functional
Degrees of Explicitness
equivalent of “Don’t ask me, I’m asking you”, a paraphrase which more explicitly expresses the conveyed contrast. (3-69) Reduplicated Personal Pronoun (R-PP) — Contrastive Focus — Dali naistina Radev e ubil zˇena si v prista˘p na revnost. Ili tuk ima njakakva druga pricˇina. — Kakva druga? — Ne znam, az tebe te pitam. (PV:425) ‘“I wonder if Radev really killed his wife in a fit of jealousy. Or perhaps there is some other motive here.” “What sort of other motive?” “I don’t know, I’m asking you.”’
The indicated R-PP object in (3-70) is representative of what I am referring to here as non-contrastive focus. While it can be argued that an implicit contrast can always be claimed to be present when emphasis of any sort is involved, such an implicit reference point in (3-70), where the speaker emphasizes that the following statement is only his opinion, would be ultimately non-specific, being something along the line of “any other person with an opinion”. (3-70) Reduplicated Personal Pronoun (R-PP) — Non-contrastive Focus I: Dokolkoto na men mi e izvestno, xotelite prez zimata ne rabotjat na moreto. (KA:2.4, excerpt 3) ‘I: As far as I know, the hotels on the coast don’t operate in the winter.’ (more literally: ‘To the extent that it is known to me …’)
Note in passing that (3-70) serves as a good example of the way focus is being analyzed here as a clause-level feature. The indicated object is focused within the content of the subordinate clause, but is not the main point of emphasis within the larger context of the information conveyed in the whole sentence. Objects which are non-reduplicated full noun phrases other than personal pronouns (FNP objects) are also unmarked for focus. In other words there is no restriction on their usage imposed by either the presence or absence of focus. Speakers and writers use them in situations where the participants they refer to are being contrastively emphasized, non-contrastively emphasized or not emphasized at all. Among the examples of this last found in the data are the underlined objects in literary (3-71) and colloquial (3-72). In (3-71) the subject is concerned about the possibility of neighbors seeing his wife’s undergarments hanging outside on a clothesline. (3-71) Full Noun Phrase (FNP) — Non-focused
Direct and indirect objects
Sˇte prostrat pelenite na telta. Kak samo beleexa onija dolu, na kantona. Drugoto prane, sˇtesˇe da kazˇe na zˇena si, da go prostira na zaka˘tano. Ne e redno drugi ocˇi da se spirat na nego. (KC:26) ‘They’ll hang the diapers out on the line. Just like those white ones down below at the lodge. He was going to tell his wife to hang the other laundry out of sight. It is not proper for other eyes to linger on it.’
The direct object in (3-72), voda ‘water’ is also non-focused. Here it is the quantity of water demanded by a particular type of flower, irises, which is being emphasized. That there is no emphasis on the water itself is to be expected, as there is no question of flowers either not needing water or needing something in contrast to water. (3-72) Full Noun Phrase (FNP) — Non-focused L: Te mnogo pijat voda, tezi. V: Da. (KA:1.1, excerpt 2) ‘L: They drink a lot of water, these. V: Yes.’
It is also extremely common to encounter in the data cases where objects packaged as full noun phrases represent participants clearly being emphasized in their clauses. An example with this type of focus, of the contrastive variety, is seen in the indicated indirect object in (3-73). The generic referent of na malkite kucˇeta ‘to small dogs’ is being contrasted to the big dogs mentioned earlier in the passage. (3-73) Full Noun Phrase (FNP) — Contrastive Focus Mnogo ì besˇe cˇudno zasˇto nikoj ne davi golemi kucˇeta, a vseki e gotov da otide i da udavi njakolko, a mozˇe i povecˇe, malki slepi kutreta. Zasˇtoto imenno sa malki i slepi, objasnjavasˇe basˇta ì. No nali tova znacˇi, cˇe te sa bezzasˇtitni. No ako ti go otgledasˇ do goljamo kucˇe, togava sa˘rceto ti njama da pozvoli da go udavisˇ ili izobsˇto da mu napravisˇ nesˇto zlo. Margarita taka i ne uspja da razbere kak sa˘rceto pozvoljava da se pricˇini po-lesno beda na malkite kucˇeta. (IM:39) ‘She really wondered why no one drowns big dogs, but everyone is ready to go and drown several, and maybe even more, small blind puppies. Precisely because they are small and blind, her father explained. But doesn’t that mean they are defenseless? But if you raise it until it’s a big dog, then your heart will not let you drown it or do it any harm at all.
Degrees of Explicitness
Margarita still didn’t manage to grasp how the heart allows harm to be done more easily to small dogs.’
In (3-74) the emphasis on the underlined focused FNP object is non-contrastive. The speaker is reacting to the huge quantity of flowers brought by the addressee. (3-74) Full Noun Phrase (FNP) — Non-contrastive Focus V: E, cˇe ti kamion li si dokarala?! (KA:1.2, excerpt 1) ‘V: What, did you drive a truck?!’
Reduplicated R-FNP direct and indirect objects occur in a range of contextual focus values parallel to that just observed for their non-reduplicated FNP counterparts. Again examples from the data examined can be cited of objects with the packaging type in question whose referents are focused with contrastive emphasis, others focused with non-contrastive emphasis, and yet others not being emphasized at all. The occurrence of this last situation, illustrated below in (3-75) and (3-76), is of course relevant to the debate mentioned earlier over the association between reduplication and emphasis. The reduplication of non-focused, non-emphatic direct objects (e.g. (3-75)) and indirect objects (e.g. (3-76)) calls into question any strong claim of a consistent connection. The woman speaking in (3-75) is the same person who was addressed in (3-74). This woman is here explaining how she was able to transport the large quantity of flowers. (3-75) Reduplicated Full Noun Phrase (R-FNP) — Non-focused I: Ami po-razumno e taka. Vizˇ kak sa˘m gi ma˘knala tija cvetja v edin kasˇon (KA:1.2, excerpt 1) ‘I: But it makes more sense this way. Look how I carried these flowers in a cardboard box’
A second example of a non-focused R-FNP object is given in (3-76). In this literary excerpt the participant in question is represented in the relevant clause by a relative pronoun in the role of indirect object. The frequent reduplication of relative pronouns (accusative as well as dative) is a further indication that focus is not a primary feature associated with the use of reduplicated forms, since the participants referred to by relative pronouns are not being emphasized within the relative clause.72 In this example the reader is taken inside the mind of a sergeant who is thinking about the impending return to civilian life of the first group of soldiers he trained. (3-76) Reduplicated Full Noun Phrase (R-FNP) — Non-focused
Direct and indirect objects
Sˇte oblekat civilnite si drexi, sˇte se posˇljajat osˇte malko v rajona i sˇte pocˇnat da se pregra˘ sˇ tat s onja, na kogoto toj mu gi predade. (KC:15) ‘They’ll put on their civilian clothes, they’ll hang around the grounds a little longer and they’ll begin to hug the one to whom he turns them over.’
In terms of contextual emphasis, the reduplicated R-FNP objects in (3-77) and (3-78) are parallel to the non-reduplicated FNP objects in (3-73) and (3-74), respectively — both (3-77) and (3-78) involve focused objects, and in the first the focus is contrastive, while in the second it is not. In (3-77) a child is emphasizing the one song he has not learned, creating a contrast to the ones he has just stated he does play on the piano. (3-77) Reduplicated Full Noun Phrase (R-FNP) — Contrastive Focus P: Na piano svirja vecˇe s dve ra˘ ce. V: Na pianoto! P: Da. V: I kakvo svirisˇ? P: Razni pieski. Ama edna osˇte ne sa˘ m ja naucˇil, zasˇtoto e mnogo trudna. (KA:d.bp, excerpt 1) ‘P: I already play piano with two hands. V: The piano! P: Yes. V: And what do you play? P: Various pieces. But one I haven’t learned yet because it’s very hard.’
The reduplicated direct object in (3-78) is also focused, but the emphasis in this example is not contrastive. The speaker is in the middle of a lively narrative of an event in the past, and the indicated clause describes the appearance of a particular individual on the scene. This individual is not being contrasted with any other, but the speaker is expressing surprise at seeing this woman at a train station. (3-78) Reduplicated Full Noun Phrase (R-FNP) — Non-contrastive Focus A: … i razgele tam namiram ja drugarkata Slavcˇeva, kojato si podava cˇarovnata glava ot edno kupe. (KA:1.2, excerpt 1) ‘A: … and just then I spot comrade Slavcˇeva there, who was sticking her charming head out of a compartment.’
So far this section has described a state of affairs in regard to the packaging of objects in which focus triggers the use of one of four object types, ruling out only the two least explicit methods of packaging participants. These two are
Degrees of Explicitness
the short form clitic personal pronouns and the least explicit zero noun phrases, i.e., the two object types which prosodically bear no independent word-level stress. While it is true that each of the four most explicit packaging methods (the LPP, R-PP, FNP and R-FNP) is compatible with the presence in the clause of relatively great emphasis on the object participant, there is one sort of situation, involving both focus and the provision of additional information about the referent of the object, which deserves special attention. This situation favors the use or inclusion of a full noun phrase other than a personal pronoun (producing FNP and R-FNP objects), rather than purely pronominal forms. We are thus dealing with a special variety of focused expression that selects the most explicit forms even among the four object types explicit enough for the expression of focused participants in general. We have to do here with the sort of emotional “name-calling” seen also in the use of highly explicit subjects, as illustrated with the full noun phrases toja zvjar ‘this beast’ and toja seljanin ‘this peasant’ in (2-24) and (2-25) in Chapter Two. This sort of explicit expression, used in contexts where a pronominal form would suffice from the point of view of referential identification and the need for a prosodic host for sentential or clause-level stress, and which overrides the brevity maxim, is found also in the choice of object forms. An example of this from a literary source is given in (3-79). In (3-79), after an exchange with a soldier on guard duty he believes is being impertinent, a sergeant mentally addresses himself, referring to the soldier using the reduplicated R-FNP phrase go sinkoveca ‘the son of a gun’. We find this explicit reference even though the full pronoun nego ‘him’ could prosodically bear emphatic stress and, especially in light of the fact that the “speaker” is addressing himself, the pronominal packaging would cause no referential ambiguity. (3-79) Focused R-FNP Object — Expressive Explicitness — Tozi binoka˘l, deto sa ti go dali, zasˇto go da˘ rzˇisˇ nad nosa si, da mu pazi sjanka, ili da gledasˇ prez nego? — Vsicˇko v rajona e normalno, drugarju starsˇina? — Turi go otgore na kaskata si i si pej kolkoto iskasˇ! — Njama kak da se zakrepi, sˇte padne … Gledaj go sinkoveca — i otgovarja. (KC:21) ‘“Why do you keep those binoculars that were given to you above your nose, to make shade for it, or to look through them?” “Is everything in order in the area, Comrade Sergeant?” “Put them up on your helmet and sing all you want!” “There’s no way for them to be fixed there, they’ll fall …”
Direct and indirect objects
Look at the son of a gun — he talks back too.’
The colloquial excerpt in (3-80) contains an example of a non-reduplicated full noun phrase involving explicitness connected with this sort of emotion, further intensified by profanity. The referential feasibility of using instead a pronominal form is demonstrated by the speaker doing precisely that in the preceding sentence, before apparently deciding that the more explicit construction would be appropriate. (3-80) Focused FNP Object — Expressive Explicitness B: Da e## nego. Mra˘ snoto cˇovecˇe da e##. (KA:2.2, excerpt 1) ‘B: F### him. F### the filthy little man.’
. Aboutness The correlation between “aboutness” and object packaging is more complex, and therefore perhaps more interesting, than the correlation between “aboutness” and subject packaging. Beyond the obvious numerically larger inventory of available object types, there are two primary reasons for this relative complexity. In what follows I will first discuss these reasons and provide a general picture of the relationship between aboutness and object explicitness. The correlations involved will then be illustrated and described in more detail. The first of the two main factors resulting in a relatively complex relationship between aboutness and object packaging has to do with the partially conflicting directions of influence one finds when one compares the two levels of aboutness — clause-level topicality versus discourse-level themehood. In the case of subjects, other constraints such as focus and potential for referential ambiguity permitting, both clause-level topicality and status as theme at the discourse level work in the same direction — toward a lesser degree of explicitness (see Chapter Two). In the case of object packaging, on the other hand, only discourse-level themehood increases the likelihood of a less explicit packaging for the object in question. In contrast to this is the influence of clause-level topicality which, at least in the absence of simultaneous themehood on the discourse level, works in favor of a certain type of increased explicitness. More specifically, an examination of the data leads to the following conclusions. First, the packaging method of choice among both writers and speakers of Bulgarian in the case of object participants which have already been established as discourse-level themes is the SPP, the short form personal pro-
Degrees of Explicitness
noun (with the provision that neither focus nor a semantic factor such as potential referential ambiguity triggers a more explicit form). In this way the least explicit overt object type (the clitic pronoun) correlates to the least explicit (zero) subject type as the form preferred for discourse themes, other factors permitting.73 This preference for less explicit packaging for DTs holds regardless of whether the object participant is or is not topical within the clause in question.74 If, however, a participant expressed as an object is not a DT (or else is not a DT easily perceived as such in the judgment of the speaker or writer), the presence of clause-level topicality actually works in favor of the specific sort of increased explicitness afforded by reduplication (the R-PP for pronominal reference, and the R-FNP when pronominal packaging is deemed insufficient for semantic reasons). It may at first appear as a contradiction that discourse-level aboutness favors a low degree of explicitness for both objects and subjects, while clauselevel aboutness is associated with less explicitness in subjects but with more explicitness in objects. This apparent contradiction, however, can be seen to be a reasonable result of the way an interaction of a brevity maxim with other packaging tendencies in the language cause differing speaker/writer perceptions of explicitness requirements for successful communication. This reasoning depends on (1) an assumption about the nature of communication (that language users will take steps to aid their addressees in successfully interpreting relevant aspects of the intended message), (2) another assumption about the nature of communication, or perhaps about human nature (that we tend to keep time and energy expenditure to a functional minimum, at least to the extent reflected in Grice’s conversational maxim “Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)”), and (3) an observation about the language (that topics tend to be packaged as subjects rather than as objects).75 The relevance of the first two assumptions to the tendency toward lower degrees of explicitness in the packaging of DT participants (both subjects and objects) is fairly straightforward. In typical communication it is most often the case that stretches of speech which are greater than single clauses revolve around a single participant (an individual entity or a group of entities treated as a single unit) or a small, clearly defined set of participants. This is one characteristic which distinguishes normal coherent discourse and cooperative dialogue from abnormal (and perhaps unsuccessful) language use, and which further defines the appropriateness of speech contributions to the discourse at hand. Knowing this, and knowing that the addressees are also aware of this on some level, empowers the speaker or writer. Because the norm is to maintain the current
Direct and indirect objects
theme of discourse (or to make any shifts in DT transparent), a language user who is following convention is free to package an established DT participant in a very non-explicit way, with the expectation that the addressee will assume that he or she is following the typical pattern, no overt signs to the contrary having been given. Of course, the use of non-explicit packaging is subject to constraints imposed by focus and the potential for semantic ambiguity of various sorts. Note, however, that the type of participant being described here, i.e. a participant already established as the current theme of the discourse, is the type least likely to be affected by such constraints, since participants which are emphasized and/or perceived by the speaker or writer as being difficult for the addressee to identify tend to be new information in the context of the discourse (rather than the actual theme of the discourse). Note further that the use of zero subjects and clitic objects for these established (and currently expected) participants allows the speakers/writers to “be brief” and at the same time does nothing to impede successful communication, since they have done exactly what the addressees have expected them to do (by accepted convention). The situation becomes somewhat more complex with clause-level topicality. Again central is the idea that speakers and writers are on some level aware of conventions, addressee expectations, and the need to communicate more explicitly when the typical patterns are not followed. The crucial difference is that while at the discourse level the conventions and expectations concerning the correlations between aboutness and explicitness are homogeneous for subjects and objects, and therefore produce parallel results, the same cannot be said for the relationship between aboutness at the clause level (i.e. topicality) and participant explicitness. Because packaging the topic as a grammatical subject is the norm, a language user who is currently doing so knows that he or she is doing what the addressee expects, and in this way topicality contributes to the likelihood of a non-explicit, ultimately “brief ”, zero packaging, as described in the preceding chapter. In those rarer cases where it is an object which is topical, on the other hand, the producer of the atypical clause knows that the utterance is in a sense abnormal and will not match addressee expectations. In such cases the speaker or writer may feel it appropriate or even necessary to signal overtly this unusual aspect of the message to the addressee. This either avoids ambiguity and possibly miscommunication, or else perhaps merely makes it easier for the addressee to process the special clause.76 As Lambrecht (1994:136) puts it, “[a]cross languages, the subject of a sentence will be interpreted as its topic and the predicate as a comment about this topic unless the sentence contains morphosyntactic, prosodic, or semantic clues to the con-
Degrees of Explicitness
trary”. In Bulgarian one available way to signal this atypical topic status of an object is to use a particular type of explicitness in its packaging — reduplication. When pronominal reference is otherwise appropriate, the result is an R-PP (e.g. nego go) rather than an LPP (nego), SPP (go) or Z (Ø). When more semantic explicitness is necessary for other reasons, the result here is an R-FNP (e.g. Ivan go) rather than an FNP (Ivan). The second factor which makes a description of the correlation between explicitness and aboutness less straightforward for objects than for subjects is the existence of major differences in the way different language users (or language users in different communicative modes or contexts) deal with the potential for miscommunication in the packaging of topical objects. This difference can be characterized as quantitative as opposed to qualitative. By this I mean that it is not a difference in compatibility or markedness values for the forms and constructions that one finds when comparing usage in data of different sorts from various sources. Rather there is a notable difference in frequency, reflecting a differing preference for various means of expression depending on the language user and the type of communication involved. More specifically, texts of differing sorts exhibit markedly differing strategies for dealing with the potential ambiguity and miscommunication involved in the packaging of topical participants which are the undergoers or recipients/ beneficiaries of actions. As was noted above in Section 3.1, object reduplication, the most unambiguous means of indicating to the addressee the somewhat atypical status of an accusative undergoer or dative recipient/beneficiary as a clause-level topic, is a stylistically colloquial phenomenon. This overt method of signaling an unexpected topic-comment structure vis-à-vis participant case roles figures prominently in the colloquial data in the speech of most of the speakers represented, and in the literary prose is found three times more frequently (as a measure relative to the occurrence of non-reduplicated objects) in the directly represented speech of the characters in these works of fiction than in the authors’ narrative prose. (See note 59 for the results of a text count in literary sources.) Examining data of an even “higher” register results in an even further reduction in the incidence of reduplication, to the point of its virtual absence in scholarly prose. Two more common methods of dealing with the type of potential messageprocessing difficulty in question found in less colloquial sources involve packaging the topical undergoer of an action as a subject, rather than as a direct object. This avoids the whole problem of signaling for the addressee an unusual topical object by creating an utterance with the more typical structure with a
Direct and indirect objects
topical subject. One method of doing this has a definite literary, non-colloquial flavor in Bulgarian. This is the passive construction consisting of a nominative undergoer as the subject of the copular verb ‘be’ used with a passive participial predicate. Another option, this one encountered frequently in the colloquial material as well as in the literary prose sources, is again to package the undergoer of the action as a grammatical subject, but then to use it in conjunction with an otherwise transitive verb accompanied by the so-called reflexive particle se. In both of these constructions the performer of the action, if mentioned at all, is expressed as the object of the preposition ot. Compare the sentences in (3-81A), all of which could be used in conveying a message about a topical ‘program’. The sentences in (d) and (e) are from Rå Hauge 1999 (143).77 (3-81A) Topical Undergoer of an Action a. Milioni xora gledat tazi programa. millions people watch-3pl this program ‘Millions of people watch this program.’ b. Milioni xora ja gledat tazi programa. millions people it/her watch-3pl this program ‘Millions of people watch this program.’ c. Tazi programa ja gledat milioni xora. this program it/her watch-3pl millions people ‘Millions of people watch this program.’ d. Tazi programa e gledana ot milioni xora. this program is watched-f by millions people ‘This program is watched by millions of people.’ e. Tazi programa se gleda ot milioni xora. this program refl watches by millions people ‘This program is watched by millions of people.’ f. Tazi programa gledat milioni xora. this program watch-3pl millions people ‘Millions of people watch this program.’
All of these sentences convey the message that the program (grammatically feminine in Bulgarian) is watched by millions of viewers. In (a) the performer is the grammatical subject and is in the preverbal position commonly associated with subjects. At least in written communication, without the benefit of sentential intonation, there is very little in the way of a formal signal to the addressee that the program is intended to be the topic.78 The sentences in (b) and (c), with the overt signal of object topicality provided by the reduplicat-
Degrees of Explicitness
ing short pronoun ja, very explicitly indicate the less expected aboutness of the object. From this perspective, these sentences are ideal, since reduplicated objects, being positively marked for topicality, are completely reliable ways of communicating this aspect of the message to the addressee. Examples parallel to both (b), with the topical reduplicated object in postverbal position, and (c), with the reduplicated object in preverbal position, occur frequently in the oral data, the represented speech of characters in the literary sources and, with a lower frequency, in the narrative prose of the authors of the literary texts. As noted, however, the reduplication strategy for indicating topicality is felt by at least most speakers to be inappropriate in more formal registers. Here one is more likely to find constructions parallel to Rå Hauge’s examples cited in (d) and (e). In both (d), with a participial passive, and (e), with the particle se, the undergoer of the action (the program) has been packaged as a grammatical subject, and no further special marking of the topic-comment structure is felt to be necessary. In both of these addressee expectations based on frequency are now met - the topical element is in both its typical grammatical subject role and its typical preverbal position. One other option, illustrated in (f), is to package the undergoer as a grammatical object and place it in the typically topical initial position. Examples of this sort can be found in both the written and oral material, but it is not always a good solution. As discussed above in 3.2.2, depending on the semantics of the verb and nominal forms and on the compatibility of the object with number, person and/or gender information contained in the verbal inflection, there is sometimes the threat of misinterpretation of case roles. For this reason, some scholars (see 3.2.2) have proscribed this word order pattern (in the absence of reduplication). There are fewer options in Bulgarian for the expression of topical recipients/beneficiaries, since as Rå Hauge (1999:140) states “[i]ndirect objects may not be promoted to subject status in passive sentences; there is no equivalent with a passive verb form in Bulgarian of Ivan was given a book.” The treatments of the accusative objects in the non-passive examples in (3-81A), however, do find parallels in the packaging of dative participants: (3-81B) Topical Indirect Object a. Studentite ne zavizˇdat na Ivan. students-the neg envy-3pl Ivan-dat ‘The students don’t envy Ivan.’ b. Studentite ne mu zavizˇdat na Ivan.
Direct and indirect objects
students-the neg him-dat envy-3pl Ivan-dat ‘The students don’t envy Ivan.’/’Ivan is not envied by the students.’ c. Na Ivan ne mu zavizˇdat studentite. Ivan-dat neg him-dat envy-3pl students-the ‘The students don’t envy Ivan.’/’Ivan is not envied by the students.’ d. Na Ivan ne zavizˇdat studentite. Ivan-dat neg envy-3pl students-the ‘The students don’t envy Ivan.’/’Ivan is not envied by the students.’
As was the case for the corresponding accusative examples in (3-81A), the sentences in (b) and (c) in (3-81B) most clearly signal the intended topicality of the object, since reduplication occurs exclusively when the reduplicated noun phrase refers to a participant with this clause-level aboutness. The occurence in the more colloquial material of indirect object reduplication with both preverbal and postverbal position of the reduplicated noun phrase, as well as a tendency to avoid reduplicating in more formal styles, is parallel to direct object reduplication. Since there is no passive construction available for expressing topical recipients/beneficiaries, however, language users who do not wish to reduplicate have recourse only to non-reduplicated indirect object packaging. Such examples can be found in both the written and the oral sources, and both with a postverbal object, as in (a), and with a preverbal object, as in (d). While the first word order variant presents the same potential processing difficulties concerning intended topic-comment structure as does the parallel pattern with a topical postverbal direct object in the first variant in (3-81A), the preverbal pattern is more effective for indirect objects than for direct objects, since, being overtly dative, these indirect objects do not run the risk of being misinterpreted as subjects. ..
Aboutness at the discourse level
The preference for established discourse themes in the role of direct or indirect objects to be expressed with SPP short form pronouns is reflected in many examples from the oral and written data already presented. The colloquial excerpt in (3-82) is another. It includes two such references to the same DT, a food item being prepared. (3-82) SPP Discourse Themes (Topical) I: I tezi raboti da ne izgorjaxa. Ole bozˇe. G: Ne. Te sa spreni.
Degrees of Explicitness
Zˇore, trjabva da gi izvadi, dusˇico, tija. Ama izvadim li gi, trjabva da gi servirame. (KA:1.2, excerpt 2) ‘I: And I hope these things didn’t burn. Oh goodness. G: No. They are turned off. I: Zˇoro, you have to take these out, dear. But if we take them out, we have to serve them.’
I:
A similar example from the oral data, but where it is an indirect object DT expressed with a short personal pronoun, was seen in (3-40). The inclusion here in (3-83) of some more of the preceding dialogue makes it clearer that the referent of this pronoun, Borjana, is well-established as the theme of discourse at this point. (3-83) SPP Discourse Theme (Topical) V: Nasko, kakvo pravi Borjancˇeto? A: Ami dobre e. Kakvo da pravi. Borjana e dobre. V: Kakvo, priema li detskata gradina? Kakvo razpravja sladurancˇeto, a? A: Kakvo da razpravja? Razpravja, cˇe e xubavo. Tam nali drugarcˇeta, ne znam kakvo. Za razlika ot njakoi drugi xora, ne e izpadnala v nervni krizi Borjana. Vsicˇko e sa˘vsem normalno. V: Ama interesno, sega kazva li, cˇe ì e interesno? (KA:1.2, excerpt 2) ‘V: Nasko, how is Borjana doing? A: Well, she’s good. How should she be. Borjana is good. V: So, does she accept kindergarten? What does the little sweetie say, hm? A: What would she say? She says that it’s nice. I guess her little friends there, I don’t know what. Unlike some others, Borjana has not had any nervous breakdowns. Everything is quite typical. V: But (is it) interesting, does she now say that she finds it interesting?’
The short form pronouns in (3-36), repeated below, illustrate similar usage in a literary text. The same thematic woman is packaged as an SPP direct object and as an SPP indirect object in adjacent clauses. (3-36) SPP Discourse Themes (Topical) Zˇenata vnezapno se jadosa … Toja vnezapen gnjav, koj znae zasˇto, izvedna˘ zˇ ja uspokoi, vnese ì cˇuvstvo za obiknovenost i delnicˇnost. (PV:399) ‘The woman suddenly became angry … This sudden anger, who knows why, immediately calmed her, it brought a feeling of normalcy and banality to her.’
Direct and indirect objects
I include in (3-84) one more literary example, because it highlights the corresponding preferences for packaging DTs as subjects and as objects. In this passage, where a character is describing his boss, the discourse themehood is established in the first sentence where the boss is referred to with a very explicit subject (mojat nacˇalnik ‘my boss’). This participant, who is the performer of the actions conveyed in both clauses of the second sentence, is the grammatical subject of the verbs which report these actions. Having been established as DT, the preference is for the least explicit zero subject, it being that no ambiguity results and the participant is not being emphasized in these clauses. In the first clause of the next sentence, where information is given about the participant’s appearance, this DT is the direct object of the verb gledam ‘I look at’. We see here the preferred SPP object (go ‘him’) for this non-focused, established DT. The author chooses this precise degree of explicitness — because a more explicit form is not necessary for emphasis or to avoid ambiguity and, perhaps more surprisingly, despite that a less explicit form (zero) would seem to be a viable option based on the lack of focus and potential ambiguity. After this clause, when the DT again occurs as a subject, the author returns to zero packaging. (3-84) SPP Discourse Theme (Topical) Znae si rabotata mojat nacˇalnik. Ø Njama da te zakopae, no Ø i dobro njama da ti napravi. Gledam go — glada˘k, bra˘snat, sresan va˘preki da˘lgoto pa˘tuvane, Ø ta˘pcˇe na mjastoto si sa˘s starite si obuvki … (DG:87) ‘My boss knows his job. He won’t ruin you, but he also won’t do you any favors. I look at him — sleek, clean-shaven, hair tidy despite the long journey, he stomps in place with his old shoes …’
Each of the examples just cited involves an SPP object which is topical at the clause level in addition to being the current theme of a greater stretch of discourse. That this clause-level topicality is not a prerequisite to such packaging of established DTs is illustrated in literary (3-85) and colloquial (3-86), where DTs which are not topical in the clauses in question are expressed with short form personal pronouns. The excerpt in (3-85) is part of a paragraph describing how a woman goes out in the evening to sit and look toward the mountains where her son is in hiding. The indicated short form pronoun refers to this DT in a direct object capacity in a clause in which the author pauses in his description of the woman to give the reader information about the sympathetic neighbors. (3-85) SPP Discourse Theme (Non-topical)
Degrees of Explicitness
A i xorata, koito minavaxa kraj neja, ja poglezˇdaxa s obicˇ, spiraxa se. (KC:98) ‘And the people who passed by her would look at her with affection, would stop.’
The indicated first person form in (3-86) illustrates the use of a dative SPP object to represent a currently non-topical discourse theme. The speaker in this example has been discussing with three other individuals her own pregnancy and its possible effect on her ability to travel and being sent on a business trip. She is a clearly established discourse theme at this point, the excerpt in (3-86) being the tenth consecutive time a speaker has added to this particular line of discussion. (3-86) SPP Discourse Theme (Non-topical) R: I az kazax cˇe moga. Da, da, vikam. I az sˇte pitam drugata, zasˇtoto drugata otgovarja za tova nesˇto, pri koeto drugata nisˇto ne mi spomenava. (KA:1.3, excerpt 5) ‘R: And I said that I can. Yes, yes, I say. And I’ll ask the other one, because the other one is responsible for this thing, concerning which the other one mentions nothing to me.’
I have mentioned more than once the disclaimer that the preference for the low degree of explicitness in the packaging of DT objects with short form personal pronouns does not take precedence over the need to use more explicit object types when either there is focus on the participant in question or else pronominal packaging could lead to ambiguity or misinterpretation by the addressee of the intended content of the message. I will not repeat here in any detail descriptions of these motivations for the explicit packaging of objects discussed in Sections 3.2 and 3.3, but will instead use a few examples to illustrate that they also apply to objects which refer to discourse themes. The excerpts in (3-87) and (3-88) contain examples of focused DTs in the role of objects (direct object in (3-87) and indirect in (3-88)). Highly explicit full noun phrases are not necessary here, since referential clarity is attained with less explicit personal pronouns. The emphasis placed on these objects rules out the short clitic pronouns (otherwise ideal for the packaging of DTs), and the writer uses the long form pronouns which are able to bear the clause-level stress. The direct object in (3-87) is not topical at the clause level, precluding the use of a reduplicated R-PP, and we find instead an LPP non-reduplicated long form pronoun. This passage is part of a nearly two-page description of a father and daughter going to a snack shop together. (3-87) LPP for Focused DT (Non-topical)
Direct and indirect objects
Basˇta ì ostana tolkova dovolen, cˇe resˇi da ja zavede v sladkarnica. Izbra naj-ska˘pata, blizo do Narodnoto sa˘branie, i sednaxa otva˘ n na otkrito. Pokraj masata im minavaxa xora, po-natata˘k kolite proda˘lzˇavaxa da xabjat zˇ a˘ltite paveta, koito vse taka si ostavaxa neizxabeni osˇte ot minalija vek. Otka˘m Rektorata dolitasˇe dopa˘lnitelen sˇum ot tramvai i trolei. — Koj znae, cˇe sa˘ m ti basˇta, neka da mi pozavidjat malko — kaza Koljo, dokato nabljudavasˇe minavasˇtite mladezˇ i, koito ot svoja strana nabljudavaxa tjax. Posle pora˘cˇa za neja dve pasti i sladoled, za sebe si konjak: nali pak ot vino se pravi. Ma˘ lcˇaxa. (IM:33-34) ‘Her father was so pleased, that he decided to take her to a snack shop. He picked the most expensive one, near the National Assembly, and they took a seat outside alfresco. People passed alongside their table, beyond that the cars continued to wear on the yellow cobblestone bricks, which for all this had not yet worn out over the past century. From the direction of the Chancellery came the additional noise of trams and trolleys. “Whoever knows that I’m your father, let them envy me a bit,” said Koljo, while he watched the young people walking by, who for their part were watching them. Then he ordered two pastries and an ice cream for her, for himself a brandy — it’s made from wine, after all, isn’t it. They sat without speaking.’
Similar to the direct object in (3-87) is the indirect object underlined in (3-88). Again the presence of focus precludes the SPP packaging typically associated with established DTs. And again the context makes reference clear enough that the semantic explicitness provided by full noun phrases is not necessary. Thus, as in (3-87), the ideal form here is a long pronoun. The difference is that in (3-88) the participant in question is topical at the clause level (as well as being a DT), and this clause-level topicality opens the possibility of marking this atypical aboutness of an object through reduplication. (3-88) R-PP for Focused DT (Topical) No i tazi nosˇt pod brjasta bjaxa doxozˇ dali xora. Po razkaljanata zemja jasno se vizˇ daxa sta˘ pki ot podkovani obuvki. Tja da˘ lgo stoja oprjana na da˘ rvoto i ì stana zˇ al za xorata, koito sa˘ sˇto kato neja ne spjaxa, za da izpa˘ lnjat poslednata mu pora˘ ka. I sega vecˇe znaexa, cˇe tja e razbrala istinata za Ignat. I na tjax ne im e leko — drugarja si bjaxa zagubili. Sˇte dojdat i drugata nosˇt, sˇte si otidat, posle pak sˇte se va˘ rnat. Dosega im e bilo ma˘cˇno samo za nego, a ot tazi nosˇt — i za neja. (KC:102)
Degrees of Explicitness
‘But this night too people had come under the elm. The footprints from hobnailed shoes were clearly visible on the muddied ground. She stood leaning against the tree for a long time, and she began to feel sorry for the people who, like her, also went without sleep in order to fulfill his last instructions. And by now they knew that she had come to understand the truth about Ignat. It wasn’t easy for them either — they had lost their comrade. They’ll come the next night too, they’ll go home, then they’ll come back again. Until now they had been sad only for him, but from this night on — for her too.’
The other main motivation for a high degree of explicitness, the need to avoid referential ambiguity or misinterpretation, also affects the packaging of DT objects. The example presented in (3-89) is one which can be cited here. Substituting a third person pronoun would leave open the possibility that the listener might interpret one of the other third person plural entities recently mentioned as being the undergoer of the action expressed by the verb. (3-89) FNP for DT Identity R: Cenata … V: Da, i trjabva da sa podredeni. R: I trjabva sa podredeni. I az za tova iskax sam da sedna spokojno i tuka edno po edno da si gi obmisljam i da si gi pisˇa. V: Ti obmislil li si gi? R: Ami, izmislil sa˘m gi, i az trjabva da ti kazˇ a, cˇe tija ceni va˘ obsˇte ne sa verni, zasˇtoto az sa˘ m xva˘ rlil tam ludi baksˇisˇi za tova za onova. V sa˘ sˇtoto vreme, za da opravdaja baksˇisˇite i razxodite za trud, az naduvam cenite. (KA:1.6, excerpt 2) ‘R: The price … V: Yes, and they have to be set. R: And they have to be set. And that’s why I wanted to sit down quietly by myself and to think them over one by one here and to write them down. V: Have you thought them over? R: Well, I’ve come up with them, and I have to tell you that these prices are not right at all, because I’ve tossed baksheesh like crazy there for this and that. At the same time, in order to justify the baksheesh and the expenses for labor, I inflate the prices.’
The underlined object in (3-90) is similar to that in (3-88) in that its clauselevel topicality is overtly indicated through reduplication. To ensure proper communication of the reference of the object (his previous utterance with
Direct and indirect objects
pronominal forms seeming to have failed), the speaker, a seven-year-old child, uses a full noun phrase. This topic-marking and semantic explicitness combine to produce an R-FNP object. (3-90) R-FNP for DT Identity P: Platixme gi i gi kupix. B: A, Petjo? V: Kakvo kazvasˇ? P: Platixme gi tija ucˇebnici. (KA:d.bp, excerpt 1) ‘P: We paid for them and I bought them. B: Ah, Petjo? V: What are you saying? P: We paid for these textbooks.’
Finally I will cite here two examples of explicitness of DT objects of the sort discussed in Section 3.2.3. Recall that it was observed there that participants are sometimes packaged explicitly not because the identity of the referent would be ambiguous or possibly misinterpreted were a less explicit object type to be used, but rather because the speaker or writer thereby informs or reminds the addressee of some characteristic of the participant. The following examples illustrate that this motivation for the use of full noun phrases is applicable to objects which are DTs as well. In the literary passage in (3-91) the narrator reminds the reader of the age of the participant, part of a central message of this short story, by using the explicit FNP indirect object na djadkata ‘the old man’. This sentence describes the narrator’s reaction to the content of an immediately preceding twelve-line direct quote of the old man containing not a single reference to any other third person singular entity that might be mistaken for the object of envy, even had a pronominal object form been used. (3-91) FNP for Additional Information about a DT Zavidjax na djadkata, cˇe si e podlozˇ il ot domasˇnata. (DG:89) ‘I was jealous of the old man, that he had imbibed in some home-brew.’
An example of this same motivation for explicitness in the colloquial data, this time with an R-FNP indirect object indicating the clause-level topicality of the DT, is seen in (3-58), repeated below. The use instead of a reduplicated pronoun (mu … na nego) would no less clearly than the more explicit mu … na gorkicˇkija indicate to the listener reference to the Zˇoro mentioned in the
Degrees of Explicitness
previous sentence, but the latter adds to the picture of the participant as someone to be pitied. (3-58) R-FNP for Additional Information about a DT Sl: Predstavjam si na Zˇoro kakvo mu e bilo. Sigurno mu se e prirevalo na gorkicˇkija. (KA:2.6, excerpt 3) ‘Sl: I can imagine what it was like for Zˇoro. The poor guy surely felt like screaming.’
..
Aboutness at the clause level
I will now set aside for the moment the notion of discourse-level themehood in order to address in more detail the connection between clause-level aboutness (i.e. topicality) and the packaging of direct and indirect objects. Most noteworthy here is the fact that two of the six object types (the R-PP reduplicated personal pronouns and the R-FNP reduplicated full noun phrases) occur exclusively in clauses in which information is being given about the referent of the reduplicated form.79 Thus the role of clause-level aboutness is a direct and primary one, and reduplication can be analyzed as positively marked for clause-level topicality. It serves as a device employed by language users to signal the unusual packaging of topical participants as objects. This makes it a valuable tool for listeners and readers as they interpret this aspect of messages. Before looking more closely at this explicit signaling of the topic status of objects, however, it should be carefully noted that the fact that reduplicated forms are positively marked for topicality should not be taken as entailing or implying that non-reduplicated forms are negatively marked for this clause-level feature. Instead, each of the object types without reduplication is unmarked for topicality, i.e. they are used in the packaging of both topical participants and non-topical participants. I will illustrate this compatibility for each of the four non-reduplicated object types in (3-92) through (3-99), providing first a topical, then a non-topical occurrence for these four object types in sequence. I have included examples of both direct and indirect objects and from both literary and non-literary sources. The indicated zero indirect object in (3-92) demonstrates that Z objects are compatible with clause-level topicality. The reader here is told that the individual in question has not yet told the tourists of his personal connection to the forest. This topical individual, however, is not overtly referred to. If he had been, the dative would have been used with this verb, producing perhaps
Direct and indirect objects
Ostava mu da im kazˇe … ‘He still hasn’t told them …’ (more literally: ‘It remains for him to tell them …’). (3-92) Topical Z (literary indirect object) Cˇuzˇdencite mu socˇat gorata - na nego! Kakvi stranni da˘rveta — kimat. Sa˘ sˇtinski prizraci. Zˇivi li sa? Nima? Ostava Ø da im kazˇe, cˇe basˇta mu gi e pazil i zapazil. (DG:79) ‘The foreigners pointed out the forest to him — to him! “What strange trees,” they nod. “Downright ghosts. Are they alive? Really?” He still hasn’t told them that his father took care of them and preserved them.’
As described in note 73 earlier in this chapter, however, zero packaging of objects (unlike zero packaging of subjects) is not generally associated with aboutness. Among the zero objects in the material examined, the non-topical zero object underlined below in (3-93) is more typical than the topical one just cited in (3-92). In (3-93) it is the first person subject, a pregnant woman taking part in a conversation about possible birthing facilities, who is topical in the clause in question, rather than the zero object, i.e. the child she will bear. (3-93) Non-topical Z (non-literary direct object) K: Mnogo losˇo besˇe tam. Ama, az a˘ vikam, tam njama da Ø razˇdam, da mi lazjat po deteto tija xlebarki. Tolkova nexigienicˇno. (KA:2.11, excerpt 2) ‘K: It was really bad there. Boy, I’m telling you, I won’t be having him there, for cockroaches to be climbing on my child.80 So unsanitary.’
The following two examples with SPP objects are parallel to the two just cited with Z objects in that they demonstrate compatibility with the packaging of both topical and non-topical participants. In other words, short form pronouns, like zero objects, are unmarked for clause-level aboutness. Both of the SPP direct objects in (3-94) refer to the entity their respective clauses are about. (3-94) Topical SPP (non-literary direct objects) A: Ne pipaj ximikala. Tova mi e ljubimija ximikal. Vsicˇki go pipat. Ne trjabva da go pipat. (KA:1.2, excerpt 4) ‘A: Don’t mess with the pen. That’s my favorite pen. Everybody messes with it. They shouldn’t mess with it.’
Opposed to the topical SPP objects in (3-94) are the indicated non-topical SPP indirect objects in (3-95). In both these clauses it is the participant in the grammatical subject role that the clause is about (Ralcˇev in the first sentence
Degrees of Explicitness
and the young man, packaged as a zero subject, in the second clause of the second sentence). (3-95) Non-topical SPP (literary indirect objects) Stana nuzˇda Ralcˇev da mu se legitimira. Mladijat cˇovek momentalno omekna, dori mu se izvini i go va˘ vede. (PV:423) ‘It became necessary for Ralcˇev to show him his ID. The young man immediately relented, he even apologized to him and showed him in.’
In (3-96) and (3-97) we see that long form personal pronouns too are compatible with the packaging of both topical and non-topical object participants, respectively. Because these LPP objects are marked for focus, (3-96) illustrates also the fact that clause-level emphasis and clause-level aboutness can cooccur in a single participant. In this excerpt a woman tells her husband that he is the sort of person on whom no other enticement will work. (3-96) Topical LPP (literary direct object) — Mamisˇ me ti, mamisˇ, zatova. — S butilka rakija te mamja, s drugo tebe cˇovek mozˇe li da izmami. (IM:84) ‘“You’re trying to entice me, you’re enticing me, for that reason.” “I entice you with a bottle of rakia, could you be seduced with anything else?”’ [more literally: ‘… could a person entice you with other?’]
The indicated object in (3-97) is a more typical representative of the use of emphatic long form pronouns in contexts where some other participant, here a particular serving of wine, is what the speaker gives information about in a clause. (3-97) Non-topical LPP (non-literary indirect object) I: Tova na kogo e? Ne na Krasi? G: Tova e neopredeleno. Drugoto e na mene. Eto tova e na gospozˇata Aleksova. (KA:1.2, excerpt 2) ‘I: Who is this one for? Not for Krasi? G: That one is up for grabs. The other one is for me. This one here is for Mrs. Aleksova.’
Finally, the following two examples demonstrate that FNP objects, full noun phrases other than personal pronouns, are like other non-reduplicated objects in being used for the packaging of both topical (as in (3-98)) and non-topical (as in (3-99)) participants. In (3-98) speaker G states an opinion composed of information about the underlined indirect object participant.
Direct and indirect objects
(3-98) Topical FNP (non-literary indirect object) L: I zatova osˇte se kolebaja, i stana vecˇe mesec i polovina, kak se vika, sa˘m na izdra˘ zˇka na decata. D: A. L: Ne na decata, ama na zˇenata. G: A, taka e mnogo dobre na zˇenata. (KA:2.1, excerpt 4) ‘L: And that’s why I’m still undecided, and it’s been a month and a half already that my children have been taking care of me, so to speak. D: Ah. L: Not my children, but my wife. G: Ah, it’s very nice for your wife that way.’
The indicated FNP direct object in (3-99) is not topical in this clause where information is provided about the participant named by the grammatical subject. (3-99) Non-topical FNP (literary direct object) Kolkoto i da izglezˇdasˇe zamajan, Radev vednaga razbra sa˘ sˇtnostta na nameka. (PV:419) ‘No matter how stunned he looked, Radev immediately understood the gist of the allusion.’
Unlike the non-reduplicated object types, the two reduplicated types, i.e. reduplicated long form personal pronouns (R-PP) and reduplicated full noun phrases (R-FNP), are marked for topicality, used only when the participant referred to by the form in question is viewed by the speaker or writer as being what the current clause is about.81 Numerous examples of reduplicated objects have already been cited in this chapter in connection with other issues, and, because of the positive markedness for topicality of these forms, any of these previously presented examples also serves as illustration of the clause-level aboutness of participants packaged this way.82 I will include here a few more excerpts in order to demonstrate more systematically the use of both R-PP and R-FNP objects for both direct and indirect object participants, in both the colloquial and the literary sources, and in the packaging of participants which are what both main and subordinate clauses are about. Colloquial (3-100) is part of a conversation primarily about canning equipment. The speaker interrupts her own sequence of utterances about jar lids to make two statements about herself. In the first of these she is a grammatical object, and the speaker packages this first person participant with an overtly topical reduplicated R-PP construction.
Degrees of Explicitness
(3-100) R-PP Topical Direct Object (non-literary main clause) R: Eto tezi sa novi. Ima razlika. Vizˇ gi tija. Te sa sa˘ vsem ne … Samo s takiva moga da zatvarjam. Men, Krasi, me boljat ra˘cete. Az imam mnogo slabi kitki. Vizˇ kakvo si namerix v garderoba. Podarjavali sa mi go, i kato si razcˇistvax garderoba, bez da iskam, si go namerix. Az sa˘m zabravila za tjax. Gledaj kakvi sa razkosˇni, s dupka. (KA:1.7, excerpt 1) ‘R: Here, these are new. There is a difference. Look at these. They’re not at all … Only with that kind can I close them. I have sore hands Krasi [more literally: The hands hurt me, Krasi]. I have very weak wrists. Look what I found in the wardrobe. It was given to me as a gift, and as I was cleaning out the wardrobe, without trying to, I found it. I forgot about them. Look how splendid they are, with an opening.’
The indicated reduplicated pronoun in (3-101) is also a topical direct object. This example differs from the last in that it is from a literary written source as well as in that the domain within which the direct object is topical is a subordinate rather than a main clause. In this subordinate clause the speaker informs the addressee that he has an opinion he is about to share. This subordinate clause uses a third person plural verb form with a zero subject of the unspecified variety. I have attempted to capture the essence of this construction with a colloquial English unspecified “you” rather than with a more formal passive construction. (3-101) R-PP Topical Direct Object (literary subordinate clause) — Ako me pitat mene, koeto se va˘ rsˇi, da se va˘ rsˇi ba˘ rzo, dodeka ne sme oka˘ sneli. (DG:90) ‘If you ask me, what’s being done should be done quickly, before we’re too late.’
The topical reduplicated R-PP forms in the next two examples are indirect objects. In the relevant subordinate clause in the excerpt from the oral transcripts in (3-102), the speaker informs the listeners that the participant does not care about the issue stated in the following, further-subordinated clause. (3-102) R-PP Topical Indirect Object (non-literary subordinate clause) Sl: Tova znacˇi, cˇe na nego mu e bilo bezrazlicˇno kakvo sˇte napravi, i resˇil, cˇe v slucˇaja e po-izgodno da napravi taka, kakto tja e resˇila. (KA:2.6, excerpt 2)
Direct and indirect objects
‘Sl: That means that it was all the same to him what he was to do, and he decided that in this case it was better to do it the way she decided.’
The underlined R-PP indirect object in literary (3-103) is the topic of a main clause. The reader is informed in this clause that the referent of this reduplicated indirect object had also begun to feel the effects of a dangerous gas produced by a local factory. (3-103) R-PP Topical Indirect Object (literary main clause) Uvi, tja znaesˇe kakvo sˇte ì govori kolegata — osˇte sˇtom se sa˘ vzeme sled pa˘ rvata gla˘ tka. I toj pocˇna. Zavoda. Zo. Tezˇki dumi, bolka goljama. Bezizxodnost. Edin ma˘ zˇ, kojto raboti s va˘ rzani ra˘ ce. Mila Velicˇkova se be umorila da slusˇa takiva … I na neja pocˇna da ì dejstvuva toja Zo, proniknal v sladkarnicata prez procepite na sˇirokata ì vitrina. Zakasˇlja se. Zasˇto li ì se slucˇi da se rodi v toja obrecˇen grad? (DG:111) ‘Alas, she knew what her colleague was going to say to her — the moment after coming to after the first gulp. And he began. The factory. Zo. Heavy words, great pain. Hopelessness. A man who is working with hands tied. Mila Velicˇkova had grown tired of listening to the likes … She too began to be affected by this Zo, which had penetrated into the snackshop through the cracks in its wide display window. She had a spell of coughing. Oh why was she born in this doomed town?’
The next four examples involve R-FNP objects (reduplicated full noun phrases), direct in (3-104) and (3-105), indirect in (3-106) and (3-107). As with the preceding R-PP reduplicated long form pronouns, the participants referred to by these R-FNP forms are all topical at the clause level. The excerpt in (3-104) is part of a conversation about buying new furniture. In the subordinate clause in question, the speaker provides information about the possible fate of a piece of furniture already in the house. (3-104) R-FNP Topical Direct Object (non-literary subordinate clause) I: Seriozno. Trjabva da ti kazˇa, cˇe a˘ sa˘ m resˇila, cˇe mozˇe bi kra˘ glata masa sˇte ja slozˇa v kuxnjata. (KA:2.8, excerpt 1) ‘I: Seriously. I have to tell you that, uh, I have decided that maybe I’ll put the round table in the kitchen.’
Degrees of Explicitness
The topical R-FNP direct object in (3-105) is found in a main clause in a literary source. The writer here informs us that the disrespectful sly look mentioned a page earlier in this short story is now gone from the eyes of a soldier who has been testing the authority of the sergeant he is talking to. (3-105) R-FNP Topical Direct Object (literary main clause) — Cˇe dajte edna ot vasˇite knigi, da vidja i az kakvo pisˇe v tjax. Po moe vreme, kogato karax kursovete za traktorist, kraj nas ne se namirvaxa knigi, posle karaj denonosˇtna oran, dojde i kazarmata. — Kakvo iskate, voinska ili za civilnija zˇivot? — Prodanov se obadi, no gi njamasˇe vecˇe lukavite plama˘ cˇeta v ocˇite mu. (KC:25) ‘“So give me one of your books so that I too can see what is written in them. In my day, when I was taking courses to become a tractordriver, they didn’t find us with books, later you had to do round-theclock plowing, and military service.” “What would you like, a military one or one about civilian life?” Prodanov replied, but the crafty flicker was no longer in his eyes.’
In (3-106) the topical R-FNP form in a main clause refers to a beneficiary packaged as an indirect object. The speaker states her opinion that the participant benefits from the proximity of certain relatives. (3-106) R-FNP Topical Indirect Object (non-literary main clause) V: Da mozˇem da gi otgledame! T: A, lele. Cˇudesno. Mnogo dobre. P: Bravo. Mnogo xubavo. M: Ama na baba Botka taka ì e mnogo dobre. (KA:3.2, excerpt 2) ‘V: So we can raise them! T: Oh, goodness. Wonderful. Very good. P: Bravo. Very nice. M: But it’s very good for Grandma Botka that way.’
Finally, the underlined object in (3-107) illustrates R-FNP packaging for a topical indirect object in a subordinate clause from a literary source. The information given about the two women is that they have no desire to leave, that they are actually enjoying being questioned by the police investigating a murder. (3-107) R-FNP Topical Indirect Object (literary subordinate clause)
Direct and indirect objects
Ralcˇev vednaga useti, cˇe na dvete zˇeni nikak ne im se otivasˇe. Sled tolkova godini sa˘vsem bezcveten zˇivot te izvedna˘ zˇ bjaxa stanali centa˘ r na njakakvo sa˘ bitie. (PV:413) ‘Ralcˇev realized immediately that the two women didn’t in the least want to go. After so many years of completely drab existence, they had suddenly become a center of some sort of event.’
The aboutness of reduplicated objects, as illustrated in the preceding examples, has not gone unnoticed by others. Connections of various degrees between reduplication and the packaging of topics are found in a number of existing works. These works can be divided roughly into three groups based on the strength and scope of the claims made in regard to this connection. In what follows I will briefly describe these three categories of approaches to the question, citing some of the most typical and/or interesting representatives of each group. The first group consists of analyses with relatively weak claims made about the topicality of reduplicated objects. Each includes or is compatible with the conclusion that reduplicated objects often or usually refer to topical participants. Note the adverbials (emphasis mine) in the following quotations from two works representative of this group: … dubliranoto dopa˘ lnenie (prjako i neprjako) obiknoveno sluzˇi za osnova na izrecˇenieto … (Academy Grammar, Vol. 3, 1983:188) ‘… the reduplicated object (direct and indirect) usually serves as topic of the sentence/clause …’ … v sa˘ stava na slozˇnata “udvoena” forma … enklitikata cˇesto izpa˘ lnjava funkcija na edin ot pokazatelite na tova, cˇe dadenata duma e osnova (O) na izkaza. (Cyxun 1962a:290) ‘… as part of the complex “reduplicated” form … the enclitic often functions as one of the indicators that the given word is topic (T) of the expression.’
Nicolova (1986:53) states more explicitly that not all reduplicated objects are topics: “In reality, the reduplicated object can also be the comment, albeit more rarely” (“Vsa˘ sˇtnost udvoenoto dopa˘ lnenie mozˇe da ba˘de i rema, makar i po-rjadko”). Mel’nicˇuk (1971) makes a parallel observation, using the terms “initial syntagm” (isxodnaja sintagma) and “primary syntagm” (osnovnaja sintagma) to refer in essence to what I call here topic and comment, respectively: Reduplicated direct and indirect objects are most often initial syntagms (194), but sometimes form primary syntagms “taking on the phrasal stress or the primary syntagmatic stress” (“prinimaja na sebja frazovoe udarenie ili osnovnoe sintagmaticˇeskoe udarenie”) (195). Motapanyane 1997 also belongs here. Within
Degrees of Explicitness
Motapanyane’s syntactic analysis of preverbal focus we find the following two examples (her (6a) and (6b)). (3-108) Initial Topic Position ìi go dal ti s udovolstvie. a. Na Marijai Pavel bi to MaryTOP Paul would to her it given with pleasure ‘As for Mary, Paul would have given it to her with pleasure.’ (270) b. *Na nikogoi Pavel ne bi(mu)i go dal ti bez sa˘ zˇalenie. to nobodyTOP Paul NEG would him it given without regret (270)
The short form pronouns ì and mu reduplicate the indirect objects in topic position na Marija and na nikogo ‘to nobody’ in (3-108a) and (3-108b), respectively. Motapanyane proposes that the unacceptability of (3-108b), with or without the reduplicating pronoun, can be explained by a restriction against bare quantifiers (here na nikogo ‘to nobody’) in topic position. Motapanyane concludes that the data indicate “that the clitic is always present in the Topic chain (even if it is not lexically realized), presumably as an empty category pro” (270). Although this line of reasoning associates reduplicating short pronouns with the packaging of topical objects, it becomes clear later in the paper that Motapanyane does not see either reduplication as a marker of topicality, or clause-level aboutness as a prerequisite to object reduplication. She views the reduplicated object in (3-109a) (her example (21a)) as being in a focus position, rather than in topic position (this latter position occupied by the subject in this sentence). (3-109) Preverbal Focus Position a. Pavel kolatai sˇtesˇe da ì (jai) dade. Paul the car would to to her(it) give ‘It is the car Paul would give her.’ (281) b. Pavel nisˇto ne bi ì (*go) dal. Paul nothing NEG would to her (it) given ‘There’s nothing Paul would give her.’ (281)
According to Motapanyane, the reason the reduplication in (3-109a) is acceptable, while that in (3-109b) (her (21b)) is not, is that there are two types of fronting to focus position: fronting to focus in Bulgarian involves overt movement to the focus position Spec, TP. This movement creates two types of chains (i.e., operator-variable chains or A’-chains with clitic pronouns) according to the lexical properties
Direct and indirect objects
of the focused constituent (i.e, whether it has intrinsic quantificational features or not) (284).
The movement of focused quantified objects (such as nisˇto ‘nothing’ in (3-109b)) creates operator-variable chains which do not involve reduplicating pronouns, whereas the movement of focused referential objects (such as kolata ‘the car’ in (3-109a)) results in the A’-chains which do involve them.83 It appears that the difference in degree of association of topicality with reduplication seen between the type of analyses just described and the stronger claim proposed in some others, including the present work, is attributable to a fundamental difference in the conception of topicality. Namely, the issue of crucial significance here is whether the features topicality and focus are mutually compatible within one and the same noun phrase. Because emphatic objects clearly can be reduplicated in Bulgarian, the belief that anything emphasized cannot also be topical leads to the inevitable conclusion that not all reduplicated objects are topics. This then means that reduplication cannot be an overt marker of topic status. Perhaps nowhere is this commonly held belief expressed in a more succinct and straightforward way than in Franks and King 2000 (254): “Focus is incompatible with being a topic.”84 The examples given in analyses of this first group often provide evidence that it is this sort of dissociation of topicality and focus that is responsible for the relatively weak connection perceived between reduplication and topic status. Below are two of these. The underlining and translations are mine. (3-110) Examples Cited in the Literature of “Non-topical” Reduplication a. Samo Andreja go njama (Mel’nicˇuk 1971:195, from A. Karalijcˇev) ‘Only Andrej isn’t here.’ b. — Kogo naznacˇixa? — Mene me naznacˇixa, no az ne iskax tova. (Nicolova 1986:53) ‘“Who was appointed?” “I was appointed, but I didn’t want this.”’
It is true that there is emphasis on these reduplicated direct objects and, if an absence of such emphasis is a prerequisite to topicality, then these objects are not topics. If, however, one adopts a definition of topicality based on aboutness (without requirements one way or the other concerning emphasis), then these reduplicated R-FNP and R-PP objects do qualify as topics. The information conveyed to the addressee is intended to be stored in the same place where other information about the participants in question is kept. That he is absent is information given about Andrej in (3-110a), and the appointment to the
Degrees of Explicitness
new position is new information which will be filed by the addressee with other stored facts about the speaker in (3-110b). One further treatment that should be mentioned here is that presented in Avgustinova 1998, which focuses on the reduplication potential of various categories of noun phrases. In a discussion of the syntactic and communicative conditions under which reduplication occurs (12), Avgustinova states that there are two interrelated functions of this phenomenon. One is syntactic — to indicate that a clause-initial noun phrase is a direct object rather than a subject. The other, which she describes as “fairly dominating” is a communicative function: “the clitic replicant indicates that the replicated nominal material belongs to a thematic (ground, topic) segment in the informational structuring of the respective utterance.” This clearly suggests a topic-marking function for R-PP and R-FNP objects, but the fact that this is seen as but one of two possible functions prevents including this analysis in the third group of strong claims described below. In a second group of treatments of the connection between reduplication and topicality are those which draw a very close connection, but do so for only a subset of reduplicated objects. These analyses are unlike those in the first group described above, which view reduplicated forms as only sometimes (perhaps “usually” or “often”) topical and therefore incapable of having as their function the marking of topic status of the referent of the object. Each of the representatives of the second group, on the other hand, is compatible with this sort of consistent topic-marking function, at least within a certain domain. Ivancˇev 1978 [1974] (176-77), for example, is discussing only reduplicated personal pronouns (R-PP) when he describes how the combination of a stressed long form personal pronoun and an unstressed short form pronoun results in the expression of a topic. Popov (1973:178), conversely, makes it very clear that he is talking about reduplicated full noun phrases (R-FNP), not reduplicated pronouns, when he says that the reduplicated object serves as a “psychological subject” (“psi[xo]logicˇeski podlog”) and as a “point of departure” (“izxoden punkt”) in the utterance. A third example of a strong connection being drawn between reduplication and aboutness for a subset of reduplicated objects, in this case direct as opposed to indirect objects, is found in Georgieva 1974 (75). Georgieva not only observes that topicality is a prerequisite to the reduplication of direct objects, but actually goes so far as to claim that an absence of reduplication indicates that the object is part of the comment. While the second part of this strong claim is not supported by the data I have examined (see, for instance, the topical FNP object in
Direct and indirect objects
(3-98)), note that Georgieva does not restrict this topic status either to reduplicated pronouns (R-PP) or to reduplicated full noun phrases (R-FNP). She does, however, refer specifically to direct objects in stating this connection, and does not repeat the claim in her treatment of indirect objects. A more recent work which can be categorized as belonging to this second group is Alexandrova’s 1997 analysis. In essence, and in the terminology I have been using here, Alexandrova suggests a tight connection between topicality and reduplicative constructions where the non-clitic reduplicated element is in preverbal position (CLLD [clitic left-dislocation]), but does not claim such a connection in the case of postverbal reduplicated forms (CLD [clitic doubling]).85 Among the examples Alexandrova presents are the two in (3-111) and (3-112), her (5d) and (5c) respectively. (3-111) CLLD (clitic left-dislocation) Sina si ne sa˘m go vizˇdala otdavna son my not am him-CL seen for long ‘(My son) I have not seen (my son) for a long time’ (5) (3-112) CLD (clitic doubling) Ne sa˘m go vizˇdala sina si otdavna not am him-CL seen son my for long (5)
Alexandrova views the R-FNP direct object sina si go ‘one’s own son’ as topical in (3-111), where the full noun phrase portion sina si precedes the verb, but does not indicate this status in (3-112), where it follows the verb. Into a third group I place studies which state or imply a very close connection between reduplication and topicality without restricting the connection to a certain category of reduplicated object. Belonging here, in the order they will be discussed, are Rudin 1997, Mincˇeva 1969, Guentchéva 1994, and Leafgren 1992 and 1997. The first two of these are primarily formal syntactic analyses of aspects of certain phenomena involving Bulgarian short pronominal forms. While the specific approaches applied and the conclusions reached may differ considerably, they both present a picture of a very close connection between topicality and reduplication, seemingly unrestricted in its domain. Rudin 1997 concludes that the reduplicating short pronouns result from the overt spelling out of object agreement. Although she explicitly sets aside the issue of a precise definition of topicality, Rudin sees [+topical] as one of the features that must be present for the clitic pronoun to be spelled out overtly rather than occurring as a non-overt zero (245).
Degrees of Explicitness
In addition to [+topical], the other feature Rudin cites as a prerequisite to the spelling out of object agreement is [+specific]. In the case of short form pronouns in reduplicative constructions, at least, I would argue against including this second requirement. The fact that the great majority of reduplicated objects do refer to specific participants can be viewed as following from the topicality restriction, since it is almost always the case that speakers make comments about specific topics. The following examples, however, illustrate that reduplication is in fact possible in those relatively rare situations where a topic is non-specific. The first two are from Alexandrova 1997, the third is from Aleksova’s colloquial corpus. In (3-113) (her (23a)), Alexandrova reports the sentence as acceptable with or without the reduplicating pronoun. (3-113) Reduplication of Non-specific Topic Njama da (go) priemat student bez prepora˘ki will-not DA him-CL accept student without references ‘They will not accept a student without references’ (Alexandrova 1997:17)
Again in (3-114) (her (23b)) Alexandrova says that the short pronoun reduplicating the object may be present but need not be — in either the specific or the non-specific reading of edin ucˇitel ‘a teacher’. (3-114) Reduplication of Non-specific Topic Uvazˇavat (go) edin ucˇitel zaradi vseotdajnostta mu respect-3PL him-CL a teacher for devotion his ‘A teacher is respected for his devotion’ (Alexandrova 1997:17)
In (3-115) the speaker gives her opinion of bananas as part of a discussion of bad and good markets at which to buy them. (3-115) Reduplication of Non-specific Topic A: Banan ne obicˇam da go jam. (KA:2.9d, excerpt 1) ‘A: I don’t like to eat banana.’
In addition to the [+specific] requirement for object reduplication, Rudin’s analysis contradicts the findings presented in the current study in two other significant ways. One concerns FNP objects, non-reduplicated full noun phrases. Whereas the data has led me to conclude that such non-reduplicated but lexically explicit forms are compatible with both topical and non-topical referents, Rudin (246) lines up with Georgieva’s (1974:75) view of these nonreduplicated objects as explicitly non-topical. And, conversely, Rudin (246) sees SPP objects, the short form pronouns used alone, as [+topical]. This is in
Direct and indirect objects
contrast with Mincˇeva’s (1969:12) conclusions and with my own findings in the data as reported above. Using the definition of topic I have adopted, these forms are analyzed as unmarked for topicality. Mincˇeva’s 1969 syntactic analysis of reduplicated objects in Bulgarian treats the reduplicating short pronouns as overt forms which “mark the empty places around the verb” (“markirat praznite mesta okolo glagola”) (23). In doing so, the reduplicating pronoun transforms an otherwise “defective” (“defektna”) verb phrase into a “formally syntactic whole” (“formalno sintakticˇna cjalost”) (22). The conditions under which this happens involve the movement of the object out of the verb phrase to an unusual preverbal position when the object is topical while the verb remains in the comment (22). The pronouns in the reduplicative constructions should thus be viewed “as a signal of the fact that the direct (or indirect) object of a given verb is excluded from the structure of the comment of the expression” (“kato znak na tova, cˇe prekijat (ili kosvenijat) obekt na daden glagol se izkljucˇva ot sa˘stava na jadroto na izkaza”) (12). Thus, so long as one accounts also for 1) the fact that some of these reduplicated objects remain in (or return to) position after the verb (see, for example, (3-20a) or (3-101) above), and 2) the absence of this sort of process when objects are moved for other reasons (e.g., in the fronting of focused but non-topical objects (as in (3-74)), Mincˇeva’s analysis provides a systematic syntactic explanation completely compatible with a strong claim of a topic-marking function in the selection of reduplicated objects. Guentchéva 1994 adheres to the commonly held view that no topical noun phrase receives emphatic or other sentential stress (“un thème ne reçoit jamais l’accent phrastique” and “un thème n’est jamais porteur d’un accent d’insistance” (16)). Nonetheless her analysis of Bulgarian object reduplication belongs to this third group of treatments where a strong and consistent connection is seen to aboutness of the object. Guentchéva’s way of dealing with the fact that focused as well as non-focused objects are reduplicated is as follows. Rather than adopting an approach in which topical noun phrases and focused noun phrases are viewed as partially overlapping sets, Guentchéva defines topics as necessarily non-focused (as just noted), but then speaks of two types of reduplication. She does state that reduplication is “a grammaticalized means of topicalization of the object” (“un moyen grammaticalisé de thématisation de l’objet”) (159), but if the object in question is focused, then it is not a topic, and “we will then speak not of topicalization, but of focalization of the object” (“on parlera alors non pas de thématisation, mais de focalisation de l’objet”) (20). Although this sort of focalized reduplicated object, in Guentchéva’s view,
Degrees of Explicitness
should not be regarded as a topic, it remains nevertheless the “point of departure” (“terme de départ”) of the predication (20). In this way the use of reduplicated forms can still be viewed as contingent upon aboutness of the participants they refer to. The strong, tight connection between object reduplication and the status of the reduplicated object as clause-level topic in Bulgarian is asserted and elaborated in some detail in Leafgren 1992 and Leafgren 1997. The analyses of reduplication presented in these studies are based primarily on an examination of object packaging in written literary sources, and secondarily on some testing done with native informants.86 The conclusion reached in regard to object topicality and reduplication is that the connection between the two is such that reduplication is an available and optional formal means employed by language users to overtly signal topicality. Because only topical objects are reduplicated, an addressee, encountering this packaging device, is explicitly informed of this aspect of the intended message. The contextual distribution of R-PP and R-FNP reduplicated objects in the conversational and the additional literary data I have subsequently examined allows me to expand this characterization to this material as well. The sole type of exception to this topic-marking function involves the substandard omission of the preposition na in the expression of indirect objects. Although the majority of reduplicated “na-drop” objects are in fact clauselevel topics, there are occasionally occurrences of non-topical na-drop forms. It is undoubtedly of significance that these few na-drop examples were the only cases of non-topical reduplication in the data. In both Leafgren 1992 (126) and Leafgren 1997 (125) it is proposed that this is the one situation in which the marking of case is sufficient motivation to reduplicate, overriding the otherwise necessary condition that the referents of reduplicated objects must be topical. For examples from the data and for an outline of what some others have said about na-drop, see the discussion in 3.2.2 above. One contribution of these analyses to the study of Bulgarian object reduplication lies in the comparison of likelihood of reduplication of various subsets of objects. This comparison is both statistical and interpretive, this latter particularly true for Leafgren 1997. Here an attempt is made to develop a hierarchy of factors conducive to the use of this facultative means of overtly signaling the topicality of objects. The following will serve as a brief summary of the results of the most fruitful of these comparisons. In the case of categories applicable at the word, phrase or clause levels (i.e. animacy, definiteness, case, person, word order, verb valence), the feature more
Direct and indirect objects
typical of topics is also more typical of reduplicated objects. At this level it appears that differing rates of reduplication are merely a reflection of differing likelihood of topicality. Objects in the data with the features to the left in the oppositions animate : inanimate, definite : indefinite, dative : accusative, first or second person : third person, preverbal position : postverbal position, and object of an impersonal verb : object of a personal verb are more likely than objects with the features to the right within each opposition to be reduplicated. In each of these oppositions, the member on the left is a feature typical of topics, and by sheer force of numbers becomes typical also of reduplicative constructions. If, for instance, ninety five percent of topics are definite, it is hardly surprising that a formal feature associated exclusively with topics would be found primarily with definite noun phrases. An examination of factors at the discourse level, however, yields a very different pattern. Here we find an increased frequency of reduplication for topical objects when they have features less typical of participants being spoken or written about. It appears that when language users wish to say something at the clause level about a particular participant, they are more likely to signal this topicality (i.e. are more likely to reduplicate) when this clause-level aboutness is less in keeping with what the addressee would be led to expect by the content and structure of the preceding discourse. In Leafgren 1997 (140), for instance, I report finding that in a written data base the rate of reduplication for topical objects which are new information being introduced into the discourse is double that of topical objects referring to participants which either were topical recently in the discourse or were incorporated from a preceding comment made about some other topic. A more direct approach to the matter at hand is to examine the DT status of the R-PP and R-FNP objects in the data. Such an examination has produced striking and significant results.87 The findings of this analysis create a refined picture of the function of object reduplication not merely as an optional topicmarking device, but one that is favored for use precisely when this clause-level aboutness is least predictable from the discourse structure. Slightly over sixty percent of the reduplicated objects are not discourse-level themes (despite that they are, of couse, clause-level topics). Examples from the written and oral data, respectively, are given in (3-116) and (3-117). The passage in (3-116) occurs at the end of a long paragraph about a philanderer. This man himself is the discourse theme, and is the clause-level topic in the majority of clauses in this paragraph. In the indicated clause, however, the author makes a comment about a specific attribute (adolescent voracity).
Degrees of Explicitness
(3-116) Reduplicated Topical Non-DT Besˇe mlad i silen i ne mozˇesˇe bez neja. Ako mu lipsvasˇe dva-tri dni, toj izlizasˇe, otbivasˇe se v bar ili cˇakasˇe na spirkata zaka˘snjal tramvaj i nikoga ne se pribirasˇe sam. Ponjakoga im plasˇtasˇe, zasˇtoto razbirasˇe bezpogresˇno kaka˘v e slucˇajat i dali momicˇeto e tra˘gnalo samo da izzˇivee nesˇto, a parite mozˇexa da donesat obida ili be obratnijat variant, kogato profesionalnoto da˘rzˇanie go va˘zbuzˇdasˇe i uspokojavasˇe. No izvedna˘zˇ zad ga˘rba mu ostana ljubopitstvoto ka˘m zˇenskoto tjalo, njamasˇe ja povecˇe junosˇeskata lakomija da natrupva opit i toj se cˇuvasˇe da kazva na prijatelite si: … (IM:100) ‘He was young and vigorous and couldn’t make it without her [=“woman” in a generic sense]. If he went without for two or three days, he would go out, stop in at a bar or wait for a late tram at the stop, and he never went home alone. Sometimes he would pay them, because he unerringly could tell what the situation was and whether the girl herself had set out to have an experience and money might cause offense, or whether it was the opposite variant, when the professional behavior excited and soothed him. But all of a sudden he lost his curiosity about the female body, the adolescent voracity for accumulating experience was now gone, and he was heard to say to his friends: …’
In (3-117) speaker V interrupts a discussion about the care of clothing to make a comment (in the form of an interrogative) about a noisy child. As in (3-116), this reduplicated object refers to a participant that the clause, but not the current greater discourse, is about. (3-117) Reduplicated Topical Non-DT V: Gladisˇ li ja? I: Da. V: Tja e malka osˇte. I: Dokato ne pekne sla˘ nceto da gi susˇa na sla˘ nce. Be dva meseca pone sˇte ja gladja. To edin mesec napravi pocˇti. Drugi den pravi edin mesec. I osˇte edin mesec posle vecˇe. V: E to kato ima sla˘ nce, ne e strasˇno. I: Be da ti kazˇa, opravjam se. V: Ox, mozˇe li da go spresˇ tova cva˘ rkalo? (KA:1.5, excerpt 4) ‘V: Do you iron it? I: Yes. V: She is still small.
Direct and indirect objects
I:
Until the sun comes out so I can dry them in the sun. Boy, I’ll be ironing it for at least two months. That made almost one month. Another day makes a month. And then one more month. V: Well, when there’s sun, it’s not terrible. I: Boy, I can tell you, I’m doing better. V: Oh, can you stop that squealer?’
Of the remaining nearly forty percent of reduplicated objects which in fact are discourse themes in addition to being clause-level topics, the majority (over seventy five percent) are unstable DTs by the criteria listed in Table 5. These criteria were discussed in Section 2.4 above, where it was shown that this type of instability leads toward a relatively high degree of explicitness for subjects too. I will give here an example for each of the contextual factors listed in Table 5 as “stronger” influences. In these three examples we see the clause-level topicality of unstable DTs overtly signaled through reduplication. The first of the destabilizing contextual factors listed in Table 5 involves the temporal structure of the content of the discourse. Specifically, this is the situation in which a “topical DT occurs in a main clause after a major temporal shift in what is being reported”. This was seen to trigger overtness in the packaging of DT subjects (for which zero packaging is the preference, ambiguity and focus constraints permitting). As illustrated earlier, the preferred method of packaging DT objects is the use of the (SPP) short form pronoun (again, ambiguity and focus constraints permitting). In (3-118) we find this preferred form replaced by an R-PP reduplicated pronoun in the first main clause after a major temporal shift in the narration. The stability of the aboutness of the old woman seems to have been destabilized by the temporal gap before she was told about her son’s death, and the topicality is overtly signaled. (3-118) Reduplicated Topical Unstable DT … samo zˇenata na stareca ostana zˇiva, Ø njaka˘de v drugo selo bila otisˇla, i Ø se da˘rzˇa, Ø da˘rzˇa do njakoe vreme, Ø vika, sina˘t mi sˇte otma˘sti, na vsicˇkite za vsicˇko, posle, kato ì kazaxa za sina ì, i na neja ì mra˘ dna nesˇto: Ø oblecˇe se cjalata v cˇerno, Ø kacˇvasˇe se po vlakovete taka, ot gara na gara, Ø razmjatasˇe kolan kato kadilnica iz koridorite … (IM:48) ‘… only the old man’s wife survived, she had gone somewhere to another village, and she held up, held for some time, she says, “my son will take vengeance, on everyone for everything,” later on, when she was told about her son, she lost it: She dressed entirely in black, she’d go
Degrees of Explicitness
around getting on trains like that, from station to station, she’d toss a belt around like a censer throughout the passageways …’
A second contextual situation shown to trigger explicitness in the packaging of DT subjects is where a “DT is being used as a topic for the first time in the discourse”. An example of this motivation for explicitness in the case of a participant packaged as an object was seen in (3-19a), repeated here as (3-119). The narrator is making a switch to this new DT in the clause in question, and signals the clause-level topicality of this very unstable new DT overtly. An SPP short pronoun here is of course out of the question — both the focus and the need for referential clarity demand a more explicit noun phrase type. Note, though, that neither of these other factors would explain the selection of an R-FNP gi seljanite ‘the villagers’ rather than an FNP seljanite ‘the villagers’. (3-119) Reduplicated Topical Unstable DT Oba˘rkaxa gi i seljanite s taja arxeologija — vmesto da si gledat vnucite, tra˘gnali po bairite — i te minaloto da otkopavat. (DG:89) ‘The villagers too were caught up in this archeology — instead of looking after their grandchildren, they were off in the hills — so that they too could dig up the past.’
The third strong destabilizing context seen to lead to overtness of DT subjects was described in Table 5 as follows: “The DT is being reintroduced as a topic after intervening material in which reference is made to some other performer of a dynamic action (i.e., after reference to a “competitor” for perceived aboutness at the discourse level)”. This same context is one in which topical objects, even though also DTs, were overtly marked as such by means of reduplicative packaging. In (3-120), for example, the aboutness of the grandmother is destabilized by the grandchildren’s actions, and she is subsequently expressed with an R-FNP, ja nesˇtastnata zˇenica ‘the poor little woman’, rather than with an FNP, nesˇtastnata zˇenica ‘the poor little woman’. (3-120) Reduplicated Topical Unstable DT R: Mojata baba, ako besˇe zˇiva, tolkova mnogo mozˇesˇe da ti posluzˇi. Tja besˇe obrazec na sˇopski govor, trjabva ti kazˇa. V: Ima li takiva? Na majka ti? R: Ne, na basˇta mi. Na basˇta mi. Deka cˇe odisˇ. Koncˇietata. Na m’eko. Ama besˇe izklucˇitelno koloritna. Nie mnogo ì se smeexme vnucite ì. V: A, podigravali ste ja nesˇtastnata zˇenica. (KA:1.7, excerpt 3) ‘R: My grandmother, if she were alive, could be of so much use to you. She was a model of shopp speech, I have to tell you.
Direct and indirect objects
V: Are there such? On your mother’s side? R: No, on my father’s side. “Deka cˇe odisˇ. Koncˇietata. Na m’eko.” Boy she was really colorful. We grandchildren made fun of her a lot. V: Ah, you ridiculed the poor little woman.’
The discussion thus far has accounted for the majority of the instances of object reduplication. In each of them the use of this overt means of signaling clause-level topicality corresponds to a context in which the aboutness of the participant in question is in some way contextually unstable from the point of view of the structure of the preceding discourse. In slightly over sixty percent of the examples examined the referent of the reduplicated object is not the DT, and in almost thirty percent the referent is the DT, but is one whose theme status is unstable for one of the outlined reasons. The remaining reduplicated objects (slightly less than ten percent of the total) are stable themes at the discourse level (in addition, of course, to being clause-level topics). Recalling that the typical packaging preference for established DTs in the role of direct or indirect object is the SPP (short form personal pronoun), one is led to question why this preferred, more economical packaging is not employed in the case of these nineteen seemingly recalcitrant examples. A closer examination of these particular instances of R-PP and R-FNP objects reveals the answer: In eighteen of the nineteen cases the explicitness of reference is readily explainable by factors other than those having to do with aboutness. In other words, in all but one of the examples there is a clear motivation for the speaker or writer to avoid the otherwise preferred SPP packaging. Once the short personal pronoun is ruled out, the reduplicated form becomes at least one of the logical options for packaging these topical participants. In the majority of cases (fifteen of the nineteen) it is the incompatibility of SPP objects with the expression of focused participants which necessitates the use of a more explicit form. Here, other factors permitting, an R-PP is sufficiently explicit, since the R-PP is unmarked for focus. (Recall that unmarked does not mean negatively marked.) The underlined indirect object in (3-121) serves as an example. (3-121) Reduplicated Topical Stable DT — Explicitness for Focus Imasˇe edna pianistka v nasˇija klas i ponezˇe besˇe goljam stud, samo na neja ì pozvoljaxa da sedi s ra˘kavici v cˇas. (IM:48) ‘There was a pianist in our class and since it was really cold, only she was allowed to sit with gloves on during class.’
Degrees of Explicitness
In two cases the use of an SPP for the topical DT would lead to referential ambiguity. Here an R-PP, which is no more explicit referentially than the short form, is insufficient, and we find instead R-FNP objects. One of these is given in (3-122) in the speech of a woman who has come to pick up some children. The use of a referentially less explicit form would lead to ambiguity as to which of the two thematic participants (i.e., Gergana or Dora) is being commented on in the indicated clause. (3-122) Reduplicated Topical Stable DT — Explicitness for Referential Clarity I: Zdrasti. Vzimam gi i dvete. R: Dobre. I: Te sega projavixa zˇelanie da dojdat u nas. Gergana i Dora. Ako si ja ta˘rsjat Gergana, kazˇi cˇe e. (KA:1.6, excerpt 2) ‘I: Hi. I’m taking them both. R: Okay. I: They now have shown a desire to come to our place. Gergana and Dora. If they’re looking for Gergana, say that she’s (the speaker turns her head in the direction of her apartment).
In one instance the avoidance of an otherwise preferred SPP object can be attributed to a syntactic constraint against the use of clitic pronouns in compound noun phrases:88 (3-123) Reduplicated Topical Stable DT—Explicitness in a Compound NP I mu nalivaxa na nego i na drugite na obsˇto osnovanie. (IM:15) ‘And he and the others were served on a general basis.’
We are at this point faced, perhaps surprisingly, with only one example in which the use of a reduplicated form rather than a less explicit object type appears unmotivated. I cite this example in (3-124). (3-124) Reduplicated Topical Stable DT — Unmotivated Explicitness? R: Tja, majka mi, tolkova beznadezˇno gleda na zˇivota si, cˇe sˇtom sledvasˇtite deset godini njama da padne na leglo, znacˇi njama tuka. A to tova ì trjabva na neja malko da sa, malko da ba˘ de optimist, za da mozˇe da si opravi zdraveto. (KA:1.6, excerpt 2) ‘She, my mother, looks at her life in such a hopeless way, that if she doesn’t have to take to bed in the next ten years, it means that she’s not here. Whereas what she needs is to be [3-pl], to be [3-sg] a bit of an optimist, so that she can fix her health.’
C 4
Conclusion
In this concluding chapter I will begin by summarizing the effects of the multiple factors which influence the degree of explicitness employed in the packaging of the primary participants in the messages in the Bulgarian data examined. I will address first the packaging of grammatical subjects (zero subjects, overt personal pronouns, and other full noun phrases). I will then summarize the selection reflected among the six direct and indirect object types (zero objects, short form personal pronouns, non-reduplicated long form personal pronouns, reduplicated long form personal pronouns, non-reduplicated full noun phrases other than personal pronouns, and reduplicated full noun phrases other than personal pronouns). After each of these summaries I will illustrate these factors at work through analysis and discussion of several examples representing the major types of discourse found in the examined material (literary narrative prose, literary representation of dialogue among characters in prose fiction, colloquial monologue, and colloquial dialogue). . ..
Degree of explicitness in the packaging of subjects Summary of relevant factors discussed
Of central importance in an account of participant explicitness is the tendency on the part of language users to employ the least explicit (and thus generally the most concise) form possible and appropriate in a given context. This feature of human communication has been observed and commented upon by others (see Section 2.1 above). In the case of Bulgarian subject packaging, the result is a preference for the use of zero noun phrases when these least explicit forms are sufficient for the goals of the particular communication involved. Here the participant filling the role of grammatical subject is formally represented only in the morphological agreement inflection of the verb (and possibly of a predicate adjective or participle). More explicit forms, which require additional expenditure of time and energy, are resorted to only with good reason. The major contextual and communicative factors illustrated and discussed in Chapter Two
Degrees of Explicitness
which constitute such reasons are summarized below. I have included here also the major factor which promotes a lesser degree of explicitness (point 9). The first five points are semantic in nature. The next three center specifically on focus. The last seven are those which have to do with aboutness. 1. Introducing a new participant into the discourse promotes explicitness (full NP). 2. Reintroducing a participant absent over an extended stretch of discourse promotes explicitness (full NP). 3. The need to distinguish among two or more potential referents promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP, depending on the gender, number, and person differences among these potential referents). 4. The need to indicate the involvement of a subject participant rather than an impersonal usage of certain verbs promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 5. The need or desire to convey additional information about a participant promotes explicitness (full NP). The explicit noun may itself lexically indicate this information or may provide a head for adjectival forms which do so. 6. The presence of focus on a participant, either contrastive or non-contrastive, promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 7. Heavy emotion, including emotional name-calling, promotes explicitness (full NP [as opposed to the personal pronoun possible under normal focus]). 8. Particularly heavy emphasis may lead to “focused double packaging” (personal pronoun or full NP used in conjunction with [another] personal pronoun). 9. Stable aboutness (concurrent topicality and discourse themehood) promotes less explicitness (zero packaging). In the oral mode a certain degree of continual stability of aboutness is enjoyed by first and second person participants. 10. Occurrence of a participant in a main clause after a major temporal shift destabilizes aboutness and promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 11. Occurrence of a participant as a topic for the first time in a discourse promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 12. The presence in the context of strong competition for aboutness destabilizes participant aboutness and promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP).
Conclusion
13. The presence in the context of weak competition for aboutness (i.e., where the competitor occurs in a subordinate clause and/or in a clause describing something observed by the discourse theme) may destabilize participant aboutness and lead to explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 14. Participant aboutness which is as yet weakly established (i.e., the participant has only recently been introduced into the discourse and has not yet been associated with any dynamic action) may lead to explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 15. An otherwise unexpectedly high degree of explicitness sometimes occurs in dialogues, as speakers express agreement or disagreement with preceding contributors to the discourse or feel the need to ensure the desired perception of aboutness (personal pronoun or full NP). Note that when more than one of the cited factors is applicable, the one conducive to the highest degree of explicitness prevails. If a full NP is required as per 3, for example, this rules out a personal pronoun that might be allowed by the presence of focus as described in 6. Similarly, any of the factors requiring overtness will override the tendency toward zero packaging indicated in 9. ..
Illustration of subject explicitness in the data
Each of the factors listed above as influential in the packaging of participants in the role of grammatical subjects has been illustrated using individual examples in the relevant sections of Chapter Two. Care was taken in the selection of these earlier examples to isolate the factor currently under discussion as the only likely cause of the explicitness reflected by a particular form. More extensive excerpts will be used below to demonstrate an analysis of subject explicitness and the relevance of cited factors in a more integrated way within the context of developing discourses of various types. As will be seen, it is very often the case that a given degree of explicitness cannot be definitively attributed to a particular cause, it being that more than one trigger of explicitness is present in the context. The passage in (4-1) is a representative of narrative prose discourse from a literary source. In this and the following three excerpts I have underlined and numbered the grammatical subjects.
Degrees of Explicitness
(4-1) Subject Packaging in Literary Narrative Prose Adriana1 imasˇe kato Margarita po-goljam brat, ako Ø2 ja obidexa ili ì sa˘zdavaxa neudobstva i neprijatnosti, brat ì3, edro nava˘ seno momcˇe, se javjavasˇ e i pitasˇ e za kakvo stava va˘pros4, Ø5 njamasˇ e nuzˇda da idva vtori pa˘ t. Sigurno godini po-ka˘ sno Adriana6 ne go be izcˇakala, kogato po vreme na pocˇivka v planinski kurort Ø7 se zapozna s krasiv mlad cˇovek, Ø8 ostavi se da ja ubedi da poseti stajata mu, a Ø9 posle razbra, cˇe cˇoveka˘t10 e zˇenen i obicˇa i semejstvoto si osven neja. Adriana11 izbra sma˘rtta na Ofelija, podsilena ot obstojatelstvoto, cˇe tam kraj kurortnija grad njamasˇe samo reka, a vodopad i reka i tja12 be predpocˇela vodopada. (IM:25) ‘Like Margarita, Adriana1 had a big brother, if someone2 would insult her or make things difficult for her, her brother3, a large surly boy, would appear and would ask what the problem4 was about, he5 didn’t have to come back a second time. Undoubtedly years later Adriana6 hadn’t waited for him when, during a vacation at a mountain resort, she7 met a handsome young man, Ø8 allowed herself to be talked into visiting his room, and Ø9 later found out that the guy10 had a wife and loved his family too, besides her. Adriana11 chose Ophelia’s death, abetted by the fact that there near the resort there was not only a river, but a waterfall and a river, and she12 had preferred the waterfall.’
Twelve grammatical subjects have been identified in (4-1). The first, Adriana, is a highly explicit full noun phrase. Although this participant has already been established as theme in the context of the discourse which precedes the passage given here, this particular reference to the DT occurs immediately after topical mention of other girls who perform several actions in the narrative. This competition for aboutness, as well as the juxtaposition to another participant (Margarita), promotes overtness, and the need to distinguish among possible referents is a factor working in favor of the more explicit full noun phrase as opposed to a less explicit personal pronoun. The subject numbered (2) is an instance of a zero subject of the “unspecified” sort discussed in Section 2.1. I have opted to translate this clause using the indefinite pronoun “someone” as an overt English subject. Another option would have been to passivize in the translation: ‘if she was insulted …’.
Conclusion
Subject (3), brat ì ‘her brother’, occurs in the first of two clauses providing information about its referent. Although this participant has already been introduced into the discourse, this is its first occurrence as a topic, triggering overtness. Note how this same participant is packaged as a zero subject (subject (5)) once this aboutness has been stabilized. Subject (4), va˘pros ‘issue/ problem/question’, itself explicit for semantic reasons, is not a serious threat to the brother’s aboutness, both because it is not the performer of a dynamic action in the narrative and because it occurs in a subordinate clause. The clause including subject (6) returns the aboutness of the narrative to Adriana, the previously established DT. The explicitness observed in subject (6) is promoted by both the major temporal shift in the narrative and the presence in the preceding context of the brother as strong competition for discourse-level aboutness. Once firmly reestablished, Adriana is then packaged as a zero subject three times (subjects (7), (8) and (9)), each in a clause subordinated to the main clause containing subject (6) with the temporal kogato ‘when’. Note that although the clause in which subject (9) occurs involves another significant temporal shift in the narrative, we see here illustration of the fact that such a major shift would necessarily trigger overtness only in a main clause, not in this subordinate clause. When the DT does finally occur again in a main clause after this temporal shift, reference is in fact overt (subject (11), Adriana). Here, however, there is another factor which also might be working in favor of the selection of a highly explicit form, namely the desire to unambiguously convey that it was Adriana rather than her lover or her lover’s wife who committed suicide. The final reference to Adriana is again overt (subject (12), tja ‘she’). There is here no threat of referential ambiguity, so although the contrast to Shakespeare’s Ophelia, who drowned in a river, entails overtness, it is a less explicit pronominal form that is selected. The one subject form not yet discussed, subject (10) (cˇoveka˘ t ‘the guy’), is being used as a clause-level topic for the first time and is part of an emotionally loaded message, both of which are factors conducive to the observed explicitness. The excerpt in (4-2) is also from a literary source. Unlike the narrative prose in (4-1), (4-2) represents an author’s attempt to reflect the use of the language in an oral dialogue. Once again the grammatical subjects have been underlined and numbered. (4-2) Subject Packaging in Literary Representation of Oral Dialogue — Ø1 Pribrax se u doma … — V kolko cˇasa?
Degrees of Explicitness
— Ø2 Ne znam … — Vse pak Ø3 trjabva da si pripomnite. [Radev se pozamisli:] — Ø4 Trjabva da besˇe ka˘m cˇetiri cˇasa. — Za vas tova5 ne e li rabotno vreme? — Ø6 Cˇesto go pravex, drugarju nacˇalnik. Nali Ø7 imame momcˇe ucˇenik. Ø8 Trjabva da si stoi v ka˘sˇti, da ucˇi … Pa˘k to9 kato vsicˇki momcˇeta … Az10 preskacˇax ponjakoga — za cˇetva˘rt cˇas, za polovin cˇas … Kolkoto da proverja, i Ø11 se vra˘sˇtax. — Dobre, proda˘lzˇavajte. — Ami Ø12 zavarix v ka˘sˇti zˇena si. Sina˘t mi go njamasˇ e. — No nali i tja13 raboti po tova vreme? — Tam e va˘prosa˘t14. Ø15 Besˇ e izbjagala ot rabota. (PV:417-18) ‘“ I1 got home …” “At what time?” “I2 don’t know …” “But you3 have to think back.” [Radev gave it some thought:] “It4 must have been near four o’clock.” “Isn’t that5 during your work time?” “I6 often did that, comrade commander. We7 have a school-aged boy, you know. He8 is supposed to stay home, to study . .. But he9, like all boys . .. I10 would pop over now and then — for fifteen minutes, for half an hour … Long enough to check, and I11 would return.” “Okay, go on.” “Well, I12 found my wife home. My son wasn’t there.” “But doesn’t she13 too work at that time? “That’s where the issue14 is. She15 skipped out of work.”’
At the point where this excerpt begins, the discourse-level aboutness of one of the participants in this conversation has already been firmly established. This participant, the husband of a murder victim, is being questioned by a police detective. He is relating to the detective what he did on the day of the murder. Each of the first three subjects indicated in (4-2) refers to this thematic and currently topical participant. As one would expect for such a stable theme (especially when the referent is first person (subjects (1) and (2)) or second person (subject (3)) in the oral mode) we find here the least explicit zero packaging.
Conclusion
The next two subjects (numbered (4) and (5)) are both rather vague in their reference, each referentially replaceable by something like vremeto ‘the time’, tova vreme ‘this time’ or cˇasa˘t ‘the hour’. This referent is packaged as a zero subject in the first of the two sentences. The second speaker, on the other hand, uses a more explicit demonstrative pronoun (tova ‘this’). Neither of these subjects represents a discourse-level theme, but notice the difference in clause-level topicality. In the first sentence under consideration here, the speaker uses a zero subject (4) for a topical participant — he has been asked what the time/hour was, and he is now identifying it. In the next sentence, however, the police detective is not asking for information about the hour. His purpose in asking this question is to obtain new information which is destined not for the “four o’clock file” or the “that hour file” in his memory, but rather which will be stored where other information about Radev (the victim’s husband) is kept. Especially in light of this bolstering of his aboutness, the zero packaging of this now first person DT in the next two subjects (as a singular in (6) and as part of a plural in (7)) is precisely what one would expect. What might at first glance be more suprising is the zero subject in (8). The speaker here begins to give information about his son, rather than about himself. One might wonder why a more explicit form is not used for this newly introduced participant. In Table 5 in 2.4.1 it was claimed that recent introduction into the discourse and a lack so far of association with a dynamic action is a contextual environment contributing to instability of aboutness. Recall, however, that this sort of weak level of establishment of aboutness was described as one of the causes of “variable thematic stability”. While this discourse-level status sometimes appears to be the only reason a language user opts for overt packaging (e.g. (2-60) in Chapter Two), there are other examples in the data (e.g. in (2-61), as well as in the case of subject (8) in (4-2) being discussed here) where zero packaging is selected despite this condition. The self-interrupted sentence containing subject (9), to ‘it’, is the second in this speaker’s comments about his son. Here juxtaposition/positive contrast to the set of all boys involves enough focus to promote overtness. The speaker then uses an overt first person pronominal form (subject (10)) as he reestablishes his own aboutness after the potential threat to this status on the discourse level posed by his comments about his son. Once reestablished, this aboutness is reflected in less explicit (zero) packaging in subjects (11) and (12). The conversation turns from Radev to his wife with the question in which we find subject (13). (And she continues to be the DT beyond what is given in (4-2)). In this first mention as a grammatical subject (i.e. subject (13)), the
Degrees of Explicitness
speaker uses an overt personal pronoun (tja ‘she’). There are a number of factors triggering or promoting overtness in this reference. In addition to the wife’s weakly established aboutness (which, as just discussed, results in variable thematic instability), two strong factors preclude zero packaging here — focus (she, too, as well as Radev should have been at work at four o’clock) and the need to avoid referential ambiguity. For this latter purpose the feminine pronoun suffices. It rules out the interpretation of the son, the topic of the immediately preceding clause, as the intended subject of this morphologically gender-neutral verb. Once these triggers of explicitness are gone, however, we find the more typical zero packaging of a topical DT in subject (15). The non-dynamic reference to va˘prosa˘t ‘the issue’ in subject (14), where overtness is necessary for participant identification, does not create the serious competition for aboutness that might destabilize that of Radev’s wife and trigger overtness in (15). The passage from Aleksova’s colloquial material in (4-3) represents oral monologue. This speaker here gives an uninterrupted description of taking care of her young children, with her son as the discourse theme. (4-3) Subject Packaging in Colloquial Oral Monologue I: Ami kakvo1 stava? Obsˇto vzeto Ø2 se opravjame. Toj3 ot vreme na vreme me nervira, ta Ø4 me izkarva ot nervi. Dojde Svetla5 tuka. Ama toj6 podivja. Ø7 Napravo ti kazvam. Ø8 Da˘rzˇa se otvratitelno. Ø9 Razliva sok tuka, ligavi, se bla˘ska. Az10 vzex da ja xranja, nali? Po edno vreme toj11 se bla˘ska v mene. Ø12 Bla˘ska ja neja. Ø13 Sˇtipe ja za kraka. Ama kakvo li ne. Az14 sa˘m sipala po edin sok sa˘s Svetla da pieme. Toj15 xodi, Ø16 vzima ì cˇasˇata. A be uzˇas, uzˇas. Kakvo17 mu stana izvednazˇ? (KA:1.5, excerpt 2) ‘I: Well, what’s1 up? On the whole, we’re2 getting better. From time to time he3 gets on my nerves, and he4 puts me over the top. Svetla5 came. And did he6 ever go wild. I’m7 telling you straight out. He8 behaved abominably. He9 spills juice here, slobbers, pushes. I10 began to feed her, you know? Suddenly he11 knocks into me. He12 jostles her. He13 pinches her leg. What doesn’t [he do]. I’ve14 poured a juice each for Svetla and me to drink. He15 comes, he16 takes her glass. Oh man, awful, awful. What17 was the matter with him all of a sudden?’
This oral description, given in direct response to another speaker’s inquiry (Kazˇi, kakvo stava? ‘Tell [me], what’s up?’), begins and ends with rhetorical questions. The grammatical subject in each of these (subjects (1) and (17), kakvo ‘what’) is necessarily explicit for semantic reasons — neither could be
Conclusion
replaced by a less explicit personal pronoun or zero subject without losing or changing the content of the intended message. The need to identify a participant in order to successfully convey the semantic content of the message is clearly relevant also in the selection of the ultimately explicit packaging for subject (5), Svetla. The speaker finds it necessary to explicitly name this individual being introduced here as a participant in the narrative. The zero subject in the second sentence (subject (2)) illustrates the point that in the oral mode a certain degree of continual aboutness is enjoyed by first and second person participants (the discourse participants). As seen in the case of subject (7) as well, this type of relevance in the speech situation produces a frequent and otherwise unexpected lack of explicitness in the packaging of first and second person subjects in the colloquial data. The other two occurrences of a first person subject in this passage are overt personal pronouns (subjects (10) and (14), az ‘I’). There is a significant difference between these overt forms on the one hand and the earlier first person zero forms on the other. Note that the two zero forms (subjects (2) and (7)) are connected directly to the speech event (the first occurs in an answer to the preceding speaker’s question and the second in a message making direct reference to the speech event itself). In the context of this oral encounter in progress, the speakers and listeners are constantly relevant and easily accessible without explicit packaging. In contrast, the overt first person subjects (10) and (14) refer to the speaker as a participant in the narrated event. In the context of the material being narrated, this speaker-participant does not enjoy the same stability of aboutness. Although topical at the clause level in both of these instances, it is the speaker’s son that is the discourse theme. The ten grammatical subjects in (4-3) not yet discussed all refer to this DT. For six of these, subjects (4), (8), (9), (12), (13) and (16), the speaker has selected the least explicit zero packaging. Each of these occurs in a context in which there is no threat of referential or other ambiguity, there is an absence of emphasis on this DT participant, and the aboutness of the DT is stable. This is in contrast to the contexts in which the four overt references to the son as a grammatical subject occur. In the first of these (subject (3)), the speaker establishes this aboutness. In the case of the second (subject (6)), the aboutness of the son has been destabilized by the topical reference to another participant (Svetla) as the performer of a dynamic action in the narrative. Once aboutness has been reestablished, the speaker returns to zero packaging of the DT as topical subject (subjects (8) and (9)). Note also how subject (7), who performs an action outside the narrated material, does not destabilize the son’s aboutness
Degrees of Explicitness
(allowing zero packaging in subject (8)). This contrasts with the destabilizing influence of the referent of subject (5), who does perform an action within the narrated material, as just discussed. Finally we come to the last two overt references to the DT as grammatical subject (subjects (11) and (15)). As was true of subject (6), these two overt forms occur immediately after reference to a strong competitor for aboutness (i.e., performers of dynamic actions in the narrative). In the case of overt subject (11) and (15) the competition comes from the speaker’s reference to herself as an active participant in the narrated events. This pattern (i.e., six instances of zero packaging with stable themehood opposing three instances of more explicit packaging precisely after the introduction of another competitive participant) is striking, and is not, I would argue, mere coincidence. This example, however, does highlight the difficulty involved in isolating particular factors as the indisputable triggers of overtness. As is so often the case, more than one factor conducive to explicitness is present in the contexts of subjects (6), (11) and (15), making it impossible to claim that it can only be the competition for aboutness that necessitates the overtness of these subjects. For both subject (6) and subject (11) there is not only a competitor for aboutness, but also a competitor for reference. In the context of each there is a female participant (Svetla for (6) and the baby sister being fed for (11)) which might be taken as the subject participant if the overt masculine pronoun toj ‘he’ were replaced by zero. It is true that there would be no threat of referential ambiguity were overt subject (15) replaced by a zero form.89 Here, however, the degree of emphasis involved in the contrast between Svetla (for whom the juice was intended) and the son (who came and took the juice) could be cited as a factor promoting explicitness. Such coincidence of potential triggers of overtness is the norm, and longer or random excerpts from the data are likely to include them as a majority among overt forms. Illustrations of the various factors occurring in isolation can be found in the carefully selected individual examples cited in the relevant sections of Chapters Two and Three. Like the excerpt in (4-3), (4-4) is from the colloquial oral data. Here, however, we see part of a discourse created by two speakers rather than one (i.e., (4-4) illustrates participant explicitness in a dialogue, as opposed to the monologue in (4-3)). (4-4) Subject Packaging in Colloquial Oral Dialogue T: Taka kakto Ø1 glasisˇ taja vecˇerja, Ø2 sˇte se zabavim. Ø3 Ne znam, Ø4 rjadko se vizˇdame, da ti kazˇa. I: I Ø5 xubav praznik imame.
Conclusion
T: Dneska da. Edin ot naj-xubavite ba˘lgarski praznici. Ti6 mnogo li xodisˇ po komandirovki? I: Mnogo, mnogo. T: Ami detenceto koj7 go gleda? I: Majka, Krasi. T: Tja8 xodi na gradina? Kak, Ø9 besˇe na gradina li? (KA:4.4, excerpt 2) ‘T: The way you’re1 preparing this dinner, we’ll2 stick around. I3 don’t know, we4 don’t see each other often, to be honest. I: And we5 have a fine holiday. T: Today, yes. One of the finest Bulgarian holidays. Do you6 go on business trips a lot? I: A lot, a lot. T: But who7 takes care of the child? I: Mother, Krasi. T: She’s8 in kindergarten? What, was she9 in kindergarten?’
This dialogue takes place between two friends who have not seen each other in a long time. Speaker T and her husband are visiting the home of speaker I and her husband. In the opening lines of this excerpt the speakers are commenting on how they are all finally getting together, and all four participants enjoy the type of stable aboutness conducive to zero packaging (a second person zero referring to speaker I for subject (1), a first person zero referring to speaker T and her husband for subject (2), a first person zero referring to speaker T for subject (3), and first person zeros referring to speakers T and I (and perhaps including their husbands) for subjects (4) and (5)). After adding her opinion of the holiday (May 24th), speaker T then uses an overt second person personal pronoun (subject (6)) in requesting information about her addressee (speaker I). The reason for the selection of this greater degree of explicitness cannot be one of concern over referential ambiguity — the inflectional morphology of the verb in question (xodisˇ ‘go’) unambiguously indicates agreement with a second person singular subject. Two other factors which might be leading speaker T to this increased explicitness do come to mind, however. First, it is possible that overtness is caused by some type of focus not evident from the linguistic context. Perhaps, for instance, speaker T is mentally contrasting speaker I (who she has heard travels frequently) to herself (who rarely gets away from home). A second motivator of explicitness here might be the temporal reference accompanying the thematic shift in the conversation. With the sentence in question speaker T
Degrees of Explicitness
moves the conversation from a discussion of the current get-together, with its local time frame, to a discussion of how things are going in the lives of her friend and this friend’s family, with a more global time frame. Speaker T’s next question requests information about a direct object (the child referred to is speaker I’s daughter), and non-topical subject (7), koj ‘who’, is highly explicit for clear semantic reasons. Speaker I’s daughter is then packaged as an overt pronominal subject (8) in the first sentence in speaker T’s last contribution in the excerpt. Although the daughter at this point is thematic at the discourse level and in fact was already used as a clause-level topic (in the sentence containing subject (7)), this overtness can be attributed to the instability (of the “variable” variety) of aboutness — the participant has only recently been introduced into the discourse and has not yet been associated with any dynamic action. In the final sentence, in contrast, the speaker’s apparent feeling that aboutness now has been established is reflected in the less explicit zero packaging of this same participant (subject (9)).
. Degree of explicitness in the packaging of direct and indirect objects ..
Summary of relevant factors discussed
A comparison of Chapter Two to Chapter Three reveals an essential similarity in regard to basic packaging preferences and tendencies. For direct and indirect objects as well as for subjects the data suggest a tendency to use less explicitness when possible, but to override this basic preference for brevity when certain features are present. In large part both the features themselves and also whether or not the degree of explicitness with which they are associated is obligatory are identical between subject packaging and object packaging. It should be noted again, however, that the preference for brevity in the expression of objects does not lead to the least explicit zero form, but rather to the prevalent selection of SPP objects (the short form personal pronouns).90 There are two other primary ways in which object explicitness differs from subject explicitness. First, the fact that there are six basic degrees of explicitness available, rather than three, makes possible finer distinctions in the distributions and functions of the various object types. One example of this has to do with the influence of emphasis on explicitness. In the case of
Conclusion
subjects, the zero form can be seen as negatively marked for focus (incompatible with the packaging of participants being emphasized), while the other two degrees of explicitness are unmarked in this regard. Within the system of object packaging, however, more distinctions are made. While the most explicit forms here too are unmarked for focus (capable of expressing both focused and non-focused participants), there are for objects two (rather than one) degrees of explicitness available that unambiguously signal an absence of focus. These are the Z and SPP — zero objects and short form personal pronouns. Furthermore, again differing from the expression of grammatical subjects, there is also a degree of explicitness available which unambiguously signals to the addressee the presence of focus (the LPP — the non-reduplicated long form personal pronoun).91 Another example of the greater functional potential of the more numerous degrees of explicitness available in object packaging can be seen by noting that for subjects there is only one factor that might be categorized as involving the indication of participant involvement (namely, the avoidance of impersonal interpretations). Compare this to the summary list for objects below, where five such factors are cited as relevant (points 4 through 8). The other fundamental way in which object packaging differs from subject packaging in terms of the effects of information structure on selection of degree of explicitness relates directly to aboutness. While established aboutness at the discourse level promotes a low degree of explicitness for both subjects and objects (zero packaging for the former, short form personal pronouns for the latter), only for subjects does clause-level aboutness work in favor of this lack of explicitness. In the case of direct and indirect objects, which are grammatical roles not typically associated with clause-level topicality in the first place, the relatively unusual presence of this clause-level feature can actually lead to a particular type of increased explicitness. More specifically, Bulgarian language users have at their disposal R-PP and R-FNP objects, the reduplicated pronominal and non-pronominal constructions, as a means to signal for their addressees this unexpected clause-level status. As discussed in 3.4.2, this overt marker of object topicality is employed most often in cases where the clause-level aboutness of the object participant is even further unexpected due to not being a theme, or at least not being a stable theme, at the discourse level. The major contextual and communicative factors discussed in Chapter Three as influential in the degree of explicitness selected in the packaging of direct and indirect objects are summarized below. I have placed an asterisk
Degrees of Explicitness
next to those factors also applicable in an identical or highly parallel way to subject packaging. The phrase “personal pronoun or full NP” in this summary should be taken to include both non-reduplicated and reduplicated variants. I have again listed semantic factors first (1-9). Those involving focus (10-12) follow. The last two (13-14) address aboutness. *1. Introducing a new participant into the discourse promotes explicitness (reduplicated or non-reduplicated full NP). *2. Reintroducing a participant absent over an extended stretch of discourse promotes explicitness (reduplicated or non-reduplicated full NP). *3. The need to distinguish among two or more potential referents promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP, depending on the gender, number, and person differences among these potential referents). 4. The need to indicate the presence of a relevant experiencer rather than merely relate a generally applicable state promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 5. The need to avoid a reflexive interpretation of certain verbs promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 6. The need to indicate that some other participant is a grammatical subject rather than a direct object promotes explicitness (personal pronoun or full NP). 7. The need to indicate that the given participant is a direct object rather than a subject promotes explicitness (reduplicated full NP rather than non-reduplicated full NP). 8. The need to indicate that a participant is an indirect rather than direct object in the event of colloquial “na-drop” promotes explicitness (reduplicated rather than non-reduplicated packaging). *9. The need or desire to convey additional information about a participant promotes explicitness (reduplicated or non-reduplicated full NP). The explicit noun may itself lexically indicate this information or may provide a head for adjectival forms which do so. *10. The presence of focus on a participant, either contrastive or non-contrastive, promotes explicitness (reduplicated or non-reduplicated long form personal pronoun or reduplicated or non-reduplicated full NP). 11. The absence of focus on a participant precludes packaging with a nonreduplicated long form personal pronoun. *12. Heavy emotion, including emotional name-calling, promotes explicitness (reduplicated or non-reduplicated full NP).
Conclusion
13. Stable aboutness at the discourse level (firmly established discourse themehood, regardless of topicality) promotes less explicitness (short form personal pronoun). 14. Topicality at the clause level of non-DTs and poorly established DTs, particularly in the colloquial style, promotes explicitness (reduplicated personal pronoun or reduplicated full NP). ...
Illustration of object explicitness in the data
In a manner parallel to that in which subject explicitness was illustrated above, I will in what follows again use excerpts from the four major discourse types to demonstrate how the factors just enumerated work together to produce patterns of direct and indirect object packaging in coherent written and oral texts. It will be seen that here too, as in the packaging of grammatical subjects, there is very often more than one feature present prompting a certain level of explicitness. And here too in the case of simultaneous competing features the one promoting greater explicitness prevails. I will use here the same excerpts cited in (4-1) through (4-4). These excerpts are repeated below, numbered (4-5) through (4-8), with the objects instead of the subjects being underlined and numbered. The passage in (4-5) is the one cited above as (4-1) as an example of narrative prose from a literary source. (4-5) Object Packaging in Literary Narrative Prose Adriana imasˇe kato Margarita po-goljam brat1, ako ja2 obidexa ili ì3 sa˘zdavaxa neudobstva i neprijatnosti4, brat ì, edro nava˘seno momcˇe, se javjavasˇe i pitasˇe za kakvo stava va˘pros, njamasˇe nuzˇda5 da idva vtori pa˘t. Sigurno godini po-ka˘sno Adriana ne go6 be izcˇakala, kogato po vreme na pocˇivka v planinski kurort se zapozna s krasiv mlad cˇovek, ostavi se da ja7 ubedi da poseti stajata mu8, a posle razbra, cˇe cˇoveka˘t e zˇenen i obicˇa i semejstvoto si9 osven neja. Adriana izbra sma˘rtta na Ofelija10, podsilena ot obstojatelstvoto, cˇe tam kraj kurortnija grad njamasˇe samo reka11, a vodopad i reka i tja be predpocˇela vodopada12. (IM:25) ‘Like Margarita, Adriana had a big brother1, if someone would insult her2 or make things4 difficult for her3, her brother, a large surly boy, would appear and would ask what the problem was about, he didn’t have to [more literally: ‘had no need5 to’] come back a second time.
Degrees of Explicitness
Undoubtedly years later Adriana hadn’t waited for him6 when, during a vacation at a mountain resort, she met a handsome young man, allowed herself7 to be talked into visiting his room8, and later found out that the guy had a wife and loved his family9 too, besides her. Adriana chose Ophelia’s death10, abetted by the fact that there near the resort there was not only a river11, but a waterfall and a river, and she had preferred the waterfall12.’
Recall from the earlier discussion that the discourse theme in this excerpt is Adriana. This participant is packaged as an overt subject in the opening clause of the excerpt due to competition for aboutness in the immediately preceding context (not given here). The direct object in this clause (object (1), po-goljam brat ‘a big brother’) is also packaged with a highly explicit full noun phrase other than a personal pronoun, it being that this participant is introduced here into the discourse for the first time. The next clause also contains an example of a high degree of explicitness for a new discourse participant where a less explicit form would fail to identify the intended participant for the addressee (object (4), neudobstva i neprijatnosti ‘inconveniences and troubles’). Once the aboutness of Adriana has been reestablished in the opening clause, the two references to this discourse theme in the second clause (direct object (2), ja ‘her’, and indirect object (3), ì ‘for her’) involve SPP packaging. This is what is expected in the case of stable aboutness with no other explicitness-triggering factors present. Another example of this type of packaging of the DT is found in object (7) later in the passage. More instances of the need for a high degree of explicitness in identifying participants being introduced into the discourse are seen in this passage in the non-pronominal full noun phrases employed in objects (5), (8), (9), (10) and (11). Objects (9) and (11) further involve the type of focus that would preclude the least explicit zero and short pronominal packaging. As for object (12), vodopada ‘the waterfall’, both a heavy, even emotional, emphasis and the desire to clearly distinguish among potential referents can be seen as responsible for the explicitness. Two more points should be made here concerning the packaging of participants with short personal pronouns. First, note that in every instance of selection of one of these relatively inexplicit forms, the fact that the absence of focus precludes the use of a non-reduplicated long form personal pronoun is relevant. Second, it must be kept in mind that aboutness is not a prerequisite
Conclusion
for short pronominal packaging. This is demonstrated by the author’s use of the SPP go ‘him’ as object (6). This highlights the fact that stable aboutness at the discourse level should be characterized as one which promotes (rather than one which licenses) the selection of these forms. The excerpt in (4-6) is an example of a written literary attempt to portray oral discourse. (4-6) Object Packaging in Literary Representation of Oral Dialogue — Pribrax se u doma … — V kolko cˇasa? — Ne znam … — Vse pak trjabva da si pripomnite. [Radev se pozamisli:] — Trjabva da besˇe ka˘m cˇetiri cˇasa. — Za vas tova ne e li rabotno vreme? — Cˇesto go1 pravex, drugarju nacˇalnik. Nali imame momcˇe ucˇenik2. Trjabva da si stoi v ka˘sˇti, da ucˇi … Pa˘k to kato vsicˇki momcˇeta … Az preskacˇax ponjakoga — za cˇetva˘rt cˇas, za polovin cˇas … Kolkoto da proverja Ø3, i se vra˘sˇtax. — Dobre, proda˘lzˇavajte Ø4. — Ami zavarix v ka˘sˇti zˇena si5. Sina˘t mi go6 njamasˇe. — No nali i tja raboti po tova vreme? — Tam e va˘prosa˘t. Besˇe izbjagala ot rabota. (PV:417-18) ‘“ I got home …” “At what time?” “I don’t know …” “But you have to think back.” [Radev gave it some thought:] “It must have been near four o’clock.” “Isn’t that during your work time?” “I often did that1, comrade commander. We have a school-aged boy2, you know. He is supposed to stay home, to study . .. But he, like all boys . .. I would pop over now and then — for fifteen minutes, for half an hour … Long enough to check Ø3, and I would return.” “Okay, go on [more literally: ‘continue Ø4’].” “Well, I found my wife5 home. My son6 wasn’t there.” “But doesn’t she, too, work at that time? “That’s where the issue is. She skipped out of work.”’
Degrees of Explicitness
As noted above in the discussion of the subject explicitness in this passage, the aboutness of one of the two participants in the dialogue, a man relating to a police detective what he was doing on the day of the murder of his wife, has already been established at the point where this excerpt begins. This discourse themehood continues into the excerpt. The aboutness of this participant at both the discourse and clause levels leads to his packaging as a zero subject in the clause containing the first indicated object (go ‘it’) about midway into the excerpt. The use of an SPP object here is another illustration of the point just made that stable aboutness is conducive to but is not a prerequisite for short pronominal packaging. In this regard aboutness is unlike the absence of focus and the absence of referential and other sorts of potential ambiguity, which are prerequisites to the use of this low degree of explicitness. Of the remaining five objects in (4-6), three (objects (2), (5) and (6)) are highly explicit. In each of these we see reflected the need for explicit reference in order to identify a participant being introduced into the discourse or being reintroduced after an extended stretch of discourse. Objects (2) and (5) occur in clauses in which it is the grammatical subject (packaged as zero in both cases) which is a topical DT. So long as these objects are not intended to be clause-level topics, reduplication is precluded. Reduplicated direct object (6), in contrast, is topical in its clause which provides information about the DT’s son. This object thus illustrates the observation made earlier that clause-level aboutness of non-DTs (or poorly established DTs) promotes the type of explicitness represented by reduplication. Finally, the two remaining objects in this excerpt involve the least explicit packaging available — non-overt zero. The zero in object (3) refers to the son being checked on. Object (4) can be interpreted as having been selected in place of a more explicit noun phrase along the lines of povestvovanieto ‘the narrative’. Both are typical of the instances of zero packaging of objects found in the data in that they represent non-focused, non-topical participants whose identity is recoverable by the addressee without overt reference. In the monologue from the oral data in (4-7) we find nine direct or indirect objects. Recall from the discussion of this excerpt earlier (as (4-3)) that the speaker’s DT here is her young son. (4-7) Object Packaging in Colloquial Oral Monologue I: Ami kakvo stava? Obsˇto vzeto se opravjame. Toj ot vreme na vreme me1 nervira, ta me2 izkarva ot nervi. Dojde Svetla tuka. Ama toj podivja. Napravo ti3 kazvam. Da˘rzˇa se otvratitelno.
Conclusion
Razliva sok4 tuka, ligavi, se bla˘ska. Az vzex da ja5 xranja, nali? Po edno vreme toj se bla˘ska v mene. Bla˘ska ja neja6. Sˇtipe ja7 za kraka. Ama kakvo li ne. Az sa˘m sipala po edin sok sa˘s Svetla da pieme. Toj xodi, vzima ì cˇasˇata8. A be uzˇas, uzˇas. Kakvo mu9 stana izvednazˇ? (KA:1.5, excerpt 2) ‘I: Well, what’s up? On the whole, we’re getting better. From time to time he gets on my1 nerves, and he puts me2 over the top. Svetla came. And did he ever go wild. I’m telling you3 straight out. He behaved abominably. He spills juice4 here, slobbers, pushes. I began to feed her5, you know? Suddenly he knocks into me. He jostles her6. He pinches her7 leg. What doesn’t [he do]. I’ve poured a juice each for Svetla and me to drink. He comes, he takes her glass8. Oh man, awful, awful. What was the matter with him [more literally: ‘what happened to him9’] all of a sudden?’
In most of the references to the son in this passage, this DT is packaged in the grammatical role of subject. In the one instance where the speaker uses this DT as an object (indirect object (9)), we find the typical SPP packaging we would expect for an object with stable aboutness at the discourse level in the absence of any other factors promoting a higher degree of explicitness. The other six pronominal objects (objects (1), (2), (3), (5), (6) and (7)) all refer to participants other than the DT. The first four of these demonstrate again that aboutness is not a prerequisite to SPP packaging. In the clauses containing objects (1) and (2) the DT is topical, and in the clauses containing objects (3) and (5) the narrator uses herself as a clause-level topic in the grammatical subject role. The sentences containing objects (6) and (7) are the primary reason I selected this excerpt for discussion. They illustrate the fact that although it appears to be a relatively rare phenomenon, it is possible to make a comment about two participants simultaneously.92 In these sentences the speaker continues to provide information about the DT, adding to the list of things this son does and contributing to the developing description of his unruly behavior. In both sentences this topical, established DT is packaged with the expected zero subject. At the same time, however, the listener receives information which can appropriately be filed where other information about the daughter is kept — the poor girl was jostled and pinched while she was trying to eat. The speaker uses a reduplicated R-PP object (object (6), ja neja ‘her’) rather than the L-PP non-reduplicated long form personal pronoun (neja
Degrees of Explicitness
‘her’), which also would have been possible in the presence of focus. In so doing the speaker indicates for the listener the unexpected topicality of this non-thematic object. Having overtly marked this status once, the speaker apparently does not feel it necessary to do so again in object (7). The two remaining forms indicated in (4-7) are direct objects packaged with highly explicit non-pronominal noun phrases (sok ‘juice’ for object (4) and ì cˇasˇata ‘her glass’ for object (8)). In both cases a less explicit form would fail to identify the referent of the noun phrase for the listener, and a more explicit reduplicated R-FNP object would be inappropriate due to the absence of participant topicality. Finally we come to (4-8), the excerpt cited as an example of colloquial dialogue from the oral data in (4-4). (4-8) Object Packaging in Colloquial Oral Dialogue T: Taka kakto glasisˇ taja vecˇerja1, sˇte se zabavim. Ne znam, rjadko se vizˇdame, da ti2 kazˇa. I: I xubav praznik3 imame. T: Dneska da. Edin ot naj-xubavite ba˘lgarski praznici. Ti mnogo li xodisˇ po komandirovki? I: Mnogo, mnogo. T: Ami detenceto koj go4 gleda? I: Majka, Krasi. T: Tja xodi na gradina? Kak, besˇe na gradina li? (KA:4.4, excerpt 2) ‘T: The way you’re preparing this dinner1, we’ll stick around. I don’t know, we don’t see each other often, to be honest [more literally: ‘to tell you2’]. I: And we have a fine holiday3. T: Today, yes. One of the finest Bulgarian holidays. Do you go on business trips a lot? I: A lot, a lot. T: But who takes care of the child4? I: Mother, Krasi. T: She’s in kindergarten? What, was she in kindergarten?’
There are only four objects in (4-8), indirect object (2) and direct objects (1), (3) and (4). In the packaging of the indirect object the speaker uses an SPP form where there is no need for greater explicitness in reference to a nontopical, non-thematic second person participant in the conversation. The first two direct objects (taja vecˇerja ‘this dinner’ and xubav praznik ‘a fine holiday’)
Conclusion
involve a degree of explicitness necessary for clarity of reference in the introduction of new participants into the discourse. Perhaps most interesting is the R-FNP reduplicated form employed in the packaging of object (4), detenceto go ‘the child’. In addition to selecting a full noun phrase in order to identify the intended participant, the speaker here also opts to reduplicate, thereby marking overtly the clause-level topic status of a participant whose aboutness is highly unexpected, due both to its role as object rather than subject and to its only currently being introduced.
.
Concluding remarks
Degree of explicitness in the packaging of participants involves the selection among available noun phrase types for reference to the entities involved in communicated events. Together with word order and intonation, degree of explicitness plays a crucial role in imparting certain central aspects of messages. These aspects, having to do with relevance and emphasis, form part of what may be referred to as the “information structure” (as opposed to the information content) of the message. By making choices within these parameters (explicitness, word order and intonation), language users convey to their addressees which parts of their communications are to be interpreted as points of focus and aboutness. The relevant formal linguistic aspects of oral and written language use are thus key features in communication, both in the presentation of messages on the part of speakers and writers and in the processing of incoming messages by listeners and readers (with intonation being overtly accessible only in the case of oral communication). Although all three parameters are clearly important, it is an account of the role played in communication by participant explicitness in Bulgarian which is the primary goal of the preceding study. (The most salient aspects of the interrelationship among word order, clause-level stress and information structure are briefly outlined in Section 1.2.) Both in the packaging of grammatical subjects (see 2.1) and even more so in the packaging of direct and indirect objects (see 3.1), Bulgarian is a language with a wealth of available means for expressing or reflecting information structure features. As illustrated in detail in 2.2 and 3.2, however, this wealth of forms also figures prominently in the conveyance of actual information content. The choice of a more, rather than less, explicit packaging method can serve to clarify referential identity (see 2.2.1 and 3.2.1), participant role in the
Degrees of Explicitness
communicated event (see 2.2.2 and 3.2.2) and semantic information about the participant in question (see 2.2.3 and 3.2.3). Concerning specifically information structure features, it is in relation to focus that choice of degree of explicitness is connected in the most straightforward and consistent way. For both subjects and objects there is a clear correlation between a low degree of explicitness (zero subjects and zero and short form clitic personal pronoun objects) and absence of focus. There is also a correlation between some of the more explicit packaging options (doubled subject packaging and non-reduplicated long form personal pronoun objects) and the presence of focus. It is true that nominative personal pronouns and long form and reduplicated non-nominative personal pronouns are compatible with focus. One can also observe, however, an increased likelihood of selecting an overt noun phrase other than a personal pronoun in the packaging a subject or object when in addition to emphasis on the participant in question the communication is also marked by a high level of emotion or excitement. As portrayed in detail in 2.4 (for subjects) and 3.4 (for direct and indirect objects), and as summarized and illustrated in the preceding section of the current chapter, the interrelationship between degree of explicitness and aboutness as a feature of information structure is more complex. There is a correlation between aboutness and relatively low degree of explicitness common to both subjects and objects, but this statement of a general correlation is an oversimplified one requiring important additional commentary. A significant portion of Chapters Two and Three was devoted to explicating the interaction of the effects of participant aboutness and various other relevant factors. I will not repeat details here, but a summary of two points will provide an indication of the relatively complex nature of the role of this feature of information structure in the packaging decisions made by Bulgarian language users. First, it may be noted that there is a major difference between the packaging of subjects and the packaging of objects in cases where the nature of the contextual aboutness does in fact promote a relatively low degree of explicitness. In the case of grammatical subjects, it is the least explicit form, the nonovert zero subject, which is the packaging method of choice (other factors permitting) when aboutness is established and expected. For direct and indirect objects, on the other hand, it is the second least explicit form, the short form personal pronoun, that enjoys this favored status in the packaging of such participants. The least explicit zero object packaging is not generally connected with contextual aboutness.
Conclusion
Second, and more significant, there is the matter of there being two relevant levels at which aboutness can be assessed and the fact that the two levels are not relevant in the same ways for subjects and for objects. In subject packaging both aboutness at the discourse level (discourse themehood) and aboutness at the clause level (topicality) work in favor of less explicit packaging. A number of features of discourse structure (not all of equal strength, and not all equally applicable to oral versus written communication) were outlined and illustrated as at least potentially disruptive of the stability of participant aboutness and, therefore, as potential motivators of a higher degree of explicitness. For direct and indirect objects, in contrast, it is only aboutness at the discourse level which finds straightforward correlation with increased likelihood of relatively inexplicit (short form pronominal) packaging. Clause-level topicality, on the other hand, is actually associated with two of the most explicit packaging methods (i.e., the two reduplicated object types). The fact that topical objects are statistically infrequent makes them relatively unexpected as such. This renders the information structure of messages containing them potentially more difficult for addressees to accurately assess. Reduplication can then logically be seen as having developed into a means for language users, especially in the more colloquial style, to facilitate message processing by signaling this unusual aspect of the information structure of the clause for the addressee overtly. I will close by noting again that the conclusions presented herein are based on the adoption of the proposed approach to analyzing topicality and focus. The successful application of this approach, which might be labeled CAP (clausal aboutness perspective) as opposed to the more traditional version of FSP (functional sentence perspective), to the data at hand critically rests on several of its key features: 1) the unit of speech at which topicality is assessed is the clause, not the sentence; 2) topicality is seen as a function of aboutness — there is no consistent or necessary correlation between topicality and definiteness or givenness; and 3) topicality and focus are not viewed as mutually exclusive statuses in information structure. What all of this basically comes down to is that there is a linguistically relevant status in Bulgarian that can be characterized as clause-level aboutness, pure and simple, with no constraints along any other parameters.93 That this status, defined specifically in this simple way, can play such a central role in message production (and processing) is highly provocative in that it raises the possibility of fruitful application in analyzing linguistic phenomena of other sorts or in other languages.
Notes . It is certainly possible to make finer distinctions here. One might, for example, break non-pronominal forms down further into proper versus common nouns, and to distinguish among the latter between those which are part of definite noun phrases and those which are not, between those adjectivally modified and those which are not, or between those with contextually specific reference and those without. Among pronominal forms one might treat demonstratives or negative pronouns, for instance, as separate categories. My failure to do so here is not merely a simplification for illustrative purposes — it also reflects the level of discrimination necessary in the analysis of the determining role of the factors addressed in the present study of Bulgarian participant explicitness. . Comparisons of subject overtness tendencies in Bulgarian and Russian can be found in Doncˇeva 1975, using Bulgarian translation of Russian original material, and in Leafgren 2000, using Russian translation of Bulgarian original material. Both of these studies observe the relatively more frequent use of zero subjects in Bulgarian than in Russian. See also Lindseth’s 1998 study, which compares zero subject phenomena in the Slavic languages, with particular attention to Czech and Sorbian as representatives of the West Slavic group, Russian as an East Slavic language, and Serbo-Croatian as a southern representative. . The cited passage also includes one place where the Russian translator has been less explicit than the Bulgarian author of the original. In the first sentence of the second paragraph Ralcˇev is mentioned pronominally as the possessor of the “only guide” in the Bulgarian (and in my English translation) (Edinstvenijat mu spravocˇnik ‘his only guide’). The Russian translation lacks this explicit reference to a possessor. The question as to whether this example reflects a significant pattern in the packaging of possessors will be set aside as being beyond the scope of the present study. . The difference in word order position of the verb e ‘is’ in (1-3b) reflects a prosodic rule against clause-initial clitics. . This account of possible interpretations is in keeping with my own instincts as a native speaker of English, and is supported by a simple, informal test I conducted. I wrote a short letter, including this passage but without any other reference to the sister or her husband, gave this letter to another native speaker, and asked what her impression of the husband was. She immediately offered the first impression suggested above — that the man is lazy. I then gave my test subject a second version of the letter, identical to the first except that the three occurrences of “He” were underlined. This time my informant felt that the man might be sexist. . Although stated too strongly if taken as suggesting that emphasis is the only motivation for the overt nominative personal pronouns, the following claim in Cyxun 1962b (120) very clearly asserts the connection of these forms to emphasis:
Notes
In the South Slavic languages, unlike in Russian, the personal pronoun in the nom[inative] case is used in those cases where it is necessary to emphasize the entity in a special way or to contrast it to another. In the remaining cases the pronoun is absent. . More literally speaker T says here ‘… with one bullet’. The Bulgarian expression s edin kursˇum dva zaeka ‘with one bullet two rabbits’ is at least roughly equivalent in meaning to the English “to kill two birds with one stone”. . Notice also the use of the reduplicated object taja terasa … ja ‘this terrace’ earlier in this excerpt in a clause giving information (in the form of its intended future) about an object in M’s first contribution. I have opted here, and in similar instances of reduplication in other examples, not to follow the advice of an anonymous reviewer who suggested that I reflect the Bulgarian reduplication by using double reference in my English translation. Doing so might result in a focusing effect not necessarily present in the Bulgarian originals. Even when there is contextual focus on the referent of a reduplicated object, it is not the reduplication itself that conveys this focus (see Sections 3.3 and 3.4). . Even for participants firmly established and stable as the current discourse theme, however, a greater degree of explicitness may be called for by other factors (e.g. emphasis). These factors will figure prominently in the discussions of subject packaging (Chapter Two) and direct and indirect object packaging (Chapter Three). . Brown and Yule here are describing the pragmatic nature of discourse analysis. . Dyer 1992 (46-52) includes a concise, informative description of the diversity among some of the most prominent treatments of sentential intonation. . See, for instance, the extensive sets of sentence types distinguished frequently by intonation pattern as well as by other factors, such as word order, in Georgieva 1974 and Dyer 1992. . Dyer cites here Halliday 1967 in connection with rhematic stress, and Sˇevjakova 1977 (109) in connection with emphatic stress. . Although one can question a mandatory association between topicality and status as known or given information (see Firbas 1964 (273), concurring with Trávnícˇek 1961), this aspect of communication is basically described by Haviland and Clark’s (1974:512) “GivenNew Strategy”: “the listener, in comprehending a sentence, first searches memory for antecedent information that matches the sentence’s Given information; he then revises memory by attaching the New information to that antecedent.” Note also the following from volume 3 of the Academy Grammar 1983 (280): The purpose of the topic is to establish a premise on the basis of information shared (known to the listener) by both of them in the processes of the communication, for the speaker (in a broad sense) to prepare the listener (also in a broad sense) for the acquisition of the new information intended for him. . Ivancˇev (1957:500), for instance, describes the topic (osnova) as known (izvestno) and given (dadeno), and the comment (jadka) as unknown (neizvestno) and new (novo). Volume 3 of the Academy Grammar (1983:116) parenthetically equates topic (osnova) with given
Notes
(dadeno) and starting point (izxoden punkt), and comment (jadka) with nucleus (jadro) and new (novoto). Ivancˇev 1978 [1968] uses the descriptive labels exposition (ekspozicija) and culmination (kulminacija) for the basic notions topic and comment, respectively. The concept of degree of communicative dynamism, defined as “the extent to which the sentence element contributes to the development of the communication, to which it ‘pushes the communication forward’ as it were” is seen as the key in distinguishing themes from rhemes in Firbas 1964 (270). . Rudin uses examples with complementizers such as dali ‘whether’ to illustrate her contention that there are separate positions for preverbal topics and for preverbal focused items, the former preceding the complementizer and the latter following it. In a footnote (21) Rudin explains that she uses the English “as for X” expression to indicate the topic, even though it suggests less naturalness than the Bulgarian being translated. . The pronominal form ì ‘to her’ is coreferential with and is said to be reduplicating the noun Marija. This phenomenon will be discussed in Chapter Three, with specific regard to its connection to topic status of the object. . I have taken the liberty of simplifying the presentation of Motapanyane’s example here in omitting indicators of co-indexation and the symbol marking the trace left by movement of the direct object. . Specific mention of contrastive emphasis has more relevance to semantic- and discourse-sensitive issues than it does to the notion of prosodically conveyed information, since, as Pencˇev (1998:198) points out, the strength of the stress does not distinguish whether or not the emphasis is contrastive. Nichols (1985:170), looking at Russian material, also draws a connection between sentence-level aboutness and “focus of contrast”. Somewhat curious to me is the fact that Dyer (1992), who does recognize that not all emphatically stressed elements belong to the rheme, asserts, citing Pencˇev 1980 (65), that it is precisely contrastive stress which is one type of emphatic stress that always indicates the rheme (50). (For examples which illustrate that contrastive stress may in fact fall on a topic, see the indicated noun phrases in (2-28), (2-31) or (2-40) in Chapter Two or (3-77) in Chapter Three.) . The authors of volume 3 of the Academy Grammar (1983:285) are describing precisely this sort of manipulation of word order patterns when they write: … if in the linguistic system and in our knowledge of it there did not exist a unit of measurement (a basic word order design, model, regularity, norm), in comparison with which to distinguish the reorganization, the breaking up, in a word, if the contrast and the opposition between the types of word order realizations were lacking, the unusual in relation to the usual, the calm in relation to the excited and the emotional in relation to the unemotional would not be felt and perceived. . Where Ivancˇev relates subjective ordering to strong emotional agitation, Popov’s wording is somewhat less extreme when he writes that subjective order is used “in excitement or in stronger emotional agitation” (pri razva˘lnuvanost ili pri po-silna emocionalna va˘zbuda) (220) [emphasis mine].
Notes . Compare these to the examples of “focus-presupposition articulation” given in Andrews 1985 (79-80): a) b)
The man killed a bear (contrastive stress on focus) It’s a bear that the man killed (it-cleft).
. These sentences contain examples of object reduplication. In each the direct object is reduplicated by the clitic pronoun ja ‘her’/’it’. . For a detailed history of this approach, see Dyer 1992 (2-12). . This view is similar to Givón’s (1992:5) description: “Referents (“topics”) serve as file labels in the episodic memory for stored text.” . That the absence of an overt subject is not automatic in the bez da … ‘without …’ construction can be seen in the following example (underlining mine): Bez toj da napravi tova (Pencˇev 1998:133) ‘Without his doing this’. . The Bulgarian verb form in this subordinate clause, unlike its English counterpart in my translation, does exhibit inflectional agreement with the deleted third person singular subject. This inflectional agreement with the subject, in main as well as subordinate clauses, can be used to posit a formal parallel to an observed functional similarity between “zero” subjects and clitic (rather than zero) objects. See the discussion in 3.2.1 below. . Andrews cites Chafe 1976 in connection with this statement. . Rå Hauge (1999:221) regards as definite the following: proper names, personal pronouns, and noun phrases which include either a definite demonstrative pronominal form (tozi ‘this or onzi ‘that’) or the definite article. The Bulgarian definite article is a postpositive affix added to the first word of the noun phrase. Compare, for example kucˇe ‘dog’ or goljamo kucˇe ‘big dog’ to definite kucˇeto ‘the dog’ or goljamoto kucˇe ‘the big dog’. Rå Hauge’s formal characterization is compatible with the way definiteness is conceived in the present analysis, so long as one excludes cases where formally definite noun phrases are used in a generic sense (as in Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov’s (1977:131) example: Da˘rvoto e rastenie. ‘The tree is a plant.’/’Trees are plants.’) . I regard as indefinite any noun phrase that is not definite as described in the preceding note, regardless of whether or not the weakly accented edin used as an indefinite article is present. For an argument in favor of viewing this edin as an indefinite article, see Alexander 2000 (55), and for further discussion of the theoretical issues involved and the history of the debate, see Friedman 1976 and Koseska-Toszewa and Gargov 1990 (153-57). . Note the similarity between this observation and the conclusion reached in Androulakis 1998 (147, 149), which analyzes reduplication in Greek with specific attention given to the reduplication of interrogative and relative pronouns. Androulakis states that it is topicality, rather than status as shared or presupposed information (“D-linking”) in and of itself, that licenses the presence of the coreferential clitic pronoun. . This position is in keeping with the views expressed in Firbas 1964 (273), Keenan 1976 (318-19), Ivancˇev 1978 [1968] (159) and Rudin 1986 (20) as concerns givenness, and in
Notes
Givón 1976 (152) and Rudin 1986 (20) on definiteness. In addition to definiteness, Givón includes other categories in his “Universal Hierarchy of Topicality”. Not only are definite noun phrases more likely to be topics than are indefinite noun phrases, but similarly a greater likelihood of topicality is held by humans over non-humans, agents over datives (which in turn are more likely to serve as topics than are accusatives), and first person referents over second and third person referents (with third person being less likely than second). . This ì is a coreferential reduplicating pronoun. See Chapter Three. . See Longacre 1979 for further discussion of the paragraph as a structurally relevant unit with thematic coherence and some issues in its definition. . Predicate adjectives in Bulgarian, like attributive adjectives, morphologically agree with the subjects they refer to in number and, in the singular, also in gender. Compare, for example, masculine singular nov ‘new’, feminine singular nova, neuter singular novo and plural novi. This is true even when the subject in question is not overtly expressed. Thus, even when the subject itself is not formally represented as such in the sentence, the inflectional morphology of a predicate adjective at least narrows down the set of possible referents (e.g., the participant packaged as a zero subject in the sentence Besˇe nova., literally ‘Was new.”, must be singular and feminine. The question as to how much grammatical information about the subject is conveyed by the inflectional morphology of verbs (main verbs and any auxiliary verbs that might be present) is more complex. The verbal morphology always reflects number, and usually either the main verb or an auxiliary inflectionally betrays the person (i.e. first person, second person or third person status) of the subject. In certain constructions, where an auxiliary verb is used in conjunction with a historically adjectival, participial form, gender is also reflected, but only in the singular. From among the many Bulgarian tense and mood forms, I have selected two paradigms to include here for illustrative purposes. Both make use of the verb xodja ‘go’. I give first the aorist paradigm. The aorist, a simple past tense, is among the least informative as concerns morphological agreement with the subject. No indication of the subject’s gender is given in the verb, and there is no differentiation between second and third person in the singular. I have parenthetically indicated the grammatical information about the subject which is conveyed in the verb form itself: xodix xodi xodixme xodixte xodixa
(singular, first person) (singular, second or third person) (plural, first person) (plural, second person) (plural, third person)
I have selected as a second sample paradigm one of the most informative verbal constructions, the present perfect. In this compound construction, person and number are definitively indicated in the auxiliary, while the main verb, which is participial in origin, reflects number and, in the singular, gender. I have placed the auxiliary in its usual position before the main verb, but note that the order is reversed if the construction is located at the beginning of a clause. The morphologically expressed grammatical information about the subject is again specified parenthetically, first for the auxiliary, then for the main verb. Because the auxiliary consists of a present tense form (of the verb ‘be’), the following paradigm also
Notes
illustrates the degree of subject agreement in present tense forms. In other words, the grammatical information about the subject specified in the auxiliary form alone in the present perfect is the same as that specified by any non-auxiliary present tense form as well. sa˘m xodil sa˘m xodila si xodil si xodila si xodilo e xodil e xodila e xodilo sme xodili ste xodili sa xodili
(singular, first person) (singular, masculine) (singular, first person) (singular, feminine) (singular, second person) (singular, masculine) (singular, second person) (singular, feminine) (singular, second person) (singular, neuter) (singular, third person) (singular, masculine) (singular, third person) (singular, feminine) (singular, third person) (singular, neuter) (plural, first person) (plural) (plural, second person) (plural) (plural, third person) (plural)
. At first glance there appear to be fundamental differences between the Bulgarian variants in (2-6c) beyond the presence or absence of the personal pronoun subject. In essence, though, the overtness of the pronoun in the first member of each pair is the only significant difference. The remaining word order alternation follows automatically according to a rule against placing certain clitics, including the auxiliary verbs in these examples, in absolute initial position in the clause. Thus the difference within each pair of sentences in (2-6c), as in the pairs in (2-6a) and (2-6b), comes down to the presence or absence of an overt pronominal subject. Note again that the motivation for the greater degree of explicitness in the sentences with the overt pronouns is unlikely to be merely one of clarity of reference — as illustrated in the preceding note, the verbal inflection (more specifically the inflection of the auxiliary in (2-6c)) betrays both the number and the person of the subjects in all of the variants in (2-6). . It would certainly be possible, and for some purposes no doubt desirable, to break this third group down into smaller distinct sets. Demonstrative pronouns (e.g. tozi/tazi/tova/tezi ‘this/these’), for instance, could be viewed as a comprising a fourth major noun phrase type, located between personal pronouns and other overt noun phrases along the explicitness scale. I have opted not to make this or other distinctions (e.g. noun phrases which include modifying adjectives versus those which do not) because they appear not to be necessary for discussing those factors presented below as being relevant in the packaging of participants. . In the first of these sentences there is nothing that could be substituted for “no one” that would help the listener better identify the set of people who had a pencil. In the second sentence, too, “someone” reaches a maximal limit in explicitness — either I cannot be more explicit because I never knew or have forgotten the identity of the subject, or else I have decided that “someone” conveys as much information as is pragmatically appropriate in the real world situation. . Examples of special contexts where speakers of English might substitute a more explicit non-pronominal form for a less explicit first person pronoun include the following: a. “Benson speaking.” (in place of perhaps “How can I help you.” when answering the phone at an office where a number of people regularly respond on the phone line in question);
Notes
b. “Mommy and Daddy are going out tonight.” (instead of “We’re going out tonight.”, spoken to a child who might later be vocally disappointed to find out that the first person plural pronoun did not include her). . Note again the relevance of Grice’s (1975:45) maxim “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.” . Without meaning to imply that personal pronouns are somehow not “full noun phrases”, I will use this term as a shorthand convenience to avoid repeating the lengthy expression “overt noun phrase other than personal pronouns”. . Primorsko is a town and resort area approximately fifty five kilometers from Burgas. . Rudin (1986:34) presents convincing evidence for viewing the first mentions of these participants as being outside the syntactic unit containing the second. Rudin applies these syntactic arguments to “left dislocation” in general, of which the subject-packaging construction I am describing here is but one variety. . The following statement in Georgieva 1987 (60-61), although addressed specifically at cases where the subject form is repeated exactly (as in (2-39)), also confirms the connection between such packaging and focus: “Except in cases of emphasis (logical stress), the subject is hardly ever repeated” (Osven v slucˇai na emfazis (logicˇesko izta˘kvane), podloga˘t pocˇti ne se povtarja). . In selecting the examples cited in this section, I have avoided direct speech attributed to characters in the stories, since in such contexts the authors attempt to reflect the oral mode. . Nichols 1985 includes external perspective among the factors which cause overtness in her analysis of Russian literary narrative themes. . This is the sort of characterization suggested in Leafgren 2000 (74-76). . In this context Bulgarian is more tolerant of a lesser degree of explicitness than is Russian. In Russian narrative, according to Nichols (1985:176), “[i]f a theme is subject of a presentative sentence, it cannot appear as zero in the next sentence”. This noted difference between these two languages is reflected by the decision (conscious or not) made by a Russian translator of the novel cited in (2-61) to replace the Bulgarian zero subject with a Russian pronoun: Po ulice sˇël mal’cˇik. On sˇël ne spesˇa i rassejanno smotrel po storonam. (PV-R:9). . The transcript here includes commentary describing how the speaker uses hand gestures to demonstrate the relative positions. . Note that this difference between treatment of first and second versus third person subjects is not merely the result of the difference between them in the specificity of the agreement features in the inflectional morphology of the verb forms. At this point in the analysis I am already factoring out all participant forms (most of which are third person) whose overtness can be ascribed to the need to avoid referential ambiguity. . It might be very interesting to conduct a comparative analysis of possible differences in participant packaging in conversations with differing relationships between speakers in terms of authority (in a broad sense of the term “authority”) and other parameters. Differences in age, gender and social status may all turn out to be quite relevant here. Mills
Notes
(1991:555), for instance, in an article on Russian speech acts, includes such factors (under the heading “speaker/hearer gradient”) among the “variables which guide the speaker in his/her selection of linguistic behavior”. An exploration along this line as concerns explicitness in Bulgarian must, however, remain beyond the scope of the current study. . Marc is the pulp left over after juice has been pressed from fruit. . This basic conception of direct object is in keeping with that proposed or commonly assumed in many analyses. The definition in Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov 1977 (375) serves as one typical example: “The direct object denotes an object affected directly or completely by the verbal action.” . Compare the characterization included within the discussion of morphologically dative forms in Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov 1977 (378): “Some dative pronominal and, less often, nominal forms serve as indirect object and denote an object/target that the verbal action is directed toward or intended for.” This description, although more elaborate, is nonetheless difficult to apply in practice in text analysis. . As in Chapter Two, I am using the abbreviated expression “full noun phrase” in this table as a convenience in place of the more descriptive “overt noun phrase other than a personal pronoun”. . The formal description below of some indirect object types will employ the term “accusative”, for instance (see notes 1 and 3 to Table 10), and the term “dative” would be appropriate in discussing possessive forms. . It is not only long form personal pronouns which can be reduplicated by short pronouns in Bulgarian. The reduplication of FNP direct and indirect objects, producing object packaging of the R-FNP type, will be addressed shortly. . Among these, to mention a few, are Popov 1963 (165), Orzechowska 1967 (323), Rusinov 1974 (141-42), Dyer 1992 (134-35, 145) and Andrejcˇin, Popov and Stojanov 1977 (376). . Of the 7385 direct and indirect objects found in the works of fiction by four different authors (Markova in Strax ot kotki, Konstantinov in Baj Ganjo, Cacˇev in “Pesenta” and Gerova in “Grobove v krepostta”), for example, 203, or 2.7%, are reduplicated. This rate of reduplication more than triples to nearly nine percent if only the represented direct speech of the characters in these novels and short stories is examined. . This constant feature of reduplicated objects, namely clause-level topicality, will be taken up and illustrated in Section 3.4. . See the discussion of Grice’s 1975 Cooperative Principle in 2.1 above. . Several interesting discussions of this sort of approach can be found in the existing literature. Perhaps the most convincing argument in favor of this type of view can be found in Rudin 1997. Further discussion and description of others who favor this treatment can be read in Guentchéva 1994 (94-98). For some arguments against viewing short form pronouns as agreement markers in Bulgarian, see Cyxun 1968 (128) and Nicolova 1986 (53). See also Aronson 1997, where the object-marking clitics are portrayed as more syntactic in nature in Bulgarian than in Macedonian, where their more morphological nature is a reflection of the tendency toward verbal “polypersonalism” (more than one person grammatically indicated in the verbal form) and also toward formal marking of the transitivity of verbs.
Notes . Note that this view does not necessarily entail a process of reduplicative doubling preceding the indicated deletion. One might instead hypothesize that all verbs with direct and/or indirect objects have the clitic forms in the underlying structure. Non-reduplicative object types would then derive through deletion, and reduplicated types could be explained formally as either a lack of deletion or as an overt realization of trace after deletion. . Note that I am already excluding from consideration the numerous instances where verbal agreement morphology rules out any other logical interpretation. . The strong tendency for subjects to precede predicates was noted in 3.2.1 in connection with the notion of a “grammatical word order” (Georgieva 1974). . The use of the objective form of the definite article (see the first qualification listed with Table 11 above for a brief description of the literary distribution of this form) is not a conclusive factor here. The quoted speaker is among the many who do not follow the literary standard distinction between the nominative and non-nominative forms of the definite article and, in fact, has used this very form of this very word (zˇivota ‘the life’) as a subject earlier in this dialogue. . This last is particularly significant, as a text count using the four works of fiction listed in note 59 suggests that indirect objects are more than twice as likely as direct objects to be reduplicated. In these written sources 5.0% (71 of 1406) indirect objects are reduplicated, as opposed to only 2.2% (132 of 5979) for direct objects. . The few exceptions in my data are a small subset of the very specific and stylistically questionable omission of the preposition na in the expression of pronominal indirect objects. These will be discussed presently. . While the presence of focus on the indirect object in question in (3-59) rules out both Z and SPP packaging, it is the provision of this “additional information” that prompts the use of a full noun phrase here rather than the less informative long form personal pronoun (i.e. LPP na nego). . Zero noun phrases obviously have no word-level stress, and the short form personal pronouns form prosodic words with the host to which they cliticize, the stress falling on the other element except in the case of cliticization to the negative particle ne. . Focused participants make up 37.6% of the reduplicated objects in the four works of fiction listed in note 59. . Rudin (1986:90) points out that while there is reason to view WH words as involving focus when used in questions, this is not the case when they are used in relative clauses. . Recall the point made above that while in an obvious way zero objects are the formal counterparts to zero subjects, one can also claim short form pronouns to be the object formally parallel to zero subjects. Both SPP objects and zero subjects involve prosodically dependent elements (i.e. the clitic pronoun itself for SPP objects, and the verbal agreement inflection for zero subjects) which give number and sometimes person and gender information about the participant. The functional parallel in the packaging of DTs lends support to this view of clitic objects as being a relevant counterpart to zero subjects in the linguistic system. A majority of zero objects in the data examined represent participants with no particular attention caused by either emphasis or aboutness directed at them. In a narrative
Notes stretch primarily about a son, for instance, we find —Mamo — kaza Ø toj … (KC:97) ‘“Mom,” he said (to her) …’, with the mother packaged as zero. The indicated zero objects in (3-34) and (3-35) above are also representative of this typical usage. A rare case where aboutness is associated with a zero object can be seen in the elliptical utterance added by speaker G at the end of the excerpt cited above in (3-23), which I repeat here with appropriate changes in underlining: (3-23) G: R: G: ‘G: R: G:
Cˇe mnogo ti e xubav serviza˘t. Omra˘znal mi e da go gledam vecˇe. Trjabvasˇe da go dadesˇ snosˇti na decata. Da cˇupjat Ø. (KA:1.7, excerpt 5) Boy, your tableware is very nice. I’m already sick of looking at it. You should have given it to the children last night. For them to break it.’
. The fact that a correlation between less explicit packaging and DT status is not restricted to Bulgarian is suggested by the conclusions of researchers who have investigated similar phenomena in English and other languages. Describing the expression of information that is old or given in the context (which would certainly be a feature of any established DT), Chafe (1987:26) writes: The general thing to say is that given concepts are spoken with an attenuated pronunciation. The attenuation involves, at the very least, weak stress. Typically, though not always, it also involves either pronominalization or omission from verbalization altogether. And even more obviously germane to the present discussion of DTs is what Lambrecht (1994) says about topics. In important ways Lambrecht’s topic is more akin to what I have been referring to as a topical DT, since in his view topic status is contingent not only upon current aboutness, but also upon the entity already being under discussion: it “must exist in the universe of discourse independently of what is being predicated of it in a given proposition” (335). Both short pronominal objects and zero subjects can be seen as predictable in these contexts if one accepts Lambrecht’s observation that “the cognitively preferred topic expression has UNACCENTED PRONOMINAL form” (172), since he includes in the set of unaccented pronominal expressions not only pronouns proper, but also inflectional morphemes and zero noun phrases (“null arguments”) (172). . This tendency to package topics as subjects can be observed in the Bulgarian data examined, and is in keeping with Givón’s (1976:52) view, mentioned above in 3.2.1, of “subject” as a “highly universal … function” combining topic and agent. Givón also concludes that most topic functions are held by subjects in “subject-prominent” languages, a group which includes all Indo-European languages, according to Li and Thompson (1976:460). Note also Givón’s (1979:84-85) estimate that eighty to ninety percent of all topics are grammatical subjects. . I have phrased this in terms of conscious decisions made by language users more for descriptive ease than out of conviction that these motivations are actual parts of individual grammars. We may rather be dealing with a collectively evolved set of conventions that may have had this sort of functional basis and whose survival may in part rest on this functional utility.
Notes . Rå Hauge (140-44) presents more examples of both the “participial passive” and the “sepassive”, and discusses preferences between them based on the tense and aspect involved in the utterance. . While the difference in definiteness between the two participants might suggest the topicality of the program in this example (see Givón 1976 (152) and Ivancˇev 1978 [1968]), the correlation between definiteness and topic status and certainly the correlation between indefiniteness and comment status are not consistent. Furthermore, note that the difference in animacy between these two participants might actually suggest the topicality of the performer (again see Givón and Ivancˇev). . One very specific type of exception, involving non-standard omission of the preposition na in the expression of indirect objects, has been described above. . The Bulgarian zero form does not specify gender. The use of “him” in my English translation is intended in a gender-neutral sense. Other options (“him/her”, “it”, “them”) did not seem appropriate to me here in this colloquial example. . As mentioned before, there is one specific sort of exception to this strong claim. That some occurrences of “na-drop” indirect objects are not topical was discussed in 3.2.2 above. . Topical R-PP direct objects are seen in (3-15), (3-16), (3-66) and (3-69). Topical R-PP indirect objects are underlined in (3-14), (3-53), (3-54), (3-55), (3-67), (3-68), (3-70) and (3-88). Examples of topical R-FNP direct objects can be found in (3-19a), (3-19b), (3-20a), (3-20b), (3-45), (3-46), (3-47), (3-52), (3-77), (3-78), (3-79) and (3-90). Topical R-FNP indirect objects are seen in examples (3-19c), (3-19d), (3-20c), (3-20d), (3-56), (3-58) and (3-76). . In a footnote (282), Motapanyane describes this reduplication in this latter case as optional in Bulgarian, obligatory in Romanian, and excluded in Greek. . Despite this position, Franks and King do see topicality as a required feature for the reduplication of objects in Bulgarian (253). This seeming incongruity can probably be explained by their claim that if an object “is focused in preverbal position, then doubling is ungrammatical” (254). As we have seen, however, the data presented in the current analysis and by others does not support this last claim. . In Alexandrova’s words: The CL associate in CLLD surfaces in TopicP, whereas its counterpart in CLD follows the lexical verb and cannot have travelled higher than [Spec, v] (Chomsky’s (1995) “light verb”) on the assumption that the lexical verb in compound tenses as a rule raises no higher than AgrO0 where all its FFs are satisfied. … Being object arguments both CLD-ed and CLLD-ed XPs are specified for j-features and case but only the latter is marked [Topic]. (9) . The literary sources used in these earlier studies are those specified in note 59. The work done with native informants that is most relevant to the present analysis involved the testing of acceptability of reduplication of objects with various degrees of specificity. Most acceptable in these tests was the reduplication of “definite” noun phrases, where the participant was both “referential” (referring to a particular, unique entity or clearly defined set of entities) and “identifiable” (identifiable by the addressee in the opinion of the speaker or
Notes
writer). Least acceptable was the reduplication of “true indefinite” objects (neither referential nor identifiable). A middle ground in level of acceptability to the native informants were “specific” (referential but not identifiable) and “generic” (identifiable but not referential) object participants (Leafgren 1992:105-09). . For these purposes I have analyzed the DT status of the slightly more than one hundred instances of written reduplication in the novel Strax ot kotki and the short stories “Pesenta” and “Grobove v krepostta”, and also the first one hundred occurrences of reduplicated objects in Aleksova’s spoken material. Full bibliographical information is given in the list of sources at the end of the study. . Among those who have noted this constraint is Nicolova (1986:46). . Zero here would not lead to interpretation of Svetla as being the one who performed the actions named in this sentence. This reading is precluded by the use of third person possessive ì ‘her’ rather than reflexive si ‘oneself/one’s own’. . Further discussion of the use of zero objects and of an argument in favor of viewing the short clitic personal pronoun, not the zero object, as the formal equivalent of the zero subject can be found in Chapter Three (see in particular note 73). . The closest parallel in the system of subject reference is the “focused double packaging”. This device, however, is more restricted than the LPP object, being reserved for particularly heavy emphasis. See Section 2.3. . Rudin (1986:22) concurs that “two (or possibly more?) constituents” may be topical, providing the following example: dali da donese? Ivan knigite Ivan books-the whether to bring-3s ‘Should Ivan bring the books?’ (Rudin 1986:22). While hers is primarily a syntactic analysis, concerned in this example with the precomplementizer “TOPIC position”, Rudin does see aboutness as the key feature in a “rough” semantic definition of topic (22). Andrews (1985:77) also implies the possibility of more than one topic when he writes: “In topic-comment articulation there is usually one NP, the topic, which indicates what the sentence is about” (italics mine). . The important role of clause-level topic status conceived in this way can be seen most clearly perhaps in the distribution of the reduplicated variants of direct and indirect objects (see Chapter Three, particularly 3.4.2). This same notion of topic is the one upon which the idea of stability of aboutness and many of the cited potential destabilizers was based in the examination of the packaging of grammatical subjects in Chapter Two.
Data sources
Aleksova, Krasimira. Korpus ot razgovoren ba˘lgarski ezik. http://www.hf.uio.no/easteur-orient/ bulg/mat/. (KA). Cacˇev, Kliment. 1990. Znoj i xladen vjata˘r: Noveli. Sofia: Voenno Izdatelstvo. (KC). Gerova, Darina. 1990. Ikoni za nevjarvasˇti: Noveli i razkazi. Plovdiv: Izdatelstvo “Xristo G. Danov”. (DG). Konstantinov, Aleko. 1981[1895]. Baj Ganjo. Ba˘lgarska literaturna klasika, vol. 1. Sofia: Ba˘lgarski Pisatel. (AK). Markova, Ilinda. 1988. Strax ot kotki. Sofia: Ba˘lgarski Pisatel. (IM) Vezˇinov, Pavel. 1979. Dobrovol’noe priznanie. Translated by N. Popov. In Sovremennyj bolgarskij detektiv. Moscow: Progress. (PV-R). 1984. Samopriznanie. In Izbrani proizvedenija, Tom cˇetva˘rti: Romani. Sofia: Ba˘lgarski Pisatel. (PV).
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Po njakoi osnovni va˘prosi na ba˘lgarskija knizˇoven ezik. Sofia: Narodna Prosveta. Popov, Konstantin, Georgieva, Elena and Pencˇev, Jordan (eds) 1983 Gramatika na sa˘vremennija ba˘lgarski knizˇoven ezik: Tom III, Sintaksis. Sofia: Ba˘lgarskata Akademija na Naukite. (=Academy Grammar, Volume 3). Rå Hauge, Kjetil 1976 The Word Order of Predicate Clitics in Bulgarian. [MEDDELELSER 10]. Oslo: Slavic-Baltic Institute. 1999 A Short Grammar of Contemporary Bulgarian. Bloomington: Slavica. Rudin, Catherine 1986 Aspects of Bulgarian Syntax: Complementizers and WH Constructions. Columbus: Slavica. 1993 “On focus position and focus marking in Bulgarian questions”. Presented at Formal Linguistic Society of Mid-America IV, Iowa. 1997 “AgrO and Bulgarian pronominal clitics”. In Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Indiana Meeting 1996, M. Lindseth and S. Franks (eds), 224-52. [Michigan Slavic Materials 42]. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications. Rusinov, R. 1974 “Njakoi slovoredni problemi v nasˇata recˇeva praktika”. In Problemi na ba˘lgarskata knizˇovna recˇ, L. Andrejcˇin (comp.), 135-48. Sofia: Nauka i Izkustvo. Scatton, Ernest A. 1984 A Reference Grammar of Modern Bulgarian. Columbus: Slavica. Sgall, Petr 1975 “Conditions of the use of sentences and a semantic representation of topic and focus”. In Formal Semantics of Natural Language, E.L. Keenan (ed.), 297312. [Papers from a colloquium sponsored by the King’s College Research Centre, Cambridge]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stojanov, Stojan, Ivanova, Kalina, Pasˇov, Peta˘r and Stankov, Valentin (eds) 1983 Gramatika na sa˘vremennija ba˘lgarski knizˇoven ezik: Tom II, Morfologija. Sofia: Ba˘lgarskata Akademija na Naukite. (=Academy Grammar, Volume 2). Szober, Stanislaw 1933 “Edin osnoven princip na narezˇdane dumite v ba˘lgarskoto izrecˇenie”, reprinted in Popov, Konstantin. 1979. Pomagalo po ba˘lgarski sintaksis, 1979, K. Popov (comp.), 275-85. Sofia: Nauka i Izkustvo. Sˇevjakova, V.E. 1977 “K voprosu o logicˇeskom udarenii”. Voprosy jazykoznanija (6): 107-18. Trávnícˇek, F. 1961 “O tak zvaném aktuálním cˇleneˇní veˇtném”. Slovo a slovesnost 22 (3): 163-71. Vakareliyska, Cynthia 1994 “Na-drop in Bulgarian”. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 2 (1): 121-50.
A
Oral data examples prior to normalization
In order to improve accessibility, the examples from Aleksova’s oral data cited above were normalized on the lexical level. In this appendix I provide the original form of these examples as they are found in the transcription available at the web site indicated in the list of data sources. While I have not normalized in this appendix, I have continued to transliterate. I have also translated the parenthetic descriptions of gestures, etc., sometimes included in the transcripts. The following symbols and abbreviations are used in the transcripts: / // ...N... : zˇzˇzˇzˇzˇzˇ FS ’ \ ...F...
a pause or an intonational incompleteness caused by interruption a longer pause or an intonational completeness a lack of clarity in the recording vowel length gesture (explained parenthetically) false start (followed by self-correction) consonant softness non-literary, non-standard stress on the following syllable phonetic paralinguistic means of expression (explained parenthetically)
For each excerpt below I indicate first where the example can be found in the current study, then the location of the excerpt in Aleksova’s data. The initials in square brackets indicate the current speaker. I have here reproduced the transcriber’s use of a basically phonetic representation for the majority of utterances, and normalized forms (with the inclusion of punctuation and standard use of capitalization) for the utterances produced by certain speakers. I have further mimicked the transcription in using the same symbol (“j”, in the examples below) for both the phonetic “y-glide” and also for the dative feminine third person singular personal pronoun, thus distinguishing it from the phonetically identical conjunction. (1-3) KA 1.1, excerpt 5 [ST] //tva e ol’a// [V] E mnogo e simpaticˇna, mnogo e xubava.
Appendix
(1-5) KA 4.2, excerpt 2 [M] //iskam vikam da se rassˇira˘// imame teraska imame terasa i iskam vikam da vzememe edin meta˘r od dvora˘/ za da mozˇeme taja terasa da ja prisposobime za staja// da mozˇeme vikam/ dvamata pone na stari godini da se pribereme na spokojstvie// [T] //i ta˘kmo kazva /i sa˘sedite... [M] //da// i osven tova vikam/ pa˘k sa˘sedite nat nas... [T] //nie... s edin kursˇum... [M] //i texnite deca vecˇe stanaxa golemi decata// t’a tr’abvasˇe da gi razdeli tezi deca// n’ama ka˘de da gi da˘rzˇi f edna... [T] //momcˇe i momicˇe sa˘// [M] //ne sa˘ ednopolovi (1-26) KA 1.1, excerpt 2 [V] Da. Tova sa taka narecˇenite cˇerveni diplomi. [L] //cˇerveni diplomi/ da// [V] Da, znaja gi. [L] //...F... (phonetic paralinguistic means of expressing agreement a˘xa˘-a˘xa˘)// [V] “Diplom s otlicˇiem”. [L] //toj(FS) ako n’amasˇ nito edna petica/ imasˇ li edna petica vecˇe e sin’a// (1-27) KA 1.1, excerpt 3 [L] //n’ama ot nika˘de nika˘kvi plodove/ ne moga˘ da si naprav’a˘ dzˇankovite(FS) dzˇankovija˘t sok// (1-29) KA 4.4, excerpt 1 [M] /ednata ja provedoxa sega ftora si organizira˘t (1-30) KA 1.1, excerpt 3 [ST] sto i dvanajsi litra na kvadraten meta˘r e pad\nalo// (1-33) KA 2.3, excerpt 1 [K] //tazi masa besˇ e tuka (zˇzˇzˇzˇzˇzˇ)(indicates the table’s place) imasˇe ena pecˇka za dra˘va i va˘glisˇ ta// ma nisˇto ne e gorela// ox lele as vikam sa˘s pecˇki ne ulucˇix xubavo/ taka sa˘s ma˘zˇ ako ne bex ulucˇila/ sto pa˘ti sme se razvezˇdali// a sa˘s pecˇka i do den dnesˇen sa˘s pecˇka ne sa˘m ulucˇila// a sa˘m ma˘ sˇ sa˘m ulucˇila//
Appendix
(1-34) KA 2.8, excerpt 1 [B] //a kolko asans’ori ima na vxot// [I] //tri// [B] //e nacˇi tva e dobre nali// [I] //tri asans’ori sa˘ na vxot/ i fseki ima svoj samostojatelen tam a˘: pult na upravlenie/ seki edin ot t’ax// [B] ...F...(expressing understanding - a˘xa˘) [I] //no n’amasˇe tok i ne rabota˘t asans’orite// (1-36) KA 2.4, excerpt 1 [E] //nie n’amame navik da praime zimnina// [V] Ami kakvo pravite prez zimata? Kupuvate? [E] sea sˇ_ti kazˇa˘// n’aame sˇtoto eno vreme a˘: nie imaxme ka˘sˇta na poduene/ d’ado mi imasˇe// i tam primerno ili vujna mi i d’ado mi se xvana˘t i napraa˘t// i ima i za nas// (1-37) KA 2.4, excerpt 1 [I] a be nema fasonki/ nema po tva/ nema po:/ zˇoro sˇe mi dadesˇ li edna cˇasˇ a voda kato xodisˇ natam// n’ama po magazinite nika˘de fasonki be (1-41) KA 1.6, excerpt 2 [V] Iskam da ti kazˇa nesˇto mnogo prijatno. Naakal se e. [R] //i: normalno/ nali be geroj normalno/ s pamper li si/ ne si// [V] Ej, na... [R] //mala˘k naakal li si se naistina// [V] Mnogo. Roska, trjabva da go miem. [R] //a/ sˇe go opraim/ n’aa problem// (2-3) KA 2.3, excerpt 1 [M] //krasi ti cigarka iskasˇ li// [V] Ne pusˇa. (2-9) KA 2.9x, excerpt 1 [V] A Kircˇo kakvo pravi, babo? (2-11) KA 2.4, excerpt 4 [E] //ti da vidisˇ ka˘f majtap// otivame f primorsko// i mojta prijatelka kat’a od burgas se b’axme razbrali te da dojda˘t sa˘bota i nedel’a tam// obacˇe taka stana cˇe ne b’axme si kupili produkti ili nesˇto ot toja sort//
Appendix
[I] [E]
[I] [E]
//a˘ kateto/ kvo prai basˇta j/ nema li s onaja riba da ni pocˇerpi// //i tr’aa da j se obadime cˇe sme f primorsko/ nesˇto ot toja rot// i ticˇam as ka˘m primorsko obacˇe po banski i ena fanelka tam i edin pens’oner/ ne mozˇe// i as dogonvam ivan/ toj pet kracˇki besˇe otminal ot posˇtata// vikam sval’aj pantalona˘// sval’a ivan negovite sˇorti/ buf as odgore/ ma to visi bratcˇe ot vs’aka˘de// vikam taka mozˇe li/ mozˇe// vlizam f posˇtata/ govora˘/ izlizam/ sa˘buvam gi// naroda˘ me gleda kato nenormalna// //cˇesno kazano// //i kat’a dojde// basˇta j e sˇef na a˘/ slav’anka/ zavoda˘ za konservi/
(2-13) KA 2.11, excerpt 2 [K] //pr’asno mle\ko pija˘ povecˇe/ kiselo/ sirene takiva// [V] A ne te li drazni sireneto? (2-15) KA 2.6, excerpt 1 [S] //ama preebe li me s kalnika˘ as vi kazvam povecˇe/ [Sl] //toj peta˘r dneska mi se obazˇda f dva cˇasa˘/ vika kolesˇkata besˇe tuka/ (2-17a) KA 1.7, excerpt 5 [M] pres studenskiti godini zˇiv’ax sa˘s ena dama f idin apartament/ enata staja za neja drugata za meni/ b’axmi prijateli s neja// taja moma si zela nemska ofcˇarka/ i pet meseca zˇiv’a tam// t’a stana e taka (2-19a) KA 2.9, excerpt 2 [V] tja njama takava specialnost. (2-22) KA 1.8, excerpt 1 [N] //taja dobra zˇena mozˇe li da te jadosva// (2-24) KA 1.7, excerpt 5 [M] /podarili ja b’axa// i toja dzv’ar to beskrajno cˇarovno zˇivotno dokato e malko obacˇi posli stava id’ot// (2-25) KA 2.6, excerpt 3 [Cˇ] //vikam sega toja sel’anina˘ otpret ako se seti cˇe e zabra\vil nesˇto i natiska spiracˇkata i zava˘rti obratno/ (2-27) KA 1.2, excerpt 2 [I] //dosta/ toj ocˇakva dosta rakija// pone sˇejse sedemdese litra// [A] //a: gluposti sˇejse sedemdese// [I] //e:// [A] //n’aka˘de dvajse i pet litra sˇe izleze//
Appendix
(2-28) KA 1.1, excerpt 1 [L] //idi narezˇi salamcˇe// [ST] //a be i sirence va˘rvi// [L] //i salamcˇe va˘rvi/ ajde// (2-29) KA 2.6, excerpt 2 [Cˇ] //ne moa˘ da ja vidim// [S] //as ja vizˇdam po cˇesto ot tebe znacˇi// (2-30) KA 2.3, excerpt 1 [M] //ti sˇe gi priberesˇ/ as i slavi i bobi sˇe xodim neka˘de// (2-32) KA 1.8, excerpt 1 [V] //o: zdravej/ zapov’adaj// [N] //pusˇi li se tuka// [V] //pusˇi sa˘// [S] //xe: kak me zava\ri// [N] //kak sa˘m te zavaril// [S] //sam li si// [N] //sam sa˘m// [S] //poli n’ama li da dojde// (2-33) KA 1.7, excerpt 7 [V] Ili peesˇ xubavo ili ne peesˇ, sega tova e. [M] //e e okaza cˇe ne e ta˘j// ...N as sa˘m bil svidetel be// (2-62) KA 4.4, excerpt 1 [A] //a: stojan n’ama da se ozˇeni// [T] //e za kakvo da se zˇeni kato sedi i ima postojanno naj razlicˇni xubavi mladi/ (2-63) KA 1.1, excerpt 1 [ST] //tuka e pad\nal /ta se e ubil /pa˘k ...N... [L] //(coughs) tuka e na devet meseca /na deset// [ST] //e// [L] //na godina i dva tri meseca maj// [ST] //na godina i/ [L] //zimata/ cˇaj sea na oktonvri e roden/ a/ tva e n’aka˘de januari// [ST] //besˇe padnal// (2-64) KA 2.3, excerpt 1 [K] //gladen zˇaden/ ni ra˘kijca pi\nal ni jadene// i kato se ozˇe\nixme toj vika na bratofcˇet si/ \sipi vika da se napiem/ \sipi vika da se napiem//
Appendix
(2-65) KA 2.8, excerpt 3 [S] /i f ponedelnik sˇe ja zanesa˘ na l’upcˇo// bosˇkova ne moe da ne znaesˇ/ sresˇtu ilijan sedi e taka/ t’a sedi tuka// (2-66) KA 4.1, excerpt 5 [M] //a/ mitra si gi misli// [E] //fcˇiera fliza osˇt-i ot vratata pocˇva da mi govori/ ko kvo mi narecˇi// [A] //ne znam as ne b’ax// [M] //ofca kvo// [E] //t’a kazva cˇi/ [M] //ne zagubena// [E] //a˘ zagubina/ po zagubina ot t’ebi n’ama/ ni znam tam osˇt-i kakvo/ i as vecˇi sa˘ ajdosax// t’a kato oset’i cˇi sa˘ jadosvam stava m-eka kato pamuk// (2-67) KA 2.8, excerpt 3 [S] //moma li e razvedena li e/ ne nam/ no ka\za cˇe e gospozˇica// sˇtoto as vikam gospozˇa/ i t’a me popravi vedna˘sˇ pred ilijan (2-68) KA 1.5, excerpt 2 [I] /cˇersˇafi sval’am ot tam/ f ban’ata gi xva˘rlix da gi pera˘:// a be: uzˇa˘s// i samo vikam da dojde l’udmil da se va˘rne ot rabota/ da go zeme da go zakara na baba mu// sˇoto sˇe umra˘ i: l’udmil kat dojde/ b’ax slozˇila kafe/ (2-69) KA 2.9x, excerpt 1 [R] //mi toj: bil sa˘s ivan f kolata i ino drugo momcˇe/ i ka˘m desit cˇasa˘ na petnajsti e bilo vicˇirta˘/ zdracˇkavo takova i iskocˇili iz nevidelica i toj gi bla˘snal// (2-70) KA 1.8, excerpt 1 [S] i toj mol’a˘ ti se kato name\ril otneka˘de taja volejbolnata topka/ i kato ja m’ata po televizora˘/ ti mu ob’asn’aasˇ nedej be detence sˇe gra˘mne sˇe ni udari/ (2-71) KA 1.2, excerpt 4 [A] //ne pipaj ximikala˘/ tva mi e l’ubimija˘ ximikal/ fsicˇki go pipa˘t/ ne tr’abva da go pipa˘t// [I] //zasˇto// [A] //zasˇtoto ne tr’abva//
Appendix
[I] [A] [V]
//ama zasˇto ne tr’ava// //sˇtoto kato pipati i ot mnogo pipani sˇi sa˘ razvali// visˇ ka˘f ximikal imam// Toj pisˇe ta˘nko
(2-72) KA 4.4, excerpt 2 [T] /tvojto babcˇe kvo a˘:// [I] //dobre e// (2-74) KA 1.2, excerpt 2 [I] //c’alata zimnica mirisˇesˇe na dzˇibri da ti kazˇa˘// pret fs’aka ka˘sˇta/ pret fs’aka ka˘sˇta eni takiva ogromni ba˘cˇvi (zˇzˇzˇzˇzˇzˇ)(spreads her hands wide) zalozˇeni s dzˇibri vri i kipi tam// tatko van’o tuka do ena dve sedmici tr’aa da svari rakijata// [A] //toj sˇe izvadi sigurno povecˇe rakija// (2-75) KA 2.8, excerpt 1 [B] ne mu se jadosvaj zasˇtoto nie bes tva sˇe go pravime majko// [I] //nie i bes tva sˇe go pravime// (2-76) KA 4.3, excerpt 1 [V] Toj taka de kazva — “Cveten kvartal”. [X] //n-e/ toj n-e se kazva taka// (2-77) KA 1.1, excerpt 1 [ST] //irina besˇi// [L] //irincˇeto besˇe i ti besˇe// [V] I az bjax, no az bjax malka. [L] //ti malka besˇe// (2-78) KA 1.3, excerpt 4 [S] //da/ strasˇno te obicˇam// do... [R] //dokumentira dokumentira se vecˇe// kazˇi go osˇte vedna˘sˇ// [M] //n’ama da ti kazˇa˘/ n’ama da ti kazˇa˘// [V] //dobre sa/ va˘r(FS) iskam da va˘rsˇa˘ rabota// daj se prenesem f kuxn’ata// (2-79) KA 4.4, excerpt 2 [I] //nali jadete luk// [T] ...F... (expressing a question — a˘) [I] //nali jadete luk f salatata// [T] //jademe da//
Appendix
(3-10) KA 4.6, excerpt 2 [E] /sega tr’aa da ima ena butilka sprajt ako namerisˇ obacˇe tr’ava da isticˇasˇ da kupisˇ zasˇoto na dzˇipa˘ c’alata mu preles e da ba˘de razvodnen sa˘s nesˇto// (3-13e) KA 2.2, excerpt 1 [B] i podrezˇda mene/ t’a// (Table 10, note 3) KA 4.5, excerpt 1 [V] Men sa mi kazali, cˇe (3-15) KA 1.5, excerpt 2 [I] /va˘prosa˘ e cˇe toj/ [V] Cˇe teb te nervira. (3-18a) KA 1.6, excerpt 1 [E] /vopsˇte ne sme si bili ot dva do cˇetri/ nie kupuvaxme terakota fcˇera// (3-18b) KA 1.2, excerpt 1 [A] //spokojstvie izla˘cˇva˘t tea dvamata// (3-18c) KA 1.6, excerpt 1 [E] //ami: t’a se obadila na majka mi/ (3-18d) KA 1.7, excerpt 2 [V] Na Irina onija struvaxa dvajset... (3-20a) KA 1.2, excerpt 1 [I] //mi po razumno e taka (laughs) visˇ kak sa˘m gi ma˘knala tija cvet’a f edin kasˇon/ od zimnica do tuka// (3-20b) KA 1.2, excerpt 5 [A] /tr’aa˘ da xod’a˘ za dvajs minuti na sresˇta s nego// [V] Az tvojte dvajset minuti gi znam. Dvajset po dvajset. (3-20c) KA 2.3, excerpt 1 [M] //sˇto/ kakvo i e na pecˇkata// (3-20d) KA 4.6d, excerpt 1 [E] na: zˇorko da mu naleja˘ li vodicˇka/ iska li osˇte// (3-23) KA 1.7, excerpt 5 [G] Cˇe mnogo ti e xubav serviza. [R] //omra˘ znal mi e da go gledam vecˇe// [G] Trjabvasˇe da go dadesˇ snosˇti na decata. Da cˇupjat.
Appendix
(3-27) KA 1.5, excerpt 2 [I] / i toj nali spesˇe otata˘ka i se sa˘buzˇda ma ta˘kmo sa˘m pocˇnala da ja xran’a˘/ i (3-32) KA 1.2, excerpt 1 [I] //zˇoro/ izkl’ucˇi go// iskl’ucˇi furnata zˇore napa˘lno// (3-33) KA 2.11, excerpt 3 [K] //i nas zˇenite pa˘lno oddelenie ni zga˘stixa taka// i zapocˇnaxa da ni prexva˘rl’a˘t f rodilno/ (3-34) KA 1.3, excerpt 5 [M] //prostak// imasˇ li pisˇesˇta masˇina// [R] //imam (3-40) KA 1.2, excerpt 2 [A] //sicˇko e sa˘fsem normalno// [V] Ama interesno, sega kazva li, cˇe j e interesno? (3-42) KA d.bp, excerpt 1 [P] i mojta majka si mi go e ku\pila// (3-43) KA 1.3, excerpt 1 [M] //izvin’avaj ne sa˘ te celunali deset kolesˇki sˇtoto ti besˇe pres c’aloto vreme sa˘s mene// (3-48) KA 1.5, excerpt 4 [I] //i: i opsˇto vzeto cˇisteneto prava˘/ (3-50) KA 2.2, excerpt 1 [B] //ma ka˘de go sresˇ\nax toja boklukcˇija˘ ta da/ ta zˇivota˘ da mi otrovi/ (3-54) KA 1.6, excerpt 2 [R] //t’ax ka˘sˇta ne im tr’aa/ ma pari im tr’aa˘t sˇtoto ima˘t zaemi// (3-55) KA 2.9, excerpt 3 [L] //...F...(expressing doubt — xm) nego malko zor mu besˇe kato prevodacˇ tva onova// (3-58) KA 2.6, excerpt 3 [Sl] //prestavam si na zˇoro kakvo mu e bilo/ sigurno mu se e prirevalo na gorkicˇkija˘// (3-60) KA 1.1, excerpt 1 [S] //tr’ava da slusˇasˇ zˇena si//
Appendix
(3-61) KA 1.1, excerpt 1 [L] //donesi diplomata da ne sa˘m goloslovna/ da vidi moskofskata diploma krasito// (3-63) KA 1.2, excerpt 2 [I] //pak kazva sega cˇe ne e interesno/ kazvam botka(FS) slafcˇo d’ado ti slafcˇo sˇe te zakara na deckata gradina va˘f ponedelnik// i t’a mi kazva nikakvi decka gradina ne iskam/ koga sˇe sva˘rsˇa˘t deckite gradini// (3-65) KA 1.7, excerpt 3 [R] //f momenta˘ pravi biznes sa˘s edin turcˇin// [V] Ama gi prodava˘t na nego? (3-67) KA 1.2, excerpt 2 [V] Dnes do koga si spal? [A] //koj// [V] Ti. [A] //va˘f osem cˇasa˘ ma˘ sa˘budixa// sa˘fsem ser’ozno/ sˇto taka me gleate/ nesˇto ima li mi na mene// (3-68) KA 2.8, excerpt 1 [B] //bezˇovi kato na ona˘zi sa˘ po xubavi ot na on(FS) na vas’a/ po sa˘vremenni sa˘// [I] //xubavi sa˘ sˇtom/ [B] //n’ama da gi pipame tam// [I] //plocˇkite i na mene mi xaresaxa/ taka sˇe si ostana˘t/ (3-70) KA 2.4, excerpt 3 [I] /dokolkoto na men mi e izvesno xotelite prez zimata ne rabota˘t na moreto// (3-72) KA 1.1, excerpt 2 [L] //te mnogo pija˘t voda tezi// [V] Da. (3-74) KA 1.2, excerpt 1 [V] E, cˇe ti kamion li si dokarala?! (3-75) KA 1.2, excerpt 1 [I] //mi po razumno e taka (laughs) visˇ kak sa˘m gi ma˘knala tija cvet’a f edin kasˇon/ (3-77) KA d.bp, excerpt 1 [P] //na pijano svira˘ vecˇe s dve ra˘ce// [V] Na pianoto!
Appendix
[P] [V] [P]
//da// I kakvo svirisˇ? //razni pieski/ ma edna osˇte ne sa˘m ja naucˇil sˇtoto e nogo trudna//
(3-78) KA 1.2, excerpt 1 [A] //i razgele tam namiram ja drugarkata slafcˇeva kojato si podava cˇarovnata glava ot edno kupe// (3-80) KA 2.2, excerpt 1 [B] /d_ejba nego/ mra˘ snoto cˇovecˇe da eba/ (3-82) KA 1.2, excerpt 2 [I] /i: tis raboti da ne izgor’axa/ ole bozˇe// [G] Ne. Te sa spreni. [I] //zˇore trea da gi izvadisˇ dusˇico tija/ ama izvadim li gi trea da gi servirame// (3-83) KA 1.2, excerpt 2 [V] Nasko, kakvo pravi Borjancˇeto? [A] //mi dobre e kvo da prai// bor’ana e dobre// [V] Kakvo, priema li detskata gradina? Kakvo razpravja sladurancˇeto, a? [A] //kvo da raspraa/ raspraa cˇe e xuu/ tam nali drugarcˇeta ne znam si kvo/ za razlika ot n’akoi drugi xora ne e ispadnala f nervni krizi bor’ana// sicˇko e sa˘fsem normalno// [V] Ama interesno, sega kazva li, cˇe j e interesno? (3-86) KA 1.3, excerpt 5 [R] //i as kazax e moga˘// da da vikam i as sˇe pitam drugata/ zasˇtot drugata odgovar’a za tva nesˇto// pri koeto drugata nisˇto ne mi spomenava/ (3-89) KA 1.6, excerpt 2 [R] /cenata// [V] Da, i trjabva da sa podredeni. [R] //i trjaa sa˘ podredeni i az za tva iskax sam da sedna˘ spokojno/ i tuka edno po edno da si gi obmisl’am i da si gi pisˇa˘// [V] Ti obmislil li si gi? [R] //ami... izmislil sa˘m gi i as tr’aa ti kazˇa˘ cˇe tija˘ cini va˘opsˇte ne sa˘ verni:/ sˇtot as sa˘m xva˘rlil tam ludi baksˇisˇi za tva za onova// f sa˘sˇtoto vreme za da opravdaja˘ baksˇisˇite i rasxodite za trud/ az naduvam cinite/
Appendix
(3-90) KA d.bp, excerpt 1 [P] /platixme gi i gi kupix// [B] //a: pet’o// [V] Kakvo kazvasˇ? [P] //platixme gi tija ucˇebnici// (3-93) KA 2.11, excerpt 2 [K] //mnogo losˇo besˇe tam/ ma: as a˘: vikam tam n’ama da razˇdam// da mi laza˘t po deteto tija xlebarki// tolkova nexigienicˇno// (3-94) KA 1.2, excerpt 4 [A] //ne pipaj ximikala˘/ tva mi e l’ubimija˘ ximikal/ fsicˇki go pipa˘t/ ne tr’abva da go pipa˘t// (3-97) KA 1.2, excerpt 2 [I] //tva na kogo e/ ne na krasi// [G] Tova e neopredeleno. Drugoto e na mene. Eto tova e na gospozˇata Aleksova. (3-98) KA 2.1, excerpt 4 [L] //i zatva osˇte se kolebaja˘ i sta\na vecˇe mesec i polvina kak se vika sa˘m na izdra˘sˇka na decata// [D] //a// [L] //ne na decata ma na zˇenata// [G] A, taka e mnogo dobre na zˇenata... (3-100) KA 1.7, excerpt 1 [R] //eto tes sa˘ novi// ima razlika vizˇ gi tija te sa˘ sa˘fsem ne:/ samo s takiva moga˘ da zatvar’am/ men krasi me bola˘t ra˘cete as imam mnogo slabi kitki// visˇ kvo si namerix v garderoba˘ (zˇzˇzˇzˇzˇzˇ)(points at with her finger, then picks up small clay containers with lids) podar’avali sa˘ mi go i kat si rascˇistvax gardiroba˘ bez da iskam si go namerix// a sa˘m zabravila za t’ax/ gledaj kvi sa˘ raskosˇni// s dupka (zˇzˇzˇzˇzˇzˇ)(points at a hole in the lid)// (3-102) KA 2.6, excerpt 2 [Sl] //tova znacˇi cˇe na nego mu e bilo bezrazlicˇno kakvo sˇte napravi i resˇil cˇe f slucˇaja˘ e po izgodno da napravi taka kakto t’a e resˇila// (3-104) KA 2.8, excerpt 1 [I] //ser’ozno// tr’ava da ti kazˇa˘ cˇe a˘: sa˘m resˇila cˇe mozˇe bi kra˘glata masa sˇe ja slozˇa˘ f kuxn’ata//
Appendix
(3-106) KA 3.2, excerpt 2 [V] Da mozˇem da gi otgledame! [T] //a: lele// cˇudesno// mnogo dobre// [P] //bravo mnogo xuu// [M] //ama na baba botka taka j e mnogo dobre// (3-115) KA 2.9d, excerpt 1 [A] //banan ne obicˇam da go jam/ (3-117) KA 1.5, excerpt 4 [V] Gladisˇ li ja? [I] //da// [V] Tja e malka osˇte. [I] //dok ne pekne sla˘nceto/ da gi susˇa˘ na sla˘nce// be dva meseca pone sˇe ja glada˘/ to edin mesec naprai pocˇti/ drugi den prai edin mesec i osˇte edin mesec// posle vecˇe/ [V] E to kato ima sla˘nce ne e strasˇno. [I] //be da ti kazˇa˘ oprav’am se// [V] Ox, mozˇe li da go spresˇ tova cva˘rkalo? (3-120) KA 1.7, excerpt 3 [R] mojta baba ako besˇe zˇiva tolkova mnogo mozˇesˇe da ti posluzˇi// t’a besˇe obrazec na sˇopski govor/ tr’aa˘ ti kazˇa˘// [V] Ima li takiva? Na majka ti? [R] //ne/ na basˇta mi// na basˇta mi/ deka cˇe odisˇ/ koncˇietata/ na m’eko/ ama: besˇe iskl’ucˇitelno koloritna/ nie mnogo j se smeexme vnucite j// [V] Aa, podigravali ste ja nesˇtastnata zˇenica. (3-122) KA 1.6, excerpt 2 [I] //zdrasti/ ziam gi i dv-et-e// [R] //dobre// [I] //t-e sega projavixa zˇilanie da doja˘t u nas// gergana i dora// ako si ja ta˘rsa˘t gergana kazˇi cˇe e (zˇzˇzˇzˇzˇzˇ)(turns her head in the direction of her apartment) (3-124) KA 1.6, excerpt 2 [R] /t’a majka mi tolko beznadezˇno gleda na zˇivota˘ si cˇe:/ sˇtom sledvasˇtite deset godini n’aa da da padne na leglo/ nacˇi n’aa tuka// a to tva j tr’aa na neja malko da sa˘:/ malko da ba˘de optimis/ za da moe da si oprai zdraveto/
Appendix
(4-3)/(4-7) KA 1.5, excerpt 2 [I] //mi kvo stava/ opsˇto vzeto se oprav’ame:/ toj ot vreme na vreme me nervira ta me iskarva ot nervi// dojde svetla tuka ama toj podiv’a// napravo ti kazvam/ da˘rzˇa se odvratitelno/ razli\va sok tuka: ligavi se bla˘ska:/ as zex da ja xrana˘ nali po eno vreme: toj se bla˘ska va˘f mene/ bla˘ska ja neja/ sˇtipe ja za kraka˘// ama kakvo li ne/ as sa˘m sipala po edin sok sa˘s svetla da pieme:/ toj xodi zima j cˇasˇata/ a be uzˇas uzˇas// kvo mu sta\na izvedna˘sˇ// (4-4)/(4-8) KA 4.4, excerpt 2 [T] //taka kakto glasisˇ taa vecˇera: sˇe se zabavime/ ne znam// retko se vizˇdame da ti kazˇa˘// [I] //i xubaf praznik imame// [T] //dneska da/ edin ot naj xubavite ba˘lgarski praznici// ti mnogo li xodisˇ po komandirofki// [I] //mnogo mnogo// [T] //mi detenceto koj go gleda// [I] //majka krasi// [T] //t’a xodi na gradina/ kak besˇe na gradina li//
Index
aboutness 2, 9–11, 12, 15, 20, 27, 30, 64 –95, 128, 151–84, 186 –91, 193 –203, 205–07, 211 n. 19, 217–18 n. 73, 218 n. 74, 220 n. 92 clause-level aboutness (see topic) discourse-level aboutness (see discourse theme) Academy Grammar, volume 2 140 Academy Grammar, volume 3 18, 19, 20, 21, 30, 50, 110, 171, 210 n. 14, n. 15, 211 n. 20 accusative 106–08, 111–13, 128–32, 134–35, 154, 179, 213 n. 32, 216 n. 56 activated 30–31, 65, 68–69, 84 additional information 13, 52–54, 68, 115, 137–39, 150, 163 –64, 186, 198, 217 n. 69 affectedness (degree of) 97–98 agreement (see inflectional morphology) Aleksova, Krasimira 7, 220 n. 87 Alexander, Ronelle 212 n. 30 Alexandrova, Galia 175–76, 219 n. 85 ambiguity of reference (see referential ambiguity) analytic 108 Andrej≠in, Ljubomir 45, 63, 108, 131, 212 n. 29, 216 n. 53, n. 54, n. 58 Andrews, Avery 28, 30, 212 n. 22, n. 28, 220 n. 92 Androulakis, Anna 28, 212 n. 31 animacy 178–79, 219 n. 78 Aronson, Howard I. 216 n. 62 Atanasova, Teodora 51, 100 Avgustinova, Tania 174 beneficiary 97, 99 –100, 103, 127, 154, 156 –57
brevity (maxim of) (and economy) 45– 46, 54–55, 84, 94, 115, 119, 121, 150, 152–53, 196 Brown, Gillian 13, 210 n. 10 Ca≠ev, Kliment 216 n. 59 CAP (see Clausal Aboutness Perspective) case-marking (indication of case relations) 111, 127–37, 156, 178, 198 Chafe, Wallace L. 212 n. 28, 218 n. 74 chain 172–73 Clark, Herbert H. 210 n. 14 Clausal Aboutness Perspective (CAP) 12, 207 cleft 25, 212 n. 22 clitic (see also short form personal pronoun) 5, 101, 106–07, 109–10, 123–25, 142, 152–53, 171–72, 174–75, 184, 206, 209 n. 4, 212 n. 27, 214 n. 36, 216 n. 62, 217 n. 63, n. 70, n. 73, 220 n. 90 comment 16, 18, 20–22, 27–31, 92, 116, 141, 153, 171, 174, 176–77, 179, 203, 210–11 n. 15, 219 n. 78 definition of 28 communicative dynamism (degree of) 18, 24–25, 211 n. 15 competitor/competition for aboutness 69, 75, 77–81, 83, 85–88, 182, 186–89, 192, 194, 200 contrastive focus/emphasis 20, 22, 26–27, 53, 56–61, 78, 141, 143–49, 186, 189, 191, 194–95, 198, 210 n. 6, 211 n. 19, 212 n. 22 Cooperative Principle 45, 84, 115 culmination 18, 27, 211 n. 15 Cyxun, Genadij 22, 46, 131, 140, 171, 209–10 n. 6, 216 n. 62
Index
dative 99, 104, 106 – 09, 111–13, 134–36, 156–57, 179, 213 n. 32, 216 n. 54, n. 56 definite(ness) 12, 30–31, 98, 178–79, 207, 209 n. 1, 212 n. 29, 213 n. 32, 219 n. 78, n. 86 definite article 111–12, 212 n. 29, 217 n. 66 degree of affectedness (see affectedness) deletion 29, 41, 124–25, 212 n. 27, 217 n. 63 destabilized (see instability) dialogue 35, 93, 152, 185, 187 direct object, characterization of 97–98, 216 n. 53 direct speech (and reported/represented speech) 60, 109–10, 134, 154, 156, 215 n. 45, 216 n. 59 discourse theme (DT), definition of 33 established discourse theme 72, 75, 82, 90, 94–95, 151, 153, 157, 159, 183, 199, 218 n. 74 shift in discourse theme 11, 72–75, 82, 91, 95, 153, 195 weakly established discourse theme 69, 82– 83, 88– 89, 92, 187, 199 D-linking 212 n. 31 Don≠eva, Liljana 46, 209 n. 2 double packaging (see focused double packaging) doubled subjects (see focused double packaging) DT (see discourse theme) Dyer, Donald L. 16, 18, 19, 22, 131, 140, 210 n. 11, n. 12, n. 13, 211 n. 19, 212 n. 24, 216 n. 58 economy (see brevity) emotion(al) 21–23, 55 –56, 58–59, 63, 150–51, 186, 189, 198, 200, 206, 211 n. 20, n. 21 emphasis (see focus) emphatic stress 16–17, 20–22, 25, 30, 150, 177, 210 n. 13, 211 n. 19 experiencer 97, 99–100, 126–27, 198 exposition 211 n. 15 expressive(ness) 16, 21–23, 56, 63, 150–51 external perspective 45, 71, 215 n. 46
Firbas, Jan 24, 210 n. 14, 211 n. 15, 212 n. 32 FNP (see full noun phrase) focalization 30, 177 focus (or emphasis) (see also contrastive focus), definition of 23–25 focused double packaging 62– 63, 186, 206, 220 n. 91 Franks, Steven 20, 173, 219 n. 84 Friedman, Victor A. 212 n. 30 FSP (see Functional Sentence Perspective) full noun phrase (FNP), definition of 215 n. 41 Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) 12, 18 –19, 27, 207 Gargov, Georgi 212 n. 30 gender 42–43, 49, 107, 109, 119–120, 124, 130, 133, 156, 186, 192, 198, 213 n. 35, 215 n. 51, 217 n. 73 generative (or transformational) syntax 13 –14, 19 generic 212 n. 29, 220 n. 86 Georgieva, Elena (see also Academy Grammar, Volume 3) 18, 19, 21, 22, 27, 116, 174–75, 176, 210 n. 12, 215 n. 44, 217 n. 65 Gerova, Darina 216 n. 59 given (information) 12, 18, 30–31, 116, 123, 207, 210 n. 14, n. 15, 212 n. 32, 218 n. 74 Given-New Strategy 210 n. 14 Givón, Talmy 34, 65, 68, 84, 116, 117, 212 n. 25, 213 n. 32, 218 n. 75, 219 n. 78 grammar of themehood 45, 65 grammatical code-quantity principle 65, 68, 84 grammatical word order 116, 217 n. 65 Grenoble, Lenore A. 65, 94 Grice, H. P. 45, 54, 84, 152, 215 n. 40, 216 n. 61 Guentchéva, Zlatka 20, 29, 30, 175, 177–78, 216 n. 62
Index
Halliday, Michael H. K. 210 n. 13 Haviland, Susan E. 210 n. 14 Hopper, Paul J. 98 impersonal 8, 50–52, 89, 126, 134, 179, 186, 197 indefinite(ness) 12, 29–30, 32–33, 179, 212 n. 30, 213 n. 32, 219 n. 78, 220 n. 86 indefinite article 212 n. 30 indirect object, characterization of 98 –100, 216 n. 54 inflection(al morphology) (and agreement) 39, 41– 43, 50, 58, 109, 124–25, 130 –32, 175 –76, 185, 195, 212 n. 27, 213 –14 n. 35, 214 n. 36, 215 n. 50, 216 n. 62, 217 n. 73, 218 n. 74 information structure, definition of 13, 76 instability (and destabilized, unstable) 69 –72, 75, 77– 83, 89, 91, 95, 181– 83, 186–87, 191, 193 –94, 196, 220 n. 93 intonation 1, 15–17, 22, 60, 155, 205, 210 n. 11, n. 12 Ivan≠ev, Svetomir 16, 18–19, 22, 140, 174, 210 n. 15, 211 n. 15, 212 n. 32, 219 n. 78 Ivanova, Kalina (see Academy Grammar, Volume 2) Keenan, Edward L. 28, 212 n. 32 King, Tracy Holloway 20, 173, 219 n. 84 Konstantinov, Aleko 216 n. 59 Koseska-Toszewa, Violeta 212 n. 30 Lambrecht, Knud 13, 14, 23, 28, 76, 116, 117, 153 –54, 218 n. 74 Leafgren, John R. 36, 141, 175, 178–79, 209 n. 2, 220 n. 86 left dislocation 63, 215 n. 43 Li, Charles N. 218 n. 75 Lindseth, Martina 209 n. 2 logical stress 16, 20, 22, 140, 215 n. 44 long form personal pronoun (LPP) 5, 14, 101–02, 106–08, 120, 135, 137, 139– 40, 143– 44, 150, 160–61, 166, 174, 197–98, 200, 206 Longacre, R. E. 213 n. 34
Lopa•ov, Ju. A. 141 LPP (see long form personal pronoun) Manolova, L. 110, 130, 140–41 marked(ness) 4, 14, 21–22, 100, 110–11, 120, 139– 43, 154, 156, 164, 166–67, 182, 197, 219 n. 85 Markova, Ilinda 216 n. 59 Maslov, Ju. S. 130, 135, 140, 141 Mel’ni≠uk, A. S. 171, 173 Mills, Margaret H. 215–16 n. 51 Min≠eva, Angelina 14, 175, 177 monologue 33–34, 185 Motapanyane, Virginia 17, 19, 20, 21, 171–73, 211 n. 18, 219 n. 83 na-drop 108–09, 112, 134–37, 178, 198, 219 n. 81 name-calling 56, 59, 63, 150, 186, 198 neutral (see unmarked) new (information) 12, 16–18, 27–30, 32–33, 46, 54, 116, 153, 179, 186, 198, 210 n. 14, 210–11 n. 15 Nichols, Johanna 45, 65, 70, 211 n. 19, 215 n. 46, n. 48 Nicolova, Ruselina 131, 132–33, 135, 136, 140, 141, 171, 173, 216 n. 62, 220 n. 88 nominative 41–42, 107, 111–12, 128, 155, 206, 209-10 n. 6 non-contrastive focus 57, 59–62, 145–46, 148 –49, 186, 198 non-overt (see zero) non-referential (see referential) non-specific 79, 103, 146, 176 null (see zero) number 40, 42, 109, 119–20, 124, 130, 133, 156, 186, 198, 213 n. 35, 214 n. 36, 217 n. 73 object(-)agreement 124, 175 –76, 216 n. 62 Ockham’s razor 30 old information (see given information) Orzechowska, Hanna 216 n. 58 paragraph 33–34, 72–75, 213 n. 34 participant identity (see referential ambiguity)
Index
participant involvement 6–8, 50–52, 94, 99, 115, 125–137, 186, 197– 98 passive (and passivization) 1, 4, 40, 103, 155–56, 219 n. 77 Pa•ov, Pet∂r (see Academy Grammar, Volume 2) patient (and undergoer) 88, 97–98, 103 – 05, 129, 154 –56 Pen≠ev, Jordan (see also Academy Grammar, Volume 3) 41, 211 n. 19, 212 n. 26 person 29, 42, 44, 50, 87, 90– 91, 93 –94, 109, 121, 124, 126, 136, 156, 178–79, 186, 193, 198, 213 n. 35, 214 –15 n. 39, 215 n. 50, 217 n. 73 personal (versus impersonal) 8, 50–52, 133, 179 personal pronoun (see also short form personal pronoun, long form personal pronoun) 2, 9, 29, 39, 41– 45, 49 –50, 55, 57, 58 – 63, 105–06, 119–21, 160, 186 –87, 193, 198, 209–10 n. 6, 212 n. 29 polypersonalism 216 n. 62 Popov, Konstantin (see also Academy Grammar, Volume 3) 18, 22, 30, 45, 63, 108, 110, 130, 131, 174, 211 n. 21, 212 n. 29, 216 n. 53, n. 54, n. 58 possessor (and possessive) 99, 209 n. 3, 216 n. 56 pragmatic(s) 13, 17, 23, 27, 44, 54, 76, 124, 129, 210 n. 10, 214 n. 38 Prague School 12, 18 presentative 83, 215 n. 48 pro-drop 41 psychological subject 174 Rå Hauge, Kjetil 40, 63, 102–03, 105, 108, 111, 112, 131, 140, 155, 156, 212 n. 29, 219 n. 77 Rankova, Marija 51, 100 recipient 99–100, 103–04, 127, 154, 156–57 reduplicated full noun phrase (R-FNP) 5, 101– 02, 110 –14, 121, 125, 129 –36, 139 – 41, 144, 148 –50, 152, 154, 162–64, 167, 169 –71, 198 – 99
reduplicated personal pronoun (R-PP) 5, 101–02, 109–11, 121, 125, 132, 134–37, 139– 41, 144–46, 152–54, 161, 164, 167–69, 198–99, 206 reduplication (see also reduplicated personal pronoun, reduplicated full noun phrase, topic-marking) definition of 5 referential (vs. non-referential) 104 referential ambiguity (and participant identity, referential clarity, referential explicitness) 5, 7, 40, 42–43, 46–50, 56–59, 61–62, 68, 71–72, 75–77, 86, 89, 104, 115–26, 139, 150, 152, 159–60, 162–63, 182, 184, 189, 192, 194–95, 202 referential clarity (see referential ambiguity) referential explicitness (see referential ambiguity) reflexive 127, 155, 198 relative clause (and relative pronoun) 12, 79 –80, 148, 212 n. 31, 217 n. 72 reported/represented speech (see direct speech) R-FNP (see reduplicated full noun phrase) rhematic stress 16, 210 n. 13 rheme (see also comment) 16, 18, 22, 24 –25, 27, 211 n. 15, n. 19 R-PP (see reduplicated personal pronoun) Rudin, Catherine 17, 19, 21, 23, 28, 41, 63, 131, 133, 141, 175–76, 211 n. 16, 212–13 n. 32, 215 n. 43, 216 n. 62, 217 n. 72, 220 n. 92 Rusinov, R. 130–31, 216 n. 58 Scatton, Ernest A. 50, 130, 140 sentential intonation (see intonation) sentential stress 15–16, 20, 30, 150, 177 Sgall, Petr 28, 30, 31 shift in discourse theme (see discourse theme) short form personal pronoun (SPP) (see also clitic) 5, 11, 101–02, 105–07, 123–25, 128–29, 139–40, 142–43, 149–51, 157–60, 165–66, 176–77, 184,
Index
196 – 97, 199–200, 202–03, 206 – 07, 216 n. 62, 217 n. 70, n. 73, 218 n. 74 speaker/hearer gradient 215–16 n. 51 specific 8, 30, 39, 44, 104, 126 –27, 176, 209 n. 1, 219 –20 n. 86 specified 40, 104–05, 122–23 SPP (see short form personal pronoun) stability (stable aboutness) 69, 71–72, 75, 78 –91, 94, 151, 153, 157, 183 – 84, 186, 197, 199, 210 n. 9, 218 n. 74, 220 n. 93 Stankov, Valentin (see Academy Grammar, Volume 2) Stojanov, Stojan (see also Academy Grammar, Volume 2) 46, 63, 108, 131, 212 n. 29, 216 n. 53, n. 54, n. 58 stress (see sentential stress, logical stress, rhematic stress, emphatic stress) subject (see nominative) subject-prominent 218 n. 75 subjective word order 22, 211 n. 21 subordinate clause 12, 67, 69 –70, 79-80, 83, 85 – 87, 146, 187, 189 syntactic head 53–54, 68, 138–39, 186, 198 syntagm 171 synthetic 108, 112 Szober, Stanislaw 18 §evjakova, V. E. 210 n. 13 temporal shift 69–70, 83, 85, 181– 82, 186, 189 terme de départ 30, 178 thematic (see discourse theme) theme (see discourse theme, topic) Thompson, Sandra A. 98, 218 n. 75 topic (topical, topicality), definition of 27–28 topic shift 90–91 topic-comment structure (see also Functional Sentence Perspective) 111, 125, 136, 144, 154, 156–57, 220 n. 92 topic-marking 11–12, 30–31, 125, 134, 136, 141, 153-57, 161–64, 167–84, 197, 202, 203 – 05, 207 topical word order 116 topicalization 177
trace (realization of) 125, 217 n. 63 transformational syntax (see generative syntax) transitivity 98, 216 n. 62 Trávní≠ek, F. 210 n. 14 true indefinite 220 n. 86 undergoer (see patient) Universal Hierarchy of Topicality 213 n. 32 unmarked (and neutral) 9, 14, 18, 45 –46, 116, 146, 164–65, 176 –77, 183, 197 unspecified 40, 103–04 unstable (see instability) Vakareliyska, Cynthia 108–09, 112, 131, 134, 136, 141 variable thematic stability 79–83, 86–89, 191 verbal agreement (see inflectional morphology) verbal morphology or inflection (see inflectional morphology) Ve´inov, Pavel 2 weakly established discourse theme (see discourse theme) word order (see also grammatical word order, subjective word order, topical word order) 1, 15–23, 106–07, 109–10, 112–13, 116, 129–31, 155–57, 178–79, 205, 210 n. 12, 211 n. 20, n. 21 Yule, George 13, 210 n. 10 Z (see zero) zero (Z) (and null, non-overt) zero object 5, 101–05, 122–23, 125–28, 139, 142, 149–50, 164–65, 197, 206, 217–18 n. 73 zero subject 2, 7–11, 29, 39–42, 45–46, 48–49, 51–52, 55, 63, 65, 67, 70–71, 78–91, 93–95, 102–03, 123–25, 152–53, 185–87, 197, 206, 209 n. 2, 212 n. 27, 215 n. 48, 217 n. 73, 218 n. 74
In the PRAGMATICS AND BEYOND NEW SERIES the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1. WALTER, Bettyruth: The Jury Summation as Speech Genre: An Ethnographic Study of What it Means to Those who Use it. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1988. 2. BARTON, Ellen: Nonsentential Constituents: A Theory of Grammatical Structure and Pragmatic Interpretation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 3. OLEKSY, Wieslaw (ed.): Contrastive Pragmatics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1989. 4. RAFFLER-ENGEL, Walburga von (ed.): Doctor-Patient Interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1989. 5. THELIN, Nils B. (ed.): Verbal Aspect in Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 6. VERSCHUEREN, Jef (ed.): Selected Papers from the 1987 International Pragmatics Conference. Vol. I: Pragmatics at Issue. Vol. II: Levels of Linguistic Adaptation. Vol. III: The Pragmatics of Intercultural and International Communication (ed. with Jan Blommaert). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 7. LINDENFELD, Jacqueline: Speech and Sociability at French Urban Market Places. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 8. YOUNG, Lynne: Language as Behaviour, Language as Code: A Study of Academic English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 9. LUKE, Kang-Kwong: Utterance Particles in Cantonese Conversation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 10. MURRAY, Denise E.: Conversation for Action. The computer terminal as medium of communication. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 11. LUONG, Hy V.: Discursive Practices and Linguistic Meanings. The Vietnamese system of person reference. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 12. ABRAHAM, Werner (ed.): Discourse Particles. Descriptive and theoretical investigations on the logical, syntactic and pragmatic properties of discourse particles in German. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 13. NUYTS, Jan, A. Machtelt BOLKESTEIN and Co VET (eds): Layers and Levels of Representation in Language Theory: a functional view. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 14. SCHWARTZ, Ursula: Young Children’s Dyadic Pretend Play. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 15. KOMTER, Martha: Conflict and Cooperation in Job Interviews. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 16. MANN, William C. and Sandra A. THOMPSON (eds): Discourse Description: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fund-Raising Text. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992. 17. PIÉRAUT-LE BONNIEC, Gilberte and Marlene DOLITSKY (eds): Language Bases ... Discourse Bases. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 18. JOHNSTONE, Barbara: Repetition in Arabic Discourse. Paradigms, syntagms and the ecology of language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 19. BAKER, Carolyn D. and Allan LUKE (eds): Towards a Critical Sociology of Reading Pedagogy. Papers of the XII World Congress on Reading. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 20. NUYTS, Jan: Aspects of a Cognitive-Pragmatic Theory of Language. On cognition, functionalism, and grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992. 21. SEARLE, John R. et al.: (On) Searle on Conversation. Compiled and introduced by Herman Parret and Jef Verschueren. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992.
22. AUER, Peter and Aldo Di LUZIO (eds): The Contextualization of Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992. 23. FORTESCUE, Michael, Peter HARDER and Lars KRISTOFFERSEN (eds): Layered Structure and Reference in a Functional Perspective. Papers from the Functional Grammar Conference, Copenhagen, 1990. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992. 24. MAYNARD, Senko K.: Discourse Modality: Subjectivity, Emotion and Voice in the Japanese Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 25. COUPER-KUHLEN, Elizabeth: English Speech Rhythm. Form and function in everyday verbal interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 26. STYGALL, Gail: Trial Language. A study in differential discourse processing. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, 1994. 27. SUTER, Hans Jürg: The Wedding Report: A Prototypical Approach to the Study of Traditional Text Types. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 28. VAN DE WALLE, Lieve: Pragmatics and Classical Sanskrit. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 29. BARSKY, Robert F.: Constructing a Productive Other: Discourse theory and the convention refugee hearing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 30. WORTHAM, Stanton E.F.: Acting Out Participant Examples in the Classroom. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 31. WILDGEN, Wolfgang: Process, Image and Meaning. A realistic model of the meanings of sentences and narrative texts. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 32. SHIBATANI, Masayoshi and Sandra A. THOMPSON (eds): Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 33. GOOSSENS, Louis, Paul PAUWELS, Brygida RUDZKA-OSTYN, Anne-Marie SIMONVANDENBERGEN and Johan VANPARYS: By Word of Mouth. Metaphor, metonymy and linguistic action in a cognitive perspective. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 34. BARBE, Katharina: Irony in Context. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 35. JUCKER, Andreas H. (ed.): Historical Pragmatics. Pragmatic developments in the history of English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 36. CHILTON, Paul, Mikhail V. ILYIN and Jacob MEY: Political Discourse in Transition in Eastern and Western Europe (1989-1991). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 37. CARSTON, Robyn and Seiji UCHIDA (eds): Relevance Theory. Applications and implications. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 38. FRETHEIM, Thorstein and Jeanette K. GUNDEL (eds): Reference and Referent Accessibility. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 39. HERRING, Susan (ed.): Computer-Mediated Communication. Linguistic, social, and cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 40. DIAMOND, Julie: Status and Power in Verbal Interaction. A study of discourse in a closeknit social network. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 41. VENTOLA, Eija and Anna MAURANEN, (eds): Academic Writing. Intercultural and textual issues. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 42. WODAK, Ruth and Helga KOTTHOFF (eds): Communicating Gender in Context. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 43. JANSSEN, Theo A.J.M. and Wim van der WURFF (eds): Reported Speech. Forms and functions of the verb. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996.
44. BARGIELA-CHIAPPINI, Francesca and Sandra J. HARRIS: Managing Language. The discourse of corporate meetings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 45. PALTRIDGE, Brian: Genre, Frames and Writing in Research Settings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 46. GEORGAKOPOULOU, Alexandra: Narrative Performances. A study of Modern Greek storytelling. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 47. CHESTERMAN, Andrew: Contrastive Functional Analysis. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 48. KAMIO, Akio: Territory of Information. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 49. KURZON, Dennis: Discourse of Silence. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 50. GRENOBLE, Lenore: Deixis and Information Packaging in Russian Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 51. BOULIMA, Jamila: Negotiated Interaction in Target Language Classroom Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999. 52. GILLIS, Steven and Annick DE HOUWER (eds): The Acquisition of Dutch. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, 1998. 53. MOSEGAARD HANSEN, Maj-Britt: The Function of Discourse Particles. A study with special reference to spoken standard French. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 54. HYLAND, Ken: Hedging in Scientific Research Articles. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 55. ALLWOOD, Jens and Peter Gärdenfors (eds): Cognitive Semantics. Meaning and cognition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999. 56. TANAKA, Hiroko: Language, Culture and Social Interaction. Turn-taking in Japanese and Anglo-American English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999. 57 JUCKER, Andreas H. and Yael ZIV (eds): Discourse Markers. Descriptions and theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 58. ROUCHOTA, Villy and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds): Current Issues in Relevance Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 59. KAMIO, Akio and Ken-ichi TAKAMI (eds): Function and Structure. In honor of Susumu Kuno. 1999. 60. JACOBS, Geert: Preformulating the News. An analysis of the metapragmatics of press releases. 1999. 61. MILLS, Margaret H. (ed.): Slavic Gender Linguistics. 1999. 62. TZANNE, Angeliki: Talking at Cross-Purposes. The dynamics of miscommunication. 2000. 63. BUBLITZ, Wolfram, Uta LENK and Eija VENTOLA (eds.): Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. How to create it and how to describe it.Selected papers from the International Workshop on Coherence, Augsburg, 24-27 April 1997. 1999. 64. SVENNEVIG, Jan: Getting Acquainted in Conversation. A study of initial interactions. 1999. 65. COOREN, François: The Organizing Dimension of Communication. 2000. 66. JUCKER, Andreas H., Gerd FRITZ and Franz LEBSANFT (eds.): Historical Dialogue Analysis. 1999. 67. TAAVITSAINEN, Irma, Gunnel MELCHERS and Päivi PAHTA (eds.): Dimensions of Writing in Nonstandard English. 1999. 68. ARNOVICK, Leslie: Diachronic Pragmatics. Seven case studies in English illocutionary development. 1999.
69. NOH, Eun-Ju: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Metarepresentation in English. A relevance-theoretic account. 2000. 70. SORJONEN, Marja-Leena: Responding in Conversation. A study of response particles in Finnish. 2001. 71. GÓMEZ-GONZÁLEZ, María Ángeles: The Theme-Topic Interface. Evidence from English. 2001. 72. MARMARIDOU, Sophia S.A.: Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition. 2000. 73. HESTER, Stephen and David FRANCIS (eds.): Local Educational Order. Ethnomethodological studies of knowledge in action. 2000. 74. TROSBORG, Anna (ed.): Analysing Professional Genres. 2000. 75. PILKINGTON, Adrian: Poetic Effects. A relevance theory perspective. 2000. 76. MATSUI, Tomoko: Bridging and Relevance. 2000. 77. VANDERVEKEN, Daniel and Susumu KUBO (eds.): Essays in Speech Act Theory. 2002. 78. SELL, Roger D. : Literature as Communication. The foundations of mediating criticism. 2000. 79. ANDERSEN, Gisle and Thorstein FRETHEIM (eds.): Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude. 2000. 80. UNGERER, Friedrich (ed.): English Media Texts – Past and Present. Language and textual structure. 2000. 81. DI LUZIO, Aldo, Susanne GÜNTHNER and Franca ORLETTI (eds.): Culture in Communication. Analyses of intercultural situations. 2001. 82. KHALIL, Esam N.: Grounding in English and Arabic News Discourse. 2000. 83. MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina: Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay. A contrastive study of requests and apologies. 2000. 84. ANDERSEN, Gisle: Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. A relevance-theoretic approach to the language of adolescents. 2001. 85. COLLINS, Daniel E.: Reanimated Voices. Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective. 2001. 86. IFANTIDOU, Elly: Evidentials and Relevance. 2001. 87. MUSHIN, Ilana: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. Narrative retelling. 2001. 88. BAYRAKTAROG LU, ArFn and Maria SIFIANOU (eds.): Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries. The case of Greek and Turkish. 2001. 89. ITAKURA, Hiroko: Conversational Dominance and Gender. A study of Japanese speakers in first and second language contexts. 2001. 90. KENESEI, István and Robert M. HARNISH (eds.): Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse. A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. 2001. 91. GROSS, Joan: Speaking in Other Voices. An ethnography of Walloon puppet theaters. 2001. 92. GARDNER, Rod: When Listeners Talk. Response tokens and listener stance. 2001. 93. BARON, Bettina and Helga KOTTHOFF (eds.): Gender in Interaction. Perspectives on femininity and masculinity in ethnography and discourse. 2002 94. McILVENNY, Paul (ed.): Talking Gender and Sexuality. 2002. 95. FITZMAURICE, Susan M.: The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English. A pragmatic approach. n.y.p. 96. HAVERKATE, Henk: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood. n.y.p.
97. MAYNARD, Senko K.: Linguistic Emotivity. Centrality of place, the topic-comment dynamic, and an ideology of pathos in Japanese discourse. n.y.p. 98. DUSZAK, Anna (ed.): Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures. n.y.p. 99. JASZCZOLT, K.M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 1. n.y.p. 100. JASZCZOLT, K.M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 2. n.y.p. 101. LUKE, Kang Kwong and Theodossia-Soula PAVLIDOU (eds.): Telephone Calls. Unity and diversity in conversational structure across languages and cultures. n.y.p. 102. LEAFGREN, John: Degrees of Explicitness. Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects. 2002. 103. FETZER, Anita and Christiane MEIERKORD (eds.): Rethinking Sequentiality. Linguistics meets conversational interaction. n.y.p. 104. BEECHING, Kate: Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French. n.y.p. 105. BLACKWELL, Sarah E.: Implicatures in Discourse. n.y.p. 106. BUSSE, Ulrich: Linguistic Variation in the Shakespeare Corpus. n.y.p 107. TAAVITSAINEN, Irma and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds.): Diachronic Perspective on Address Term Systems. n.y.p.
