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Contents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2025

Victor A. Friedman  and
Brian D. Joseph
Victor A. Friedman
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Brian D. Joseph
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Type
Chapter
Information
The Balkan Languages , pp. vii - xi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/

Contents

  1. List of Figures

  2. List of Tables

  3. Preface

  4. Acknowledgments

  5. A User’s Guide to This Book

  6. Introduction

  7. 1The Balkan Peninsula and Its Languages

    1. 1.0Introduction

    2. 1.1Geography

    3. 1.2Languages

      1. 1.2.1Dead Languages of the Balkans

      2. 1.2.2Modern Languages of the Balkans

      3. 1.2.3Modern Balkan Languages – Their Ancestors and Dialects

    4. 1.3On Maps and Toponyms

    5. 1.4Writing Systems: Albanian; Greek; Balkan Romance; Balkan Slavic; Romani; Balkan Turkic; Georgian and Armenian

  8. 2History of Balkan Linguistics

    1. 2.0Introduction

    2. 2.1Pre-History

    3. 2.2Beginnings – J. Kopitar; A. Schleicher; F. Miklosich and H. Schuchardt

    4. 2.3Theory and Discipline – N. Trubetzkoy and R. Jakobson; A. Seliščev and Kr. Sandfeld

    5. 2.4The Modern Period

    6. 2.5Post-Modern Balkan Linguistics: Roms, Jews, and Turks

  9. 3Concepts, Theories, Methods

    1. 3.0Introduction: Preliminaries on Language Contact

    2. 3.1Languages versus Speakers

    3. 3.2Basics on Methodology

      1. 3.2.1Mechanisms Relevant in Contact-Induced Change: Bilingualism; Agentivity in Language Contact Situations and Bilingualism: Reverse interference; Accommodation and Selection of Variants; Simplification and Pidginization; Codeswitching; Borrowing; Language Ideology

      2. 3.2.2Assessment Methods for Contact-Induced Change: Genetic/Genealogical Relationships; Areal Comparisons; Sources of Innovation; The Role of Typology; Geographical Distribution; Considerations of Chronology; Retention versus Innovation; The Relevance of Dialects; Dialects and Diffusion

    4. 3.3Methodological Consequences of the “Speaker-Plus-Dialect” Approach

    5. 3.4Sprachbunds Beyond the Balkans

      1. 3.4.1“External” History of the Sprachbund

      2. 3.4.2Does Size Really Matter? On Members and Membership

    6. 3.5Conclusion – Defining “Balkanism”

  10. 4Lexicon and Semantics

    1. 4.0Introduction

    2. 4.1On the Nature of Balkan Lexical Evidence and Lexical Evidence in General

    3. 4.2Overview of Commonly Discussed Material

      1. 4.2.1Borrowing of Content Words – Historically Identifiable Layers of Vocabulary: Non-Greek Paleo-Balkan Vocabulary; Latinity (The Roman Era); Greek in the Balkans; Slavic; Romance and the Crusades; Turkisms and Islam; Great Power Languages and Balkan Vocabulary (Late Eighteenth to Mid Twentieth Centuries); English Loans and “Internationalisms” in the Late Twentieth/Early Twenty-First Centuries

      2. 4.2.2Entry of Foreign Affixes: Latin; Greek; Slavic; Turkish; Western European Affixes

    4. 4.3Adding to the Typology of Loanwords: ERIC Loans

      1. 4.3.1Kinship Terms – General Concerns, Exemplified with ‘(Grand)Father’; ‘Mother’ (and ‘Grandmother’); ‘Brother’; ‘Sister’/‘Daughter’; ‘Uncle’; ‘Aunt’; ‘In-laws’; Larger Kinship Units; Fictive Kinship

      2. 4.3.2Numerals: Romani and Greek; Turkish Numerals in Balkan Slavic, Romani, Albanian, Aromanian; Teens as ‘X-on-TEN’

      3. 4.3.3Loans with Grammatical Value: Pronouns; Adpositions; Negation; Complementizers; Interrogation; Articles

      4. 4.3.4Discourse Elements: Modifiers; Expressives; Interjections; Exclamations; Attention-Getting Particles; Exhortatives

      5. 4.3.5Lexical Vocatives and Related Elements

      6. 4.3.6Onomatopoeia and Related Words

      7. 4.3.7Reduplication: Whole-Word Reduplication; Turkish-Origin Reduplication Patterns

      8. 4.3.8Diminutives, Hypocoristics, and Endearing Terms of Address

      9. 4.3.9Taboo Expressions, Insults, and Other Terms of Abuse: Body Parts; Bodily Activities, Functions, and Products; Insults; Ethnophaulisms and Ethnonyms

      10. 4.3.10Isosemy: Phraseological Isosemy; Prepositional Calques

      11. 4.3.11Ethnographic Vocabulary

    5. 4.4Register and Style: The Position of Turkish; The Position of Romani; Slang, Cryptoglossia, Jargon; Other Sources and Types of Register Differences

  11. 5Phonology

    1. 5.0Introduction

    2. 5.1Some Background and Prospects

    3. 5.2Localized Phonological Convergence and Bilingualism: The Mechanism of Phonological Borrowing

    4. 5.3Localized Phonological Convergence and Bilingualism: Some Case Studies

    5. 5.4Proposed Phonological Balkanisms: A Survey

      1. 5.4.1(Nearly) Pan-Balkan Features: Vowels

      2. 5.4.2(Nearly) Pan-Balkan Features: Consonants

      3. 5.4.3Regional Features: Vowels (au > av/af; Ø > a /#__C; Unstressed Initial Vowel Loss; Preservation of Latin u as u; Treatment of Final Vowels; Initial e > je; ea or ä > e (vel sim.) when Followed by Front Vowel; VV Sequences; Vowel “Reduction”; Aromanian Monophthongization; Romani Centralization)

      4. 5.4.4Regional Features: Consonants (NT > ND; Elimination/Creation of Dental or Palatal Affricates; Presence/Absence of ð θ γ; mj > mnj [mɲ]; sk > št, šč /__[+front]; Loss of x/h; Epenthetic Consonants in Clusters with Sonorants; Laterals; Rhotics (Excluding Rhotacism); l > r; rn/rl > rr (Trill); Loss of r/rr Distinction; Features Restricted to Albanian and Romanian (including Rhotacism); Dispalatalization or Dejotation in Romani

      5. 5.4.5Other Possible Phonological Balkanisms: Vowel Denasalization and Schwa; Word-Final Devoicing

      6. 5.4.6Some Final Thoughts on Segments and the Balkans

    6. 5.5Prosody: Loss; Realization, Mobility, and Adjustments in Domain Extensions; The Prosody of “Clitics”; Intonation

    7. 5.6Morphophonemic Alternations

    8. 5.7Expressive Phonology

    9. 5.8Conclusion

  12. 6Morphology and Morphosyntax: The Fate of Inflection and the Formation of Paradigms

    1. 6.0Introduction: The Question of Morphosyntactic Balkanisms

    2. 6.1Nominal Morphology and Morphosyntax

      1. 6.1.1Case, an Overview: Loss, Maintenance, and Analytism: Accusative Developments; Genitive/Dative Developments (Indirect Object; Possession (Reflexive and Doubled); Ethical Dative); Zero Marking (Goal and Location; Partitivity; Instrument); Vocative; Further Mergers (Dative/Locative; Genitive/Ablative)

      2. 6.1.2Referentiality: Deixis; Definiteness (Postposed Article; Preposed Article); Double Determination; Indefiniteness; Topicality and Focus

      3. 6.1.3Gender: Gender Distinctions; Borrowing, Calquing, and Other Contact Effects Involving Gender

      4. 6.1.4Number: Spread of Turkish Plurals; Other Plural Inflections; Number and Politeness

      5. 6.1.5Adjectives – Gradation

      6. 6.1.6Nominal Analytism – The Matter of Causation

    3. 6.2Verbal Morphology and Morphosyntax

      1. 6.2.1Tense: Borrowing of Tense Morphology; Absolute/Relative Tense; Simplex versus Analytic Pasts

      2. 6.2.2Aspect: Aktionsart, Superordinate, Subordinate

      3. 6.2.3Taxis and Resultativity: Pluperfect and Perfect

      4. 6.2.4Mood: Futures; Conditionals (Attenuated Conditionals and Modal Aorists); Volitionals (Synthetic Optatives; Perfects as Optatives; Analytic Optatives; Hortatives; Imperatives and Prohibitives)

      5. 6.2.5Evidentiality, an Overview: Turkish and Balkan Slavic; Judezmo; Romani; Meglenoromanian; Albanian; Aromanian (Frasheriote Dialect of Bela di Suprã); The Romanian Presumptive; The Aromanian Presumptive; Novo Selo Bulgarian; Greek

      6. 6.2.6Voice and Valency: Nonactive Parallelisms; Lability

  13. 7Syntax

    1. 7.0Introduction

    2. 7.1The Enterprise of Balkan Comparative Syntax

    3. 7.2Balkan Syntax from a Traditional Standpoint

    4. 7.3Syntax as Approached Here: Ordering; Complementation; Clitics; Diverse Sentence Types

    5. 7.4Order

      1. 7.4.1Constituent-Internal Ordering: Noun Phrase; Verbal Complex (Canonical Orders; Deviations from the Canonical Patterns; The Verbal Complex as a Balkanism); Weak Pronoun Ordering

      2. 7.4.2Word Order in Clauses

    6. 7.5The Syntax of Clitics, Historical and Otherwise

      1. 7.5.1Object Reduplication: Pragmatic Conditions; Indefiniteness and Specificity; Definiteness and Aboutness in Bulgarian; Factivity; Diachronic Development

      2. 7.5.2Weak Object Pronouns in Argument Roles

      3. 7.5.3Other Weak Object Pronoun Phenomena

    7. 7.6Negation: Indicative Negation; Modal Negation and Prohibitions; Extensions of Modal Negation; Negative Fusion

    8. 7.7Clause Combining

      1. 7.7.1Coordination and Parataxis: Functionally Subordinative Parataxis; Mitigating Parataxis; Juxtaposed Parataxis

      2. 7.7.2Subordination: Nonfinite Complementation (Synchrony and Diachrony); Nominal Complementation; Finite Complementation (Indicative versus Modal Complementation; Subordinate Tense-Mood-Aspect; Composite Finite Subordinators; Causes of Infinitival Developments; Adjectival (Relative) Clauses; Adverbial Clauses (Verbal Adverbs; Coreference Relations; Finite Adverbial Clauses in Balkan Turkic; Purpose Clauses)

    9. 7.8Diverse Clause Types

      1. 7.8.1Verbless Sentences

      2. 7.8.2Subjectless Sentences: Impersonal Constructions (Atmospheric and Natural Phenomena; Experiencer Constructions; Corresponding Personal Forms; Impersonal Passives; Impersonal Modals (Internal Disposition; Possibility and Necessity); ‘Have’ Existential versus ‘Be’ Possession; Narrative Imperatives and Narrative Verbal Nouns)

      3. 7.8.3Interrogation-Related Sentences: Yes-No Questions; Multiple WH-Questions

      4. 7.8.4Double Accusative Clauses

    10. 7.9Prepositional Syntax: Adposition Order; Definiteness Omission; Comitative Coordination; Various Prepositional Calques

  14. 8Conclusion: Summation, Causation, and the Future (and Some Definitional Issues)

  15. Envoi

  16. Index of Names

  17. Index of Subjects

  18. Index of Toponyms and Glossonyms

  19. For a full list of references, along with a color version of the frontispiece, an ethnic map of the Republic of Macedonia (now Republic of North Macedonia) 1994, please go to www.cambridge.org/BalkanLanguages

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