The BULGARIAN VERBAL NOUN WITH THE MEANING OF ACTION COMPARING TO OTHER SLAVIC LANGUAGES: ASPECTUAL FEATURES

Abstract

Background. Verbal nouns with the meaning of action in Slavic languages are a special class of nouns. The article contains the general characteristics of the Slavic Nomina actionis, describes the Grammatical status of this hybrid category of words. A description is offered of the word-formation of the features of the Nomina actionis, as well as verbal and nominal grammatical categories of them.

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to investigate the verbal aspectal properties of  Bulgarian verbal nouns at the system level and at the functional levee

Methods. We used general scientific methods (observation, analysis, synthesis, comparison, systematization), as well as linguistic research methods - the descriptive method and the method of corpus analysis. The source of factual material was a parallel Bulgarian-Russian corpus, as well as explanatory dictionaries of the Bulgarian language.

Results. The general Slavic peculiarities of verbal nouns are described. As a result of the word-formation transition from a verb to a noun with grammatical semantics, significant metamorphoses occur: the verbal noun acquires nominative categories (gender, number, case) and loses some of the verb categories (inclination, tense, person, etc.). At the same time, the category of aspectuality is largely preserved, influencing the semantics and functioning of deverbatives. In the South Slavic, Western Slavic and Eastern Slavic languages the verbal noun of the action is located at different distances from the verb, and has different grammatical status. The Eastern, Southern and Western Slavic languages, at the systemic level, demonstrate different degrees of preservation of verbal aspectuality. Actual word usage, in particular the ease of colloquial formation of nouns that are not in the dictionary, testifies to the activity of this fragment of the language system.

The history of the development of this category of words in Bulgarian is non-standard. Many verbal nouns entered East Slavic languages from Old Bulgarian. A few hundred years later the opposite process took place: the same Bulgarian model of nouns, but with a weaker verbal properties, returned to Bulgarian through loanwords.

The semantic and grammatical differences between the forms of -ne and -nie have been pointed out: the ability to express procedural meanings, the ability to retain an action control and to have direct applications, etc.

A parallel corpus of Bulgarian and Russian was used for a preliminary analysis of the functional features of Bulgarian deverbatives. The results showed the aspectual relevance of different noun forms. (-ne, -nie, etc.).

Discussion. The verbal noun in Slavic languages is in the "gray zone," but at a different distance from the noun and verb. The Bulgarian verb noun occupies a middle position in comparison with East Slavic and West Slavic nouns with the meaning of action. The same semantic constraints as in East Slavic languages work in the derivation process: the quantitative-temporal type of the boundary prevents their formation. The reduction of the verb of Bulgarian verbal nouns is most noticeable in the zone of perfectionality: to express the meaning of accomplished action, concrete fact, the central meanings of the accomplished kind are preferred to verbal rather than noun forms, where the species-perfective semantics is clearly marked. We consider further research into the functional aspects of Bulgarian deverbatives with the help of a wider corpus material promising. The results of the linguistic survey of native speakers of Bulgarian can also be an interesting and important source. The ratio of nominal and verbal semantics in these hybrid formations is the unique feature of the Bulgarian grammatical system in comparison with other Slavic languages.

Keywords: verbal nouns, nomina actionis, verb, noun, verbal and noun properties, aspectuality, aspect, perfective, imperfective.