Pleonastic Uses of the Suffix -ьнъ in Old Bulgarian Texts Cover Image

Плеонастични употреби на суфикс -ьнъ в старобългарски текстове
Pleonastic Uses of the Suffix -ьнъ in Old Bulgarian Texts

Author(s): Lora Taseva
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Lexis, Historical Linguistics, South Slavic Languages
Published by: Кирило-Методиевски научен център при Българска академия на науките
Keywords: word formation; pleonasm; Old Bulgarian texts; secondary adjective suffix

Summary/Abstract: The article systematises the information about word-forming pleonasm in the case of the suffix -ьnъ gained from a tergo indices (SJS and eight separate monuments from the early stage of Slavic literature) and analyses its compatibility as a secondary adjective suffix. The overview shows that adjectives without a typical adjectivising formant most often take on -ьнъ, which is probably due to the intralingual need to strengthen the faded indicators of belonging to the class of adjectives. Much less often, the suffix is added to stems with a word-forming element typical of adjectives, and most often this element is the possessive suffix -ov-/-ev-. Adjectives with the secondary suffix -ьnъ are not equally represented in the studied texts. If the percentage of their presence in the SJS corpus, which is 4.4%, is taken as an average value, then almost all the monuments examined deviate from it by up to 2 points in one direction or the other. Only the Didactic Gospel of Constantine of Preslav with its 9.7% pleonastic formations exceeds more than twice the average value. This affinity for secondary adjectives with the suffix -ьnъ deserves special attention in the future in studies of the language of the Preslav writer or of works attributed to him.

  • Issue Year: 2025
  • Issue No: 4 Special
  • Page Range: 285-298
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Bulgarian
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