DEFINITENESS IN ARMENIAN AND BULGARIAN: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
DEFINITENESS IN ARMENIAN AND BULGARIAN: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

Summary/Abstract: This study presents a contrastive analysis of the category of definiteness in Armenian and Bulgarian – two Indo-European languages that independently developed suffixed definite articles. Although both languages employ postposed markers that originate from demonstratives, their systems diverge in terms of structure, function, and historical development. The Armenian article system (-ը/-ն) arose through internal phonological processes. In contrast, the Bulgarian definite article developed within the Balkan Sprachbund through the contact-induced grammaticalization of demonstratives, becoming morphologically bound, gender- and number-sensitive, and syntactically conditioned. The study further examines the phonological and morphological rules governing article selection, highlighting the phonetic conditioning in Armenian and the more complex morphophonological and syntactic conditioning in Bulgarian. The findings support the hypothesis that both languages exemplify distinct stages of the universal grammaticalization pathway from demonstratives to definite markers, revealing the interaction of internal development and areal influence. This comparison contributes to a deeper understanding of typological variation and convergence in the expression of definiteness.

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