Intensification of the admirative meaning in Bulgarian and Albanian
Intensification of the admirative meaning in Bulgarian and Albanian

Summary/Abstract: Bulgarian and Albanian are among the languages with grammaticalised admirativity. In both languages the admirative forms emerged from the perfect tense and encode new and unexpected information. Being strongly expressive, they are typically used in colloquial speech and are often accompanied by lexical items that enhance their meaning. There are three classes of words that function as admirativity intensifiers in sentences with admirative verb forms: particles, interjections and pronouns. Additionally, pronouns in dativus ethicus are found in the nearest context of admiratives when they indicate the speaker’s attitude towards the subject of his or her utterance. The neutral pronoun ‘it’ in subject position is also considered as a lexical marker of admirativity in Bulgarian. All the lexical markers of admirativity have another important function – to resolve ambiguity between admirative and evidential sentences.

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