{"id":225274,"date":"2026-03-13T14:51:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T12:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/azbuki.bg\/?p=225274"},"modified":"2026-03-16T10:41:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T08:41:36","slug":"definiteness-in-armenian-and-bulgarian-a-contrastive-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bel.azbuki.bg\/en\/uncategorized\/definiteness-in-armenian-and-bulgarian-a-contrastive-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Definiteness in Armenian and Bulgarian: A Contrastive Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Antonia Radkova
\n<\/strong>Sofia University \u201cSt. Kliment Ohridski\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Anna Knyazyan
\n<\/strong>Yerevan State University<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/doi.org\/10.53656\/for2026-01-03<\/a><\/p>\n

Abstract.<\/strong> This study presents a contrastive analysis of the category of definiteness in Armenian and Bulgarian \u2013 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 (-<\/em>\u0568\/-<\/em>\u0576)<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/em> definiteness, articles, Armenian language, Bulgarian language, contrastive analysis, linguodidactology<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Introduction: beyond Standard Average European <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Definiteness is a category that can have different realizations in different languages. In large parts of Europe, definite articles are separate words distinct from demonstratives. Languages with definite affixes are relatively common in peripheral parts of Europe, such as in the languages of Scandinavia in the north, in the Balkan area in the Southeast, in the Middle and North-West Caucasian languages, and in Basque.<\/p>\n

    The so-called \u201cbig\u201d and best-studied languages either have articles-words like in English, German, French, among others, or don\u2019t have articles at all like in Russian and Polish. This affects expectations and the processing manner of the people when they encounter a language with an affixed definiteness. It also influences the way speakers perceive and recognize their languages as different, unique, and exotic in comparison with other languages they know, if the languages have some rare phenomenon. The relative infrequency of expression of the definiteness with an affix in terms of popularity and number of speakers of the respective languages in the Western world is a reason to consider it as distinctive and exotic. As a prominent Bulgarian linguist Ivan Kucarov wrote, \u201cThe category (of definiteness) is one of the exotic features of contemporary Bulgarian … From a formal perspective, the Bulgarian category differs significantly from the same (or similar) category in the aforementioned (West-European) languages. … The expression of the marked meaning is within a synthetic word form, i.e., there is a higher degree of grammaticalization.\u201d (Kutsarov, 2007: 449) All in this citation is equally true about Armenian. The positive article seems exotic from the perspective of Standard Average European (Haspelmath, 2001) and is one of the distinctive manifestations of both contemporary Armenian and Bulgarian. The grammatical marking of definiteness constitutes one of the most intriguing contrasts between these two languages that have independently developed overt article systems within the wider Indo-European family. Despite superficial similarities, such as the use of enclitic or suffixed forms – these systems differ in structure, semantics, and historical origin.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Scope of the study, research questions, data, and methods<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The aim of this research is to conduct a contrastive analysis of the definite articles in Armenian and Bulgarian. The scope of this type of analysis, when applied to languages that are not closely related, is theoretical with a strong focus on linguistic understanding. By comparing and analyzing the same features in non-relative languages and non-closely relative languages, we can gain a clearer understanding of the characteristic features of each language, which can lead to better descriptions and analyses. This is done by looking at the structural similarities and differences of the studied languages.<\/p>\n

      There are very few comparative and contrastive studies of Armenian and Bulgarian (Goliyski, 2018; 2022; 2023). The Armenian language has a long and stable presence in Bulgaria, but its study is mostly oriented toward historical, cultural, and ethnolinguistic research. The Armenian and Caucasian Studies is a part of the Department of Classical and New Philologies at Sofia University.<\/p>\n

      Research questions <\/strong><\/p>\n

      This article addresses the following research questions:<\/p>\n

      \u2013 What is the grammaticalization status of the postposed definite article in Bulgarian and Armenian, respectively, when evaluated against established grammaticalization criteria (phonological reduction, morphological integration, syntactic fixation, and semantic bleaching)?<\/p>\n

      \u2013 To what extent do the Bulgarian and Armenian definite articles exhibit comparable formal and functional properties, despite their independent diachronic development?<\/p>\n

      \u2013 To what extent do the Bulgarian and Armenian definite articles differ in their behavior across linguistic levels \u2013 phonological, morphological, syntactic, and discourse-pragmatic?<\/p>\n

      Data and methods<\/strong><\/p>\n

      The present study adopts a qualitative, contrastive linguistic methodology grounded in typological comparison. The analysis is based on multiple types of linguistic evidence: descriptive grammars and reference works on Armenian and Bulgarian, including diachronic descriptions where suitable and illustrative examples are selected from both languages. This study adopts a qualitative, theory-driven approach and therefore does not provide a quantitative, corpus-based analysis of definite article usage, nor does it exhaustively cover dialectal variation. Its primary goal is theoretical and comparative.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

        \n
      1. The Armenian article system <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        In Armenian, there are particles used as articles that function like pronouns or add definiteness to a word. These particles are \u057d, \u0564, \u0576, and \u0568. They are attached to nouns, some pronouns, and other parts of speech used as nouns, for example: \u0563\u056b\u0580\u0584-\u057d (girk\u2019-s, \u2018my book), \u057f\u0578\u0582\u0576-\u0564 (tun-d, \u2018your house\u2019), \u0561\u057a\u0561\u056f\u056b-\u0576 (apaki-n, \u2018the glass\u2019), \u00a0\u0561\u0577\u056d\u0561\u0580\u0570-\u0568 (ashkharh-\u0259, \u2018the world\u2019), \u0562\u0578\u056c\u0578\u0580-\u057d (bolor-s, \u2018all of us\u2019), \u0578\u0579 \u0574\u0565\u056f-\u0564 (vo\u010d\u2019 mek-d, \u2018none of you\u2019), \u056f\u0561\u0580\u0574\u056b\u0580-\u0568 (karmir-\u0259, \u2018the red\u2019)[i]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

        According to their meaning, articles are divided into four types.<\/p>\n

        3.1. Possessive articles indicate to whom a given person or object belongs<\/em><\/p>\n

        By their meaning, they are equivalent to the genitive forms of the first- and second-person personal pronouns, as in the following \u0563\u056b\u0580\u0584-\u057d = \u056b\u0574 \u0563\u056b\u0580\u0584-\u0568, \u0574\u0561\u0575\u0580-\u0564 = \u0584\u0578 \u0574\u0561\u0575\u0580-\u0568 (girk\u2019-s = im girk\u2019-y, my book; my mother, mayr-d = k\u2019vo mayr-y). These possessive articles function in the sentence as genitive clitics.<\/p>\n