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<DIV>Dave Kaufman asked:</DIV>
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<DIV>> Is Bulgarian the only Slavic language to have articles? I've
studied Russian, which of course has </DIV>
<DIV>> no articles, and I'm thinking most of the other Slavic tongues don't
either, with the exception of </DIV>
<DIV>> Bulgarian. Was Bulgarian the only Slavic language to be so
influenced by this Romance and Greek </DIV>
<DIV>> trait of having articles?</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic">Macedonian also has articles (with the literary
dialect actually having a triple series - parallel to the triple series of
demonstratives). Of course, some (Bulgarians mostly?) would argue that
Macedonian is JUST a dialect of Bulgarian. And the same MIGHT be said for the
Prizren Serbian (bordering on Macedonian), which is reported (e.g. p. Comrie
& Corbett, 386) to have widespread postposed articles.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic">In South Slavdom, but outside what would normally
be thought of as the Balkan Sprachbund area, we also find both definite and
indefinite articles (en and ta, respectively) in Slovene (although discouraged
in the literary language) (ibid, p. 411). It must also be said that these
articles are pre- rather than postposed. (We also have the theoretical issue of
whether we can really justify a separate category of articles in Slovene, since
they appear NOT to be formally distinguished from the demonstrative
adjectives.)</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic">And clearly far outside the Balkan Sprachbund
area, postposed articles are ALSO found in SOME northern Russian dialects.
(Sorry, I tried to track down a source - other than my aging memory of years
long gone when I was an active Slavicist - but came up blank.) </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic">Sources cited:</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic">Comrie, Bernard & Greville G Corbett (1993)
The Slavonic Languages. London & New York: Routledge.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic">Mike Morgan</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic">Kobe City University of Foreign
Studies</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="MS UI Gothic"><A
href="mailto:Mike.Morgan@mb3.seikyou.ne.jp">Mike.Morgan@mb3.seikyou.ne.jp</A></FONT></DIV>
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