Speaker Ghosting in Bulgarian Revisited: On the Scope of the Phenomenon and the Irreplaceability of Perfects with Renarratives

Authors:

Pages: 76-88
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/ZUAP3624

Abstract:

Apart from residing in renarratives proper predominantly, renarration as a semantic and grammatical value can be found in Bulgarian present perfect verb forms too. When a Bulgarian native speaker faces a choice between a present perfect and a preterit renarrative, the former is often replaceable by a renarrative. However, there are cases in which replaceability of perfects with renarratives is impossible. The reasons for this are analyzed and explained; a larger scope of the speaker ghosting phenomenon is revealed. The study facilitates some significant generalizations: (i) grammatical entities (categories, grammemes) arise due to structural dependences; (ii) as the perfect has no semantic content of its own and exercises structural functions, Slavic languages that appear not to feature perfects can actually be said to have perfects – under the guise of preterits.

Keywords:

aorist/imperfect; perfect; preterit; renarrative; (non‑)cancelable; (non‑)witnessed; dubitative.

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