From Synthetic to Analytic Case

Abstract

AbstractThere are two different classifications of South Slavic languages (Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Serbian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian) available which consider them within a single dialect continuum stretching from the Slovenian Alps to the Black Sea: genetic and typological. The change from synthetic case to analytic case in certain South Slavic dialects is the result of many centuries of contact with the neighbouring Balkan languages (particularly East Romanian, Albanian, and Greek). This development began in the sixth–seventh centuries ad and is known as the ‘Balkanisation’ of these languages. A detailed analysis of variations in case marking in dialects with analytic case systems reveals innovative caseless systems on the one hand and, on the other hand, extremely rare archaic systems that preserve certain elements of morphological case in certain nouns and noun groups. For dialects which are intermediate between synthetic and analytic (as, for example, Serbian Kosovo-Resava), it is syntactic variation and the hierarchy of syntactic contexts affecting the preservation of semantic role marking in nominal inflection that provides the best heuristic clues as to how the systems are organised.