THE FATE OF THE BULGARIAN WORD ДЕТО IN SLOVENE LITERARY TRANSLATIONS

Abstract

The aim of the article is to determine and to analyse translation equivalents of the Bulgarian lexical item дето in Slovene translations of five Bulgarian novels. After the introductory overview of the uses of дето (with a contrastive Bulgarian-Slovene perspective) and the functional-semantic analysis of all the occurrences of дето (including само дето and освен дето) in the novels analysed, their Slovene translation counterparts were extracted and analysed functionally, semantically, as well as quantitatively. The most frequent function of дето in the analysed novels is that of the absolute relativizer, followed by дето as a causal and a locative conjunction, and a relativizer with a concessive meaning; дето is also a part of two complex conjunctions, with само дето indicating limitation-contrast or unfoundedness, and освен дето signalling limitation. In addition, дето is found in the parenthetical clause дето се казва ‘as the saying goes’. The translation equivalents show a higher diversity in comparison with the source text forms. Bulgarian дето, само дето and освен дето have – within separate functional-semantic categories – a broad array of functional-semantic, lexical and structural Slovene translation equivalents: pronouns (mainly relative), various conjunctions, omissions, modal particles, adverbs, and clauses. The analysis has shown that дето (with само дето and освен дето) does not have an analogous lexical counterpart in Slovene. Moreover, translators frequently depart from the semantic, syntactic and stylistic features of the source text.