Bulgarian Texts Research Articles

O nowym przekładzie legendy "Рамадан-бегови сараи" Antona Straszimirowa (uwagi tłumaczki)

The author is a professor of Slavic studies and a translator of Bulgarian literature. In her article, she deals with the problem of new translations of such Bulgarian texts, which have already been translated into Polish once. So, she tries to get answers to the following questions: 1) Is there a need to prepare new translations of those texts that have already appeared in Polish? 2) What should be the scope of modernizing the language of these texts? She illustrates her considerations with examples taken from her own work. The article contains thoughts that emerged while working on the translation of Anton Strashimirov’s short story Рамадан-бегови сараи. They concern both the need to update vocabulary and modernize syntax, i.e. problems related to the linguistic competences of contemporary readers, as well as changes in their sensitivity to issues of cultural distinctiveness.

Кирилло-мефодиевская и восточноболгарская лексика в рукописях X–XV вв. (корпусное исследование)

The correlation of statistical characteristics of the so-called Cyrillo-Methodian and Eastern Bulgarian words in groups of texts characterized by different textological and(or) codicological meanings is presented: Glagolitic – Cyrillic, service – non-service, archaic – Eastern Bulgarian subcorpora. Synonymous pairs of vrětishche – vlasěnitsa 'rough (horsehair) clothes'; zhrъtva – trěba 'sacrifice'; radi – dělya 'because of, due to, on account of, for'; tъkъmo – tъchiyu 'only, just, merely'; vrat'nikъ – vratar' 'gatekeeper, doorkeeper'; outro – zautra '(early) in the morning'; yako – aky 'how, as, like'; aminъ 'Amen' – parvo 'rightly'; aromatъ – vonya '(fragrant) spices'; iyuděi – zhidъ 'Jew' are analyzed. The method of comparing the statistical meaning of the word observed in the subcorpora with the expected meaning is applied. The statistics measures Log-Likelihood, TF*ICTF and Weirdness were used. The components of synonymic pairs were extracted from subcorpora and evaluated using the historical corpus statistics module. Comparison of the statistical preference of the components of synonymic pairs in different subcorpora made it possible (a) to confirm the known confinement of each of the components to archaic and Eastern Bulgarian texts opposed to each other, (b) to show a different ratio of the components of pairs in different subcorpora, and also (c) to draw conclusions about the dependence of the preference of components on the lexical and lexical-derivational characteristics of lexemes.

Руските преписвачи на старобългарския превод на Словата против арианите от Атанасий Александрийски

The Old Bulgarian text of the Orations against the Arians by Athanasius of Alexandria has survived in ten Russian copies, dating between the 15th–18th centuries (middle of the 17th c.), all of them preserving the colophon of Tudor Doksov, according to which the translation was done by Constantine of Preslav in 906. The article discusses how five, six or seven centuries after the Old Bulgarian translation, the Russian copyists perceived certain specific linguistic markers from the translation done by Constantine of Preslav: the theological terms, neologisms such as сонтьство φύσις, бышьнъ γενητός, лоучьшение βελτίωσις, the participle сон/сони as an epithet of God, the archaisms братръ, съцѣглъ μόνος and some morphosyntactic devices (the adverb сегда/сьгда, the particle есе, the conjunction небонъ). Their substitution with other lexemes can be explained by diverse reasons: inability to understand the authentic meaning, inaccurate copying, adaptation of the text to certain theological interpretations in view of the time and place of the copying process. The copyists’ mistakes and reinterpretations of the lexemes that were irrelevant for the 15th–18th century serve not only as a revealing comment on various aspects of the copyists’ practice but also as a tool to look into the textual history of the composition.

Future Constructions in the Medieval South Slavonic Translations of Vita Antonii Magni

This paper aims at systemising the observations on the constructions used for expressing Future tense in the three known Old Slavonic translations of Vita Antonii Magni by Athansius Alexandrinus. The text was first translated in the early Old Church Slavonic period, while two other (Middle Bulgarian) translations were written in ca. 14th century. This makes the text suitable for observing the different strategies for expressing Future tense, both regarding the translation technique and its dynamics on a synchronic level, i.e., vis-à-vis other translations from the period, and from a diachronic perspective, i.e., paying closer attention to the discrepancies between the three translations themselves. The paper focuses on the Future periphrastic constructions used in the three Slavonic translations of the Life of St Anthony the Great by Athanasius of Alexandria. The approach is based on the relation with the Greek Vorlage, thus analysing closely the situation attested in the Greek original. Observations are made regarding the usage of the periphrases in the Slavonic texts adducing comparative material for similar phenomena from other early (Preslavian) and Middle Bulgarian texts. Some examples provided, as well as those from other texts, might suggest that the Old Church Slavonic periphrases were used not only to express Future tense per se, but for every non-Indicative (or non-factual) Present.

Converting Numeral Text in Bulgarian into Digit Number Using GATE

The Internet serves billions of users providing a variety of information resources whereby a lot of the information is presented in natural human language and needs an efficient approach to be processed. Natural language processing (NLP) refers to the ability of computers to analyze and understand the structure of human language. By utilizing NLP this linguistic knowledge is transformed into algorithms for solving specific problems. GATE is widely used, open-source software infrastructure that provides a framework and components for solving NLP tasks. The available GATE tools can be adapted to other languages and text processing tasks. This article will present an approach for converting numeric data, written as words in Bulgarian, into digit numbers. For this case, a relevant configuration file for Bulgarian has been integrated into the general tool set in the open source software for natural language processing GATE. The aim of this survey is to determine the exact numeric value of Bulgarian text numeric data, which can be used as a starting point for producing more complex annotations, such as monetary measurement units, etc.

ЗА ЕДНА ТЕНДЕНЦИЯ В СЛОВОРЕДА В ЧАСТНИТЕ ВЪПРОСИ В СЪВРЕМЕННИЯ БЪЛГАРСКИ ЕЗИК / ON A TENDENCY IN THE WORD ORDER OF CONTENT QUESTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY BULGARIAN

The word order in content questions in Bulgarian is largely determined by the information structure of the sentence, whereby the wh-word most commonly assumes the position immediately preceding the verb and the subject is located after the verb. In recent years the author believes to have observed a growth in the frequency of content questions in which the subject precedes the verb, as is usual in declarative sentences. If this is the case, it may be due to the waxing influence of English, where an auxiliary verb usually precedes the subject in content questions (inversion), but the main verb retains its place after the subject. A study was conducted on a provisional corpus of 138 thousand content questions beginning with an initial adverbial wh-word защо ‘why’, как ‘how’, кога ‘when’ (докога ‘until when’, откога ‘since when’) or къде ‘where’ (докъде ‘up to where’, закъде ‘due where’, накъде ‘whither’, откъде ‘whence’) extracted from original Bulgarian as well as translated texts, mostly fiction. The material shows a tangible correlation between the source language of the translated texts and the frequency of inversion in content questions: it is most common in translations from Romanian and much rarer in translations from Turkish, with the original Bulgarian texts occupying a middle position. In the translations from English, which prevail in the corpus in terms of number, the frequency of questions without inversion increases over time. This supports the hypothesis about the influence of English on Bulgarian with respect to the word order in content ques-tions. Keywords: Bulgarian, interrogative sentences, word order

Text Analytics in Bulgarian: An Overview and Future Directions

Abstract Text analytics is becoming an integral part of modern business and economic research and analysis. However, the extent to which its application is possible and accessible varies for different languages. The main goal of this paper is to outline fundamental research on text analytics applied on data in Bulgarian. A review of key research articles in two main directions is provided – development of language resources for Bulgarian and experimenting with Bulgarian text data in practical applications. By summarizing the results of a large literature review, we draw conclusions about the degree of development of the field, the availability of language resources for the Bulgarian language and the extent to which text analytics has been applied in practical problems. Future directions for research are outlined. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study providing a comprehensive overview of progress in the field of text analytics in Bulgarian.

ON SOME PARTICULAR CASES OF TRANSLATION AND SELF-TRANSLATION

e article briefly discusses some of the fundamental principles of the theory and practice of translation, specialized translation, machine translation, self-translation and English for specific purposes with the aim to present and analyze some particular cases of self-translated texts for specific purposes produced by SWU lecturers. Since the volume of an article does not allow a detailed text with numerous examples, I have selected and focused only on three samples from a larger investigation conducted among SWU lecturers who write their academic articles in Bulgarian first, and then, translate them in the English language. The investigation revealed that in the process of translation the authors tend to use machine translation and to restate the original Bulgarian text which led to the conclusion that these are examples of self-translation of scientific texts. This issue has been paid little attention by professionals in the field of translation and language studies and it seems that nowadays examples of self-translation will be observed more and more frequently due to the highly globalized world we live in and the dynamic need to communicate, receive and deliver scientific knowledge, discoveries, novelties, etc. It is an undisputable fact that generally this communication and exchange of information is held in English.

DISCOURSE AND LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF RMA INTRODUCTION SECTIONS – A BULGARIAN-ENGLISH COMPARATIVE STUDY

The article seeks to explore the discourse and linguistic means through which the Introduction section of Research Medical Articles (RMA) achieve their goals. For that purpose, we have analyzed 207 original RMA in Bulgarian and 129 in English. The articles have been excerpted from prestigious Bulgarian and high-ranking impact factor English language journals. Four major rhetorical moves have been found to guide the discourse flow in the Introduction sections in both corpora – Bulgarian Corps (BC) and English-language Corps (EC). These are: Move 1 - Introducing the general topic; Move 2: Move 2 – Transition to specific topic; Move 3: Move 3 – Identifying a gap and Move 4 – Aim of research. In connection with the realization of the rhetorical objectives of the Introduction section, basic lexical means have been identified and presented. We used the concept metaterm introduced by Mavrodieva and Tisheva (Mavrodieva and Tisheva 2014). We divided the metaterms into general and specific. It has been proven that a certain type of polysemous nouns are of particular importance in the medical context and can therefore be considered as specific metaterms. In both corpora, a number of variable and unchangeable parts of speech have been discovered that are typical of the RMA. Essential to the cohesion and coherence of texts are the so-called high-frequency words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, adverbs, collocations and colligations. Regarding Tense and Voice, it has been pointed out that in line with the tradition of the Bulgarian scientific discourse community, the main tense is the so-called Generalized Present Tense (Uslozhneno segashno vreme), whereas in the English-language Corps these are Present Simple and Present Perfect. As for Voice, the BC articles make use mostly of Active Voice, while Passive Voice is used to refer to problems in focus and with impersonal constructions. A peculiar feature of scientific texts in Bulgarian is the use of reflexive verbs with the particle se. The specificity of the sentence structure in the Introduction includes the so-called in Bulgarian linguistics “complicated simple sentences”, including many pre and post modifiers, heavy complementation, as well as compound and complex sentences. Some of the most important discursive elements of this section of RMA are also analyzed. The comparison is direct between the two corpora, and the elements under scrutiny cover such aspects of discourse as hedging and, discourse markers (DM). With regard to the first element, hedging, from a theoretical point of view, it is important to emphasize that hedge structures are a form of the author's Ethos and identity, its degree of presence in the text. We have noted the role of DM as linking devices in the text, marking the boundaries of Steps and Moves in the RMA and indicating a change in the information flow and in the authors’ stance.

Съвместна употреба на кирилица и латиница в български текст –защо и кога

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NLP MODULE FOR BULGARIAN TEXT PROCESSING

The wide use of web-based information systems and a lack of highly skilled developers are the primary motivation to search for methods and approaches to optimize the building of such systems. This paper describes a model for creating web-based information systems by using a core of reusable, independent, and installable base modules. Such a system is easily adapted to a client’s needs and is extendable by adding specific modules that interact with the remainder of the system by following certain rules. The approach allows flexible and rapid development of applications for small to extremely large web-based systems, simply by adding modules with adequate functionality. The growing demand of Bulgarian customers for such systems is the reason for building a base module for automatic processing of Bulgarian text. This paper presents a module that performs automatic morphological analysis and synthesis, verifies syntactic agreement, automatically places stress, and processes complex verb forms, among other functions. The described functionality can be integrated with other modules using a suitable interface

Сведения о дуалистических ересях и языческих верованиях в "Шестодневе" Иоанна Экзарха

The article aims to present and analyze those passages of the Hexameron (Šestodnev) in which ‘heretics’, ‘Manichaeans’, ‘pagans’ or ‘pagan Slavs’ are mentioned. The fragments are compared with their Greek counterparts (as long as these exist); the Old Bulgarian texts (especially those that can be considered original additions or loose compilations) are utilized for interpreting certain elements of heterodox doctrines common to Manichaeism, Paulicianism, Massalianism and Bogomilism. The Old Bulgarian translation/compilation by John Exarch supplies important information on the cosmology, theological doctrine and liturgical life of the Neo-Manichaeans within the Byzantine- Slavic world. The original additions and passages that can be seen as loose translations or compilations testify to the relevance of anti-dualist polemics even in the later periods of the Byzantine-Slavic religious community. The old Gnostic and Manichaean concepts, adapted by later dualist heresies (as e.g. Massalianism and Paulicianism), coupled with Trinitarian and Christological deviations from the official dogma, infiltrate the 1st Bulgarian Empire and provide a hospitable environment for the appearance of Bogomilism. In this sense, the Old Bulgarian Hexameron turns out to be an important source of information on the predecessors of the ‘Bulgarian heresy’. The original additions and loose translations/compilations of certain passages uncover some ‘common areas’ characteristic of all medieval Neo-Manichaean doctrines: the dualist creation myth, the belief in Satan as God’s ‘first-born son’ and the related Trinitarian and Christological departures from the prescribed dogma. Especially noteworthy is the passage referring to the Trisagion (Trisvetoe). The rejection of particular elements of the Liturgy of the Faithful attests to the dualists’ more diversified attitude towards the official ritual – not an indiscriminate renunciation, but the exclusion of those elements that were considered to praise the Old Testament God and to be irreconcilable with the Neo-Manichaean beliefs concerning creation and forgiveness. The mentioning of a Slavic pagan sun cult should be analyzed not only in connection with the charges against Manichaeans and Slavs concerning idolatry, but also in a wider context of the refutation of antique astrological beliefs and soothsaying practices. The comparison of particular lexemes, phrases and larger textual units in John Exarch’s Hexameron on the one hand and the Sermon Against the Heretics on the other makes it possible to conjecture that Cosmas the Priest was familiar with his predecessor’s work and made use of it when composing his own anti-heretic text.

Structured Information Extraction from Medical Texts in Bulgarian

Abstract This paper presents an approach for Information Extraction (IE) from Patient Records (PRs) in Bulgarian. The specific terminology and lack of resources in electronic format are some of the obstacles that make the task of current patient status data extraction in a structured format quite challenging. The usage of N-grams, collocations and words’ distances allows us to cope with this problem and to extract automatically the attribute-value pairs with relatively high precision.

Mapping the information structure in Early Modern Bulgarian clauses with the particle TA

Bulgarian texts from the 17th century display the particle ta that seems to behave as some kind of complementizer, topic and information focus marker, all at once. This is different from Modern Bulgarian, where the same particle behaves either as a complementizer or as a narrative connector. We argue that intra-clausal ta in these texts spells out the cluster of features [topic], [force], and acts as a syncretic head that inherits the features of C. This analysis has empirical and theoretical advantages in accounting for diachronic changes in the computation of the left periphery. Notably, two representations were at work in Early Modern Bulgarian: one in which Top/ ta inherits the features of C, and one in which null Top is associated with [topic] only and is irrelevant to the C-to-T feature transfer. Modern Bulgarian has only the latter, due to the loss of the [topic] feature of ta.

Online Access to the Encyclopaedia Slavica Sanctorum

Encyclopaedia Slavica Sanctorum project aims at building a repertoire of medieval and early modern Bulgarian texts for saints in combination with ethnological data and some visual sources. A basic project task is to produce an accessible on-line digital repository of this valuable cultural heritage treasure. The paper presents the Encyclopaedia Slavica Sanctorum environment, its architecture, functional specification, application modeling process and software implementation. The paper also discusses the specifics of the ―Encyclop a edia Slavica Sanctorum‖ project and its knowledge domain. The paper also presents the integration between the Encyclopaedia Slavica Sanctorum and the Bulgarian Iconographical Digital Library, a digital library keeping rare specimens, private collections of Orthodox icons, wallpaintings and other iconographical objects, selected from difficult-to-access storages, distant churches, chapels, and monasteries, objects in a risk environment or unstable conditions.

The Dative Absolute in Middle Bulgarian Texts

L'A. examine la forme et l'usage de la construction au datif absolu dans des textes du XIVe et du XVe siecle ecrits par des auteurs appartenant a l'Ecole litteraire Tbrnovo, un mouvement litteraire slave du sud. Dans cette construction, un participe datif est utilise avec un groupe nominal datif pour former le centre d'une proposition subordonnee adverbiale. L'A. compare la structure de cette construction en moyen bulgare avec celle qui se trouve dans la litterature en vieux slave d'eglise et qui semble lui avoir servi de modele. Il constate que les auteurs du XIVe et XVe siecle ont bien su capturer les caracteristiques primaires de l'usage de ce procede litteraire, sans toutefois l'imiter jusque dans ses plus fins details.

Monumenta Bulgarica: A Bilingual Anthology of Bulgarian Texts from the 9th to the 19th Centuries. Thomas Butler

<i>Monumenta Bulgarica: A Bilingual Anthology of Bulgarian Texts from the 9th to the 19th Centuries</i>. Thomas Butler

Experimental analysis on old Bulgarian text character recognition

The paper presets an approach for character recognition of old Bulgarian text documens. There are described transformations on input image, recognition algorithm and criteria for recognition decision.