VI FORUM «BULGARIAN GRAMMAR» – 2019
«GRAMMATICAL SYSTEMS IN SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY»
SOUTH-WEST UNIVERSITY «NEOFIT RILSKI»
INSTITUTE FOR BULGARIAN LANGUAGE «PROF. LYUBOMIR ANDREYCHIN» (IBL) – BULGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (BAS)
17 OCTOBER 2019, SOFIA
14 PAPERS
Keywords: Bulgarian grammar, grammatical category, three-element grammatical system, Turkish loanwords in Bulgarian, Balkan Sprachbund, Standard Average European, Balan, machine translation, formal grammar, computational linguistics
On October 17, 2019, the big salon of the Institute for Bulgarian language at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia hosted the VI Forum on Bulgarian grammar on the theme «Grammatical systems in synchrony and diachrony». The Forum was organized by the South-West University “Neofit Rilski” and the Institute of Bulgarian language “Prof. L. Andreychin” (IBL) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). The forum was opened by Ass. ,Prof. Borislav Popov (South-West University “Neofit Rilski”) and Prof. Svetlana Koeva, Director of IBL BAS.The following scientific institutions were represented at the forum within the framework of 14 reports: South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Blagoevgrad; Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Sofia; IBL BAS, Sofia, University of Veliko Turnovo “St. Cyril and St. Methodius”, Veliko Turnovo; Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”, Plovdiv.
At the plenary session with Chairman Ass. Prof. Borislav Popov, five plenary reports were heard. Prof. S.Burov’s report was devoted to the interdependence and hierarchy of grammatical categories. The works of A.V. Bondarko, V.Khrakovsky, R.M. Dixon and A. Aikenvald were commented on. Professor. S. Dimitrova conducted a Chronological review of the emergence and development of the grammatical category, starting with Aristotle’s scheme. Interest was aroused by the report of Ass. Prof. B. Popov about three-element structural model in Indo-European grammatical systems as a projection of mythological representations of human knowledge about the world. In his report Prof. M. Stamenov considered borrowing of the Turkish language (Turkish loanwords in Bulgarian) as balkanism characteristic of Balkan Sprachbund (Balkan language area). Prof. L.Ilieva’s report was devoted to the specifity of Bulgarian grammar as part of Standard Average European (SAE). The hearing of the five plenary reports was followed by a lively discussion session attended by the Prof. R. Nitsolova, Ass. Prof. P.Barkalova etc.
At the second session with the Chairman Prof. Svetlana Koeva, four reports were read. Prof. K. Alexova presented her report “Typology of relations between grammatical categories in the Bulgarian language”, in which the St. Petersburg typological school (V. S. Khrakovsky, I. A. Melchuk) was analyzed, as well as commented on the works of Prof. R. Nitsolova, Georgy Gerdzhikov and others. Prof. K.Alexova presented a typological classification of grammatical categories in Bulgarian. The reports of Ass. Prof. R. Tsonev, Chief Ass. E. Tilev and Chief Ass. B. Todorova werre heard with interest. practice”) .A discussion session followed, in which Prof. S. Burov and others took part.
At the third session with the Chairman Prof. S. Koeva the reports of Ass. Prof. H. Stamenov and Ass. Prof. P. Barkalova were presented. On the occasion of the 160th Anniversary of Acad. Alexandaer Teodorov-Balan’ birth and the 60th Anniversary of his death Ass. Prof. K. Charalozova presented her report “Category of certainty / uncertainty in the “New Bulgarian grammar” of A.Teodorov-Balan “. Prof. Y. Tisheva presented the report “On Balan, on the culture of speech and the spirit of language”».
The forum ended with the report of the Ass. Prof. Ts. Venkova “Fom machine translation to formal grammar”, which reviewed the emergence and development of machine translation in the world (from the foundations of Chomsky’s transformational grammar,1957, and the Foundation of Alpaca-USA, 1966, to the transition of machine translation to formal grammar in the USSR – O. Kulagina, V.A. Zvegintsev, S. K. Shaumyan, etc.) and in Bulgaria (Acad. Lyubomir Iliev – the founder of Bulgarian computer engineering and Informatics, Miroslav Yanakiev, Alexander Ljudskanov, Albert Koshelev, s.r. Yordan Penchev – the founder of the Bulgarian school of formal grammar and computational linguistics.
The final discussion session was attended by Prof. S. Dimitrova, Prof. R. Nitsolova, Prof. S. Burov etc.
At the close of the Forum, Ass. Prof. B. Popov, Prof. S. Koeva and Prof. S. Burov commented the results and prospects of the results of the past scientific event. A high scientific level of reports was noted, accompanied by interesting comments and valuable opinions on grammatical systems in synchrony and diachrony.
The VII Forum “Bulgarian grammar” will be held in the next year 2020. The next forum will be organized by IBL at BAS and University of Veliko Turnovo “St. Cyril and St. Methodius”.
