Bulgarian grammar

A noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter).

A noun has two numbers (singular and plural), plus a numerical plural form. The plural is formed by adding to or replacing the singular ending, most commonly in the following ways:

With cardinal numbers and some adverbs, masculine nouns use a separate numerical plural form бройна множествена форма (broyna mnozhestvena forma). It is a vestige of the grammatical dual number, which disappeared from the language in the Middle Ages. The numerical form is used in the masculine whenever there is a precise amount of something, regardless of the actual number, e.g. –

• стол (stol "chair") → много столове (mnogo stolove "many chairs", general plural) → два стола / десет стола (dva stola / deset stola "two chairs / ten chairs", numerical plural). [note 1][1]

Definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun:

The definite article comes before plural ending: [2]

Vocative form is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed.

• for family members – e.g. майка → майко (majka → majko "mother")
• for masculine names – e.g. Петър → Петре (Petar → Petre)
• in social descriptors – e.g. приятел → приятелю (prijatel → prijatelju "friend"), учител → учителю (učitel → učitelju "teacher")

From the first decades of the 20th century, there is a tendency to avoid vocative forms. This is true for many personal names, as the use of feminine name forms in -[ь/й]o[3] and of the potential vocative forms of foreign names has come to be considered rude or rustic. Thus, Иване means 'hey, Ivan', while the corresponding feminine forms Елено ('hey, Elena'), Маргарито ('hey, Margarita') are today seen as rude[3] or unceremonious, and declining foreign names as in *Джоне ('hey, John') or *Саймъне ('hey, Simon') is considered humorous.

The tendency to avoid vocative forms for foreign names does not apply to names from Classical Antiquity, with the source languages having the vocative case as well: cf. Цезаре' ('O Caesar'), Перикле ('O Pericles'), Зевсе ('O Zeus'), etc.

Vocative is still in full and regular use for general nouns such as господине (gospodine "mister"), госпожице (gospožice "miss"), госпожо (gospožo "Mrs"), бабо (babo "grandma"), майко (majko "mother"), сине (sine "son"). [note 2]

Old Bulgarian had an extensive system of declension which included seven grammatical cases: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, locative, instrumental and vocative; of these, only what used to be nominative and vocative cases survives in modern Bulgarian. Though Bulgarian has lost its old declensional system, pronouns still have grammatical case; also, some nouns in indirect cases became fossilized and were reanalyzed as other parts of speech.

Personal pronouns still have different subject, direct object and indirect object forms.

The set of pronouns in italic is obsolete and is nowadays substituted by на + long direct object pronouns: на мен/на мене, на теб/на тебе, на него, на нея, на него, на нас, на вас, на тях. [note 3]

Interrogative, indefinite, negative, relative and universal pronouns have different subject and object forms, but only if some conditions are met:

• they are different only for masculine singular pronouns;
• only if pronoun refers to a male human being: e.g. човекът, с когото говоря /tʃoˈvɛkɐt, s koˈɡɔto ɡoˈvɔrjɐ/ 'the man that I'm talking to'; note that когото can be replaced with който in spoken language; but e.g. столът, на който седя /ˈstɔɫɐt, nɐ ˈkɔjto sɛˈdjɐ/ 'the chair that I'm sitting on'.
• only if the pronoun is used alone, not attributively.

Otherwise, the subject and object pronouns are the same. The complete declension is summed up in the table below:

*These sets of pronouns are falling out of use, especially in spoken language. Instead of object forms, the subject ones tend to be used in more instances, e.g. на кой is used instead of на кого and кой instead of кого and so on.

Single-word indirect object pronouns are obsolete.

The grammarians who standardised the Bulgarian litterary language introduced the subject definite article (непълен член) -ът/-ят and the object definite article (непълен член) -a/-я. This distinction was artificial and did not occur in any Bulgarian dialect of the time.[4] The subject definite article is used with definite masculine singular nouns which are the subject of a sentence, otherwise the object definite article is used.

e.g. стол (stol "a chair") → столът (stolat "the chair", subject) → под стола (pod stola "under the chair", object).

In spoken language, there is no difference in pronuciation of subject and object definite articles.

Adverbs: сутрин, вечер, зимъс, днес, нощес, есенес, пролетес, лятос, вред.

Adverbs and prepositions:

Adverbs: снощи, отстрани, довечера, отръки, допъти.

Adverbs and prepositions: нощем (noštem "during the night", from нощ (nošt "night"); сбогом (sbogom "farewell" – lit. "with God", from с + бог s + bog); бегом (begom "while running" from бяг (byag – running), посредством, пешком, пълзешком, силом, бегом, нощем, денем, сбогом, кръгом, гърбом, редом, тихом, мигом, ребром, цифром, числом, словом.

Adverbs and prepositions: горе, отгоре, долу, отдолу, зиме, лете, утре, вкратце, есени, пролети, върху, срещу, между.

In Bulgarian, the numerals 1 and 2 are inflected for gender.

Furthermore, cardinal numerals take special endings when:

• referring to men (2-6 and 10, and 20-100) - add "-ma"
  • e.g. 2 chairs - dva stola; 2 brothers - dvama bratya
• referring to an approximate number (10-100 and, rarely, 5-9) - add "-ina"
  • e.g. dvadeset dushi - 20 people; dvadesetina dushi - about 20 people
• they are used as common nouns - add the feminine "-ka/-tsa" [5]

Notes:

• In Bulgarian, numerals can be used directly before uncountable nouns - e.g. vodа "water" → edna voda "a glass of water" (the quantifier 'glass of' is inferred from the context - comp. English 'a beer').
• The word edni can be translated as "some" - e.g. edni tzigari "some cigarettes" (comp. Spanish unos/unas).
• When counting, the neuter numbers are taken - edno, dve, tri....
• Fractions are the same as the ordinal numbers, and are done in the feminine 1/5 - edna peta, 2/5 - dve peti, etc.
• The words for men can be used by themselves, without a noun following - e.g. simply "vidyah dvama" - I saw two men, or even colloquially "edni dvama..." - these two men...
• Irregularly, "sedmina" and "osmina" can be used (archaically, poetically) to also mean "7/8 men" rather than "around 7/8".
• The smaller denomination of the Bulgarian currency - the stotìnka (pl. stotìnki) literally mean "hundredths" (diminutive); 100 stotinki = 1 lev.