Grammar
Tenses
Present
Present Simple
Present Continuous
Present Perfect
Present Perfect Continuous
Past
Past Continuous
Past Perfect
Past Perfect Continuous
Past Simple
Future
Future Simple
Future Continuous
Future Perfect
Future Perfect Continuous
Passive and Active
Parts Of Speech
Nouns
Countable and uncountable nouns
Verbal nouns
Singular and Plural nouns
Proper nouns
Nouns gender
Nouns definition
Concrete nouns
Abstract nouns
Common nouns
Collective nouns
Definition Of Nouns
Verbs
Stative and dynamic verbs
Finite and nonfinite verbs
To be verbs
Transitive and intransitive verbs
Auxiliary verbs
Modal verbs
Regular and irregular verbs
Action verbs
Adverbs
Relative adverbs
Interrogative adverbs
Adverbs of time
Adverbs of place
Adverbs of reason
Adverbs of quantity
Adverbs of manner
Adverbs of frequency
Adverbs of affirmation
Adjectives
Quantitative adjective
Proper adjective
Possessive adjective
Numeral adjective
Interrogative adjective
Distributive adjective
Descriptive adjective
Demonstrative adjective
Pronouns
Subject pronoun
Relative pronoun
Reflexive pronoun
Reciprocal pronoun
Possessive pronoun
Personal pronoun
Interrogative pronoun
Indefinite pronoun
Emphatic pronoun
Distributive pronoun
Demonstrative pronoun
Pre Position
Preposition by function
Time preposition
Reason preposition
Possession preposition
Place preposition
Phrases preposition
Origin preposition
Measure preposition
Direction preposition
Contrast preposition
Agent preposition
Preposition by construction
Simple preposition
Phrase preposition
Double preposition
Compound preposition
Conjunctions
Subordinating conjunction
Correlative conjunction
Coordinating conjunction
Conjunctive adverbs
Interjections
Express calling interjection
Grammar Rules
Preference
Requests and offers
wishes
Be used to
Some and any
Could have done
Describing people
Giving advices
Possession
Comparative and superlative
Giving Reason
Making Suggestions
Apologizing
Forming questions
Since and for
Directions
Obligation
Adverbials
invitation
Articles
Imaginary condition
Zero conditional
First conditional
Second conditional
Third conditional
Reported speech
Linguistics
Phonetics
Phonology
Semantics
Pragmatics
Linguistics fields
Syntax
Morphology
Semantics
pragmatics
History
Writing
Grammar
Phonetics and Phonology
Reading Comprehension
Elementary
Intermediate
Advanced
The Balkans
المؤلف: P. John McWhorter
المصدر: The Story of Human Language
الجزء والصفحة: 43-22
2024-01-18
310
The Balkans
A. A classic example is the Indo-European languages in the Balkans. Romanian is a Romance language. Albanian is a highly distinct branch of its own, as is Greek. Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian are Slavic languages.
B. Yet these languages share several grammatical patterns that were not initially present in most of the languages when they emerged. For example, Romance languages usually place the definite article before the noun (Spanish: el hombre, Italian: il uomo), but Romanian places its definite article after the noun: om-ul.
C. This placement is the result of the development of Romanian in an area where there was once a great deal of bilingualism, partly because of migrations and invasions. Some of the languages placed their definite article after the noun. Bulgarian for “the woman” is žena-ta; Albanian for “the friend” is mik-u. This is why Romanian for “the man” is om-ul.
D. Then, it is odd that Bulgarian has a definite article at all because Slavic languages usually do not (Russian has no words for the or a). Bulgarian inherited this characteristic from such languages as Romanian and Albanian.
E. This is called a Sprachbund—a group of languages that have become increasingly similar to one another over time because of heavy bi- or multilingualism.