The postposition story of the definite articles in Albanian is at the same time the story of their birth. The postpositive and prepositive articles were born simultaneously being part of a single grammaticalization process. The process...
moreThe postposition story of the definite articles in Albanian is at the same time the story of their birth.
The postpositive and prepositive articles were born simultaneously being part of a single grammaticalization process.
The process of forming definite articles is not simply the process of transforming the anaphoric demonstrative into a dependent definite morpheme. It is the transition from a system without definite articles, without the grammatical category of definiteness and indefiniteness to a new linguistic system with articles, and in fact post-positioned and agglutinated.
Several grammatical devices were used for this. Anaphoric demonstrative played, of course, a fundamental role in this process. Through the use of a double series of strong/stressed and weak/unstressed forms, it was passed to the double system of prepositive articles. The strong forms of the anaphoric demonstrative were used to create the enclitic definite articles, which were subsequently agglutinated, while the unstressed forms were used to create the prepositive articles. But there was not just the anaphoric evidence that was used in the process. Also, morphemes of the existing linguistic system, which were not rejected, were used at the end of the word, as well as other endings, due to their continuous use (the ending of the singular Accusative of masculine and feminine nouns) and to their phonetic clarity (the ending of singular noun Nominative of feminine nouns), as well as analogy reanalyzations (definite articles of plural). The diachronic presence of these indicators is a piece of evidence that the transition from a state without definite articles to a state with two series of prepositive articles and postpositive articles is not presented as a simplified process: dropping old i.e. endings and replacing them with other grammatical devices, which led to the creation of definite articles. There was no morphematic gap phase at the end of (proto)Albanian nouns. The old dependent morphemes have co-existed and been co-used with the new free morphemes influenc-ing each other: the old morphemes highlighting the subordination of the strong forms of anaphoric demonstratives, while these helping to reinterpret them as definite indicators.
The grammaticalization processes that began with the creation of a dual inflexion system due to the use of the postpositive agglutinative definite article, continued with the use of the prepositive articles as clitic words in various syntactic environments, which completely changed the morphological view, to the extent that one can speak of a qualitatively new language, a continuation of another language, which is conventionally called proto-Albanian, but which could be identified in the context of a scientific discussion with southern Illyrian.
Further use of the prepositive articles followed the fate of free morphemes: the closer to definite articles they occurred, the more they followed the initial regularity of the coincidence of the strong forms to the weak ones.
The farther away they were from them, the more they have strayed from this affiliation and followed other syntactic rules ((non-)immediate and (non-)emphatic use).
The history of the postpositive article of Albanian is not only the history of the postposition of demonstrative clitics. Demonstrative pronouns, however, constitute the main part of this story.
The origin of the prepositive articles leads exclusively to the former demonstrative pronouns. On the contrary, the postpositive definite articles originate not only in the former indefinite demonstrative pronouns but also in other grammatical devices (former case endings reinterpreted as definiteness indicators).
The prepositive articles represent a complete symmetry of use and distribution. On the contrary, the postpositive articles are more heterogeneous in terms of their origin in the whole case system (cf. the postpositive definite articles in Accusative singular and Nominative singular of feminine nouns). There is no full biunivocal analogy between the prepositive and postpositive articles.
Even from this point of view, it is proven that the history of the Albanian definiteness enclisis begins at its prepositive articles. Although originally clitic demonstratives, they never managed to develop into grammatical indicators of definiteness. Even though the syntactic environment of their original use has been the noun phrase, the status of their connection has always been dependent.
Furthermore, the close connection they established with the adjectives did not constitute a favourable ground for the grammaticalization of a definiteness proclisis. Under these conditions, the whole grammaticalization game of definiteness in Albanian took place in the enclitic position.
Being reinterpreted within the general scheme which was taking shape in the noun system, it was already playing the function of an indicator of definiteness. A new grammatical category was emerging in Albanian: the category of definiteness and indefiniteness.
Thus, from two different syntaxes, emphatic and non-emphatic, two series of prepositive articles derived, while the post-positive article, derived from emphatic syntax, develops syntactic connections with the non-emphatic sequence of prepositive articles.
It can be concluded that 1) Albanian has never had a preposi¬tive definite article, just like the Baltic and Slavic languages. 2) The need for definiteness is originally a need for structural-semantic complementness of the syntax, an indication of the tendency for «morphologization» of its syntax.
