La modalité hypothétique: évidences slavo’romanes et balkaniques (le cas du bulgare et du roumain)

Abstract

This study describes the grammatical means of expressing conditional modality in Bulgarian and Romanian based on verbal categories with shared meanings and functions. We have in mind isomorphic constructions, basically expressing irrealis modality and named “conditionalis of a Balkan type”, represented by two types of isomorphic constructions containing markers of the future tense and the past imperfect tense: 1) future tense particle + imperfect of the main verb (vellepart. + Vimpf), ex. Bulg. ще четях; 2) clipped imperfective form of the verb “want”/“have” + infinitive of the main verb (velle/habeo impf + Vinf), ex. Bulg. щях да чета. The main problems discussed in the study are modality and temporality in the Balkan conditional; imperfect in the function of conditional; verb forms in the two parts of conditional sentences. The comprehensive analysis of the hypothetical modality in Bulgarian and Romanian makes it possible to reach conclusions on the following issues: 1) Romanian lacks the “Balkan type of conditional” (= futurum praeteriti): the Romanian conditional forms are not of the Romance type and the origin of their marker is not clear. 2) Romanian, however, has a „future in the past“, which is a non-grammaticalized paraphrase consisting of the imperfect of the auxiliary a avea ‘have’ + the subjunctive of the main verb: aveam să cânt; the deictic Romanian future am să cânt corresponds to the Balkan non-grammaticalized future of necessity (futurum necessitatis). 3) The Balkanisms of the verb system are more consistently present in Aromanian, center of the most intensive convergence among the Balkan languages.

Keywords

• conditionalis irrealis
• past imperfect tense
• grammaticalization
• balkan linguistic union
• dialects in southern italy