Bulgarian grammar is the grammar of the Bulgarian language. Bulgarian is a South Slavic language that evolved from Old Church Slavonic—the written norm for the Slavic languages in the Middle Ages which derived from Proto-Slavic. Bulgarian is also a part of the Balkan sprachbund, which also includes Greek, Macedonian, Romanian, Albanian and the Torlakian dialect of Serbian. It shares with them several grammatical innovations that set it apart from most other Slavic languages, even other South Slavic languages. Among these are a sharp reduction in noun inflections—Bulgarian has lost the noun cases but has developed a definite article, which is suffixed at the end of words. In its verbal system, Bulgarian is set apart from most Slavic languages by the loss of the infinitive, the preservation of most of the complexities of the older conjugation system (including the opposition between aorist and imperfect) and the development of a complex evidential system to distinguish between witnessed and several kinds of non-witnessed information.
Nouns
Bulgarian nouns have the categories grammatical gender, number (including count form), definiteness and vocative form.
Gender
A noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter).
Number
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).
Definiteness
Definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun:
The definite article comes after plural ending:
Vocative form
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 and of the potential vocative forms of foreign names has come to be considered rude or rustic. Thus, Любомире means 'hey, Lyubomir', while the corresponding feminine forms Елено ('hey, Elena'), Маргарито ('hey, Margarita') are today seen as rude 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").
Remnants of grammatical cases
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.
Remnants of grammatical cases in pronouns
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.
Interrogative, indefinite, negative, relative and universal pronouns have different subject and object forms, but only if some conditions are met: