Judeo-Spanish in Bulgaria: a contact language between archaism and innovation
Project abstract
Phase 1 (2022-2026)
This project has an empirical, corpus-linguistic and a theoretical goal.
On the basis of newly collected data, the Judeo-Spanish spoken in
Sofia (western Bulgaria) and Plovdiv (eastern Bulgaria) as well as the
respective Bulgarian contact varieties will be contrastively analyzed.
By contrasting selected phonological and morphosyntactic features
(e.g. vocalism, intonation, pronouns, word order) of the two Judeo-
Spanish varieties with modern Iberian Spanish, the corresponding
urban varieties of Bulgarian and with Old Spanish, we aim to gain a
better understanding of the status quo of the Judeo-Spanish spoken
in Bulgaria. Furthermore, our aim is to contribute to the current
research questions in language contact research addressing which
linguistic areas are vulnerable to contact-induced change. Contrary to
general assumptions, we do not assume that all grammatical areas of
Judeo-Spanish are influenced to the same extent by the contact
varieties. Instead we will argue that narrow syntax is relatively
invulnerable to contact-induced change; the attested changes in this
domain are subject to natural processes of language change, like for
example grammaticalization. The contact language Bulgarian is
especially important for phenomena which apply at the so-called
external interfaces, for instance with regard to information structure.
Contrary to the current interface hypothesis, however, we argue that
at these interfaces equivalence relations between the two languages
in contact are important. Whether a structure is borrowed into a
language or not, or whether something is retained or not, depends not
only on whether it is located at the interface to information structure
but also on whether there is an equivalence relation between the
languages in contact. Concerning the Judeo-Spanish spoken in
Bulgaria, we suggest that innovative phenomena, like for example
clitic doubling with accusatives, vowel reduction in unstressed
syllables, as well as stress patterns and pitch accents that deviate
from Iberian Spanish, can be explained by parallel patterns in
Bulgarian. At the same time, archaic patterns, like for instance stylistic
fronting, possessives, and sibilants which are attested in Old Spanish
and that are not available in Modern Spanish varieties, are maintained
due to the presence of similar structures in the Bulgarian contact
varieties. Phenomena of narrow syntax, like for example the attested
change concerning clitic placement, are subject to natural
grammaticalization processes which can also be observed in
monolingual regions of the Spanish-speaking countries.
During the first funding period, Judeo-Spanish spoken in Bulgaria (BJSp) was analysed on the basis
of a systematically collected and annotated corpus. By contrasting selected phonological
and morphosyntactic features (vocalism, intonation, pronouns, word order)
of BJSp with Old Spanish, Bulgarian, and modern Iberian Spanish, we contributed
to clarifying which linguistic areas are vulnerable to contact-induced change.
The results have shown a systematic asymmetry between core-grammatical structures,
which remain stable even under conditions of intensive contact, and interface phenomena,
which are vulnerable in contact settings. However, it also became evident that investigating
a single contact situation does not permit a clear distinction between internal
linguistic change and contact-induced effects. In particular with respect to changes
that occur at external interfaces, it remains unclear whether the observed patterns
are specific to the contact language Bulgarian or reflect universal mechanisms of
contact-induced change.
Phase 2 (2026-2029)
The second funding period builds on these findings and aims to refine the identified
mechanisms theoretically and validate them empirically. For this purpose, Istanbul Judeo-Spanish
(IJSp) will be examined, a language that is subject to similar sociolinguistic conditions
(including minority status and age of its speakers) but is in contact with Turkish,
which is typologically more divergent from Judeo-Spanish than the previously considered
contact language. By systematically comparing two varieties of Judeo-Spanish with clearly
different contact languages it can be determined which of the identified change processes
are language-independent and which are specifically linked to the structure of the respective
contact language. The inclusion of Turkish serves as a control condition for the findings of the
first project period.
Concerning methodology, the proven and tested design of the first funding phase will
be continued and applied to IJSp data. The investigation covers phonological and morphosyntactic
phenomena, i.e., vowel systems (including vocalic hesitation particles), intonation,
clitic placement, subject realisation, and word order. The results will contribute to the
theoretical modelling of contact-induced language change and to the empirical foundation of
interface-based approaches.