Functional TAKE as Inchoative and Mirative Marker in Bulgarian Multiple Agreement Constructions

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to fill in a gap in the literature on the two-verb periphrases with the functional verb TAKE in Bulgarian. This goal is achieved by presenting the results of an online pilot study on the acceptability of verbal periphrases featuring functional vzemam ‘take’ in Bulgarian and by providing a first analysis of the syntax and semantics of such constructions. The study involved an acceptability judgment task of present and past sentences containing three periphrases of the type TAKE + connector + V2: two Multiple Agreement Constructions featuring either the connector da (labeled TAKE daMAC) or the connector če (TAKE čeMAC) and a Pseudo-Coordination with the connector i ‘and’ (iPseCo). This completely anonymous study was completed by 241 self-reported Bulgarian L1 speakers (167 F; 72 M) with an age ranging from 18 to 77 (M = 43.32; SD = 12.61), roughly from all parts of Bulgaria. The results show that TAKE daMAC and čeMAC are uniformly available to all the speakers, who mainly admit them in past contexts; iPseCo is instead less accepted overall, but surfaces in both present and past contexts. Moreover, the three constructions seem to be quite consistently admitted in all parts of Bulgaria, as no significant differences in the distribution of judgments were found. TAKE daMAC has an inchoative reading, while TAKE čeMAC is interpreted as mirative. No clear semantic specialization emerges for iPseCo. Structurally, TAKE MACs diverge from canonical MACs in that the former are monoclausal. However, the lexical V2 in TAKE daMAC always surfaces in the present tense, while TAKE čeMAC and iPseCo feature TAM sharing between V1 and V2.