Some Observations on Demonstrative Pronouns in the Tarnovo Edition of the Stishen Prologue

Abstract

The article successively examines the demonstrative pronouns for general display, for close people and objects, for distant people and objects and for enumerating, which have the function of the 3rd person forms of personal pronouns in the Tarnovo edition of the Stishen Prologue (a calendar hagiographic collection, translated in the first half of the fourteenth century). It is established that the semantics of the demonstrative forms is determined by the context: in a combination with a noun form they have an indicative meaning, and in a combination with a verb form they mean a third-person pronoun, for example, съи блаженыи which means този блаженият (“this blissful one”), съи бэше means той беше (“he was”). The use of the elongated forms for masculine тъи, for feminine тя, for the plural тие / тйе which later turn into he, she and they, as well as the presence of the new forms тои, characteristic of the spoken language, are historically significant.