| Description |
 Case inflection, which is characteristic of Slavic languages, was lost in Bulgarian and Macedonian between approximately the 11th and 16th centuries. This study examines the process of case loss and sets out to find its causes and evaluate its consequences. I argue that previous researchers into Late Medieval manuscripts often tried to date the language changes earlier than is plausible in light of the textual evidence. I also propose that the high number of second-language speakers is among the key factors reducing the number of morphological categories in a language; meanwhile, several minor developments related to the case loss for instance, in the marking of possession are likely to have resulted from a specific contact mechanism known as the Balkan linguistic area. My main methodological claim is that the study of language contacts must take into account a general typological perspective. Furthermore, quantitative typological methods are also helpful in assessing whether the shared linguistic features within a linguistic area emerged independently of each other. |
Case inflection, which is characteristic of Slavic languages, was lost in Bulgarian and Macedonian between approximately the 11th and 16th centuries. This study examines the process of case loss and sets out to find its causes and evaluate its consequences. I argue that previous researchers into Late Medieval manuscripts often tried to date the language changes earlier than is plausible in light of the textual evidence. I also propose that the high number of second-language speakers is among the key factors reducing the number of morphological categories in a language; meanwhile, several minor developments related to the case loss for instance, in the marking of possession are likely to have resulted from a specific contact mechanism known as the Balkan linguistic area. My main methodological claim is that the study of language contacts must take into account a general typological perspective. Furthermore, quantitative typological methods are also helpful in assessing whether the shared linguistic features within a linguistic area emerged independently of each other.