Резюме. The article considers the most frequent sentence structures of Bulgarian proverbial parallels to Russian proverbs included into G. L. Permyakov’s paremiological minimum. The aim of the study is to classify the syntactic structures of the Bulgarian proverbs in comparison with the structures of the English proverbial parallels. The research has been based on the findings of a paremiological sociolinguistic experiment conducted by Professor M. Yu. Kotova of St. Petersburg State University and her paremiological group that resulted into series of publications titled “Tetradi Paremiographa” (“Handbooks of a Paremiographer”). The relevance of studying sentence structures is due to the fact that the coverage of grammatical issues, i.e. the analysis and description of the logical and syntactic structures of proverbs, is not paid sufficient attention in many languages.

Ключови думи: Bulgarian proverbs; English proverbs; proverbial parallels; paremiological minimum; syntactic structure; complex sentence; compound sentence; elliptical sentence

1. Introduction

Some actual problems of contrastive Bulgarian-English paremiology have been studied in works of Bulgarian and foreign researchers. Linguocultural aspects of proverbs are considered in the works of Rumyana Petrova (Petrova, 2006; Petrova, 2007). The issues of the paremiological core and proverbial parallels have been researched by M. Yu. Kotova (Kotova, 2013; Kotova, 2015; Kotova & Kolpakova, 2018; Kotova, 2019), A. Kolpakova (Kotova & Kolpakova, 2019; Kolpakova, 2020) and others.

Linguocultural studies have been of great interest in Bulgaria. Marijana Vitanova (Vitanova, 2012) considers language units in the terms of the anthropocentric linguistic picture of the world and the traditional culture of the Bulgarians. Radostina Stoyanova (Stoyanova, 2018) examines the zoomorphic culture code as human appearance conceptualization in the Bulgarian and Russian linguocultures. Ivo Panchev (Panchev, 2019) produces a linguocultural comparative analysis of Bulgarian, Russian, and Slovak proverbs. Analysis and identification of ethnoccultural stereotypes in Bulgarian proverbs as well as a proverbial picture of the world are presented in the works of Marija (Kitanova, 2014), Joanna Kirilova (Kirilova, 2009; Kirilova, 2017) and others.

However, the issues of the syntactic structure of proverbs still require more attention in the Bulgarian-English contrastive paremiology.

The most active and viable sentence structures of proverbs of the paremiological minimum as a figurative and expressive national language fund allow us to identify structural and syntactic correspondences/inconsistencies between proverbs of Slavonic and Non-Slavonic languages. Correspondences are noted, for example, in the complex sentence structures of proverbs of so-called global type:

Bulg. Кучето лае, керванът си върви / Kucheto lae, kervanаt si vаrvi;

Eng. The dogs bark, but the caravan goes.

The syntactic structure of a proverb, along with its semantic structure, is one of the proverbial markers that are represented in each language by certain structural types of sentences. It shows the universality/non-universality of the “architecture of proverbs” (Coinnigh, 2015), borrowing from a certain context. Due to the frequency of use, the “universal inventory” (Coinnigh, 2015) of the structural types of the sentence is replenished, which helps to identify the proverb from the usual sentence.

2. Methodology

The study uses the method of descriptive and comparative analysis of Bulgarian and English proverbial parallels to Russian proverbs of the paremiological core. There is a great interest in considering sentence structures of two genetically different languages that are included in the same language type group of analytical languages. The Bulgarian proverbs were extracted from the previously published results of a paremiological sociolinguistic experiment headed by Professor M.Yu. Kotova.

In the article are described complex and compound sentence structures of Bulgarian proverbial parallels to Russian proverbs of the paremiological minimum. The frequency of Bulgarian proverbs is supported by the results of a large-scale Internet search that can be seen in issue 1 of “Tetradi Paremiographa” / “Handbooks of a Paremiographer” (Kotova, Kolpakova & Raina, 2013) and English proverbial parallels were extracted from issue 4 (Kotova & Kolpakova, 2018). Sentence structures of Bulgarian proverbs are compared with their English proverbial parallels.

3. Sentence structures of proverbs

A proverb is usually characterized by a special rhythm-intonation and phonetic design. It becomes obvious that the proverb has a special grammatical structure. At the same time, the structure can be so active that it allows the proverb to survive for many generations being relevant and understandable to different generations. Many of such proverbs can be included in the paremiological core/minimum partly due to their sentence structure. They are easy to remember, easy to pronounce, and easy to cite. Proverbs appear in a variety of different sentence types: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex and nominal. According to Marcas Mac Coinnigh “proverbs of all languages demonstrate a closer resemblance to one another in terms of their structure than they do in aspects of their semantics. We have seen that proverbs features all possible manner of sentence type – simple, compound, compound-complex, and nominal – although some languages display a preference for one over the other.” (Coinnigh, 2015: 130)

As it was mentioned above the syntactic structure of a proverb, along with its semantic structure is one of the proverbial markers that are represented in each language by certain sentence structure types. It shows the universality/non-universality of the "architecture of proverbs" (Coinnigh, 2015). Due to the frequency a "universal inventory" of structural types of sentences is replenished. It contributes to the identification of a proverb from a regular sentence.

3.1. Bulgarian proverbial parallels. The previous studies on the types of syntactic relations in Bulgarian proverbs have found that some active sentence structures having the same inner form can be different in compared languages (Russian, Bulgarian, English) if proverbs are not of a global type or biblical origin.

Bulg. Езикът кости няма, но кости троши / Ezikt kosti njama, no kosti troshi (syndetic compound sentence with adversative concessiveness).

Eng. A fool’s tongue runs before his wit (simple sentence structure)

Rus. Язык без костей, что хочет, то и лопочет / Jazyk bez kostej, chto hochet, to i lopochet (complex causal sentence structure).

The article considers Bulgarian provers having compound and complex sentence structures which are divided into three groups according to the frequency of their usage by informants. There is a total of 66 proverbs. The first group with a smaller number of usage by informants has 28 proverbs, the second one has 21 proverbs, and the third one has 17 (the largest number of informants’ usage). The study has revealed three main most active types of proverbial sentence structures in all the groups.

1) Compound sentences with adversative and comparative coordination (24%). It is one of the most frequent types of Bulgarian proverbial sentences. It has a different reflection in English proverbial parallels to comparative coordination in which the same meaning is expressed by simple sentence structures:

Bulg. По дрехите посрещат, по ума изпращат. / Po drekhite posreshtat, po uma izprashtat (compound sentence structure).

Eng. Clothes do not make a man (simple sentence structure).

Eng. Conversation makes one what he is (simple sentence structure).

Bulgarian proverbial compound adversative sentences can be reflected either by English compound sentence structures or simple sentence structures:

Bulg. Господ забавя, ала не забравs / Gospod zabavja, ala ne zabravja.

(compound sentence structure).

Eng. The mills of the God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small (compound sentence structure).

Eng. Curses like chickens come home to roost (simple sentence structure)

2) Complex sentences with relative words (21%). They form another frequent sentence structure type. English proverbial parallels have completely the same structural type. Relative words Каквото ….. това; Каквото …… такова; Който …. Той / Kakvoto ….. tova; Kakvoto …… takova; Koito …. toi … are reflected in As ….., so …. in English provers:

Bulg. Каквото повикало, такова се обадило / Kakvoto povikalo, takova se obadilo (complex sentence structure).

Eng. As the call, so the echo (complex sentence structure).

Eng. As the question, so the answer (complex sentence structure).

3) Elliptical sentences (12%) form the proverbial sentence type supported by the largest number of informants’ usage (each Bulgarian proverb has more than 80 informants):

Bulg. Аз на тебе, ти на мене/Az na tebe, ti na mene (compound sentence structure).

Eng. One good turn deserves another (simple sentence structure).

Eng. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours (complex sentence structure).

Bulg. Речено – сторено / Recheno – storeno (complex sentence structure).

Eng. So said, so done (complex sentence structure).

It should be especially noted that Bulgarian proverbial elliptical sentences with conjunctions И…, и …; Хем …, хем…/ I…, I …; Khem …, khem … have no English proverbial parallels. This sentence type is an example of a syntactic lacunarity.

Bulg. И вълка сит, и агнето цяло/ I vlka sit, i agneto cjalo [literally: The wolf is full, and the lamb is whole].

Bulg. Хем сърби, хем боли/ Hem srbi, hem boli (about a situation when someone wants to achieve something impossible, and it depresses).

Conclusion

The study has uncovered some structural markers of Bulgarian proverbs. They are syntactic parallelism, ellipsis, and semantic parallelism (e.g. the binary of utterance). The functions of syntactic parallelism are enumeration, identification, comparison/ juxtaposition and contrast:

Дойдох, видях, победих.

Един за всички, всички за един.

Който търси, той намира.

Господ забавя, ала не забравя.

Compound, complex and elliptical sentence structures are dominated types in Bulgarian proverbial parallels to Russian proverbs of the paremiological core. Compound sentences are represented by adversative sentence structures, syndetic/ asyndetic coordination and elliptical sentence structures.

The sentence structure types of Bulgarian proverbs and their English proverbial parallels tend to coincide when proverbs have biblical origins or they are of a global type:

Bulg. Без вина виновен / Bez vina vinoven.

Eng. Guilty though guiltless

Both proverbs are elliptical sentences expressing adversative concessiveness.

The more informants’ usage Bulgarian proverbs have and the shorter length of the proverbial sentences is so the more coincidence in sentence structure with their English proverbial parallels.

Bulg. Двама са малко, трима са много/ Dvama sa malko, trima sa mnogo (compound sentence structure).

Eng. Two’s company, three’s none (compound sentence structure).

The less informants’ usage Bulgarian proverbs have the harder to find English proverbial parallel to them:

Bulg. Канят ли те – еж, гонят ли те беж / Kanjat li te – ezh, gonjat li te bezh [literally: If you are invited – come, if you are bitten – run].

The study has revealed certain syntactic structures that are the favoured architecture for the creation of new Bulgarian proverbs.

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