Learn about augmentatives in Bulgarian
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are augmentatives and how are they formed in Bulgarian? |
| Yana: And are they commonly used? |
| Michael: At BulgarianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Aleksandra is reading her daughter a story, when the child asks her |
| Yana: "What is a 'krachishte'?" |
| Marta Borisova: Какво означава "крачище"? (Kakvo oznachava "krachishte"?) |
| Dialogue |
| Marta Borisova: Какво означава "крачище"? (Kakvo oznachava "krachishte"?) |
| Aleksandra Borisova: Това е "голяма крачка." (Tova e "golyamа krachka.") |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Marta Borisova: Какво означава "крачище"? (Kakvo oznachava "krachishte"?) |
| Yana: "What is a 'krachishte'?" |
| Aleksandra Borisova: Това е "голяма крачка." (Tova e "golyama krachka.") |
| Michael: "It's a 'big step'." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In Bulgarian, words can change shape in order to convey extra information about the size or the appearance of something, or the way the speaker feels. This phenomenon is achieved by adding certain suffixes to the words. There are different types of alteration, but, in this lesson, we'll focus on |
| Yana: увеличителни думи (uvelichitelni dumi) |
| Michael: "augmentatives" which allow for describing something as bigger, or overwhelming. The most common suffix used for creating augmentives in Bulgarian is: |
| Yana: -ище (-ishte) |
| Michael: This suffix can be used with nouns from all three genders—masculine, feminine, and neuter. However, remember that the final augmentative word will always be of neutral gender. For plural nouns, the suffix slightly changes to |
| Yana: -ища (-ishta) |
| [Recall] |
| Michael: Let's see the augmentative word from the lesson's conversation. Do you remember it? |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Yana: крачище (krachishte) |
| Michael: this means "big step" and comes from |
| Yana: крачка (krachka) |
| Michael: meaning "step." The augmentative version of the noun here indicates a big size.To form the augmentative form of a noun, you drop the suffix, in this case |
| Yana: -ка (ka) |
| Michael: and replace it with |
| Yana: -ище (-ishte) as in крачище (krachishte) |
| Michael: Let's see more examples of augmentatives. |
| Yana: женище (zhenishte) |
| Michael: This means "big woman" and comes from the noun for a "woman" |
| Yana: жена (zhena) |
| Michael: Let's hear an example. |
| Yana: Тя не е просто жена, а цяло женище! (Tya ne e zhena, a tsyalo zhenishte!) |
| Michael: meaning "She is not just a woman, but a whole big woman!" In this case, the speaker wants to stress the size of the woman and, depending on the context, it could have a pejorative or flattering sense. Now, let's see a plural noun example: |
| Yana: очища (ochishta) |
| Michael: This means "huge eyes" and comes from the word for "eyes" |
| Yana: очи (ochi) |
| Michael: by adding the suffix for plural nouns |
| Yana: -ища (-ishta) |
| Michael: Now let's use this augmentative word in an example sentence. |
| Yana: Той зяпаше с такива очища, все едно беше видял призрак. (Toy zyapashe s takiva golemi ochishta, vse edno beshe vidyal prizrak.) |
| Michael: meaning "He was staring with such huge eyes as if he had seen a ghost." There are other less popular augmentative suffixes in Bulgarian as well. For example: |
| Yana: -чага (-chaga) |
| Michael: Let's take the masculine noun |
| Yana: юнак (yunak) |
| Michael: This means "a brave man, a champion." After we drop the suffix |
| Yana: к (k) |
| Michael: and add the previously mentioned suffix, we get the word |
| Yana: юначага (yunachaga) |
| Michael: that means a "big champion." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned that, in Bulgarian, you can modify words in order to convey extra information and connotation about what you're talking about or the way you feel about it. Augmentatives are modified words that describe something as bigger or overwhelming. In Bulgarian, there is one main suffix to form augmentatives: |
| Yana: -ище (-ishte) |
| Michael: that can be applied to nouns from all genders. However, if you want to turn a plural noun into its augmentative form, use the suffix |
| Yana: -ища (-ishta) |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Besides augmentative suffixes, the Bulgarian language has augmentative prefixes as well to describe unusual size, degree, or abilities. One such prefix is: |
| Yana: свръх- (svrah-) |
| Michael: meaning "hyper-," something excessive and out of the ordinary. Here's an example word: |
| Yana: свръхчувствителност (svrahchuvstvitelnost) |
| Michael: This means "hypersensitivity." |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Yana: До скоро! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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