Even though not widespread, the use of a demonstrative pronominal adjective as a de facto definite article exists in (heir-languages to) Serbo-Croat.
In all languages(?), there are demonstrative pronominal adjectives:
English: this, these, that, those
French: ce, cette, ces, cettes, etc.
Russian: тот, та, .., этот, эта, etc.
Polish: ten, ta, etc.
etc.
You don't understand the difference between articles and demonstated pronouns.
I'm a bit confused too, but articles are often made from demonstrative pronouns. Anyway, Macedonian would say
drvoTO (the tree) and S/C/B would say
TO drvo (that tree) wich would mean the same in conversation, atleast i think
, but in the first case it's an article and in second one is demonstrative..!?
Nataša
Definite articles are usually derived from demonstrative pronominals.
Most Slavic languages (including Serbo-Croatian) have no definite articles.
In order some demonstrative pronominals to become definite articles, the language has to follow this rule:
If a demonstrative pronominal can be applied to a noun, then either apply it or apply the corresponding definite article.
Thus, in some context, you can say
to drvo in Serbo-Croatian and you can say
това дърво in Bulgarian and you can say
that tree in English. Demonstrative pronominals are used in all the three languages. In some context, you can merely omit the demonstrative pronominal
to in Serbo-Croatian and say just
drvo. However, in English, in the same context, if you omit the demonstrative pronominal
that, you
must use the definite article in that context:
the tree. The same is true for Bulgarian/Macedonian: if you omit the demonstrative pronominal
това, you
must use the definite article in that context:
дървото. The key phrase is: you
must. Otherwise, the meaning may be changed.
The position of the definite article in Bulgarian/Macedonian is inherited from Old Slavonic where the short demonstrative pronominals were enclitics. The Bulgarian/Macedonian (the Slavo-Balkanic language) has influenced Romanian (the Romano-Balkanic language) and possibly Albanian in relation to the postpositioned definite articles.
The other Romance languages, Greek, English, German have pre-positioned definite articles.
The final "-(a)s", or rather originally "-ьс" in words such as "данас/danas" (day-this => today), "ноћас/noćas" (night-this => tonight), "вечерас/večeras" (this even[ing]), "јесенас/jesenas" (this autumn), "зимус/zimus" (this winter), "летос/l(j)etos" (this summer) is an example of this.
These cases are related to the lexicology rather than to the morphology. Articles are not concerned. I have already mentioned the position of the short demonstrative pronominals in Old Slavonic. On the other hand, the above words are adverbs, they are not nouns, they cannot get adjectives. They are simply different words, I mean there is a word "ноћ" which is noun and you can say "добра ноћ", and there is another word "ноћас" (Bulgarian: "нощес") which is an adverb.
It can be compared to Macedonian "годинава" (this year) as opposed to "годините" (those/the years).
What you wrote on makedonian is wrong:
It's годината and it means (the year), not (this year)
Let me introduce a term. You already know that all Romance languages (French, Spanich, etc), all Germanic languages (English, German, etc) and all Balkanic languages (Albanian, Greek, Slavo-Balkanic, Romano-Balkanic) have definite articles. Now, we can say that those languages are
arthromaniac, or we can say that those languages have
arthromania.
Some Slavo-Balkanic dialects (in FYRO-Macedonia, to the west of the Vardar river; as well as in the Rhodopes mountains in Bulgaria) have
extended arthromania. They have three sets of definite articles expressing nearness, neutrality and distance:
nearness:
годинава (in the Rhodopes:
годинаса)
neutrality:
годината
distance:
годинана
The Standard Macedonian accepts the
extended arthromania, the Standard Bulgarian does not.
So, Macedonian
годинава should be translated into English as
this year.
