Author: Velin Petrov
St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo
Published in: „Slavyanski dialozi“, XI, 2014, 15
Abstract: Collective nouns designating bunch plants in Bulgarian are divided into prototypical and peripheral. Peripheral collective nouns form several subgroups depending on their grammatical, word-building, and semantic features. Prototypical collective nouns, despite their conservatism and the strict requirements they must meet, were subject to change in their conceptualisation and in modern Bulgarian differ in character from the form they had in Old Bulgarian. The main differences are found in the choice of suffix classifier by means of which they are formed; reconsideration of the old suffix classifier as a plural ending. This is the most important of the distinguishing features of modern-day collective nouns designating bunch plants, which is the result of developmental tendencies, viz. reconsidering some of them from nomina collectiva into nomina loci, and constitution of an homonymic series of peripheral collective nouns having a complete numerical paradigm.
Key words: collective nouns, linguistic category of collectivity, nomina collectiva