Grammaticalization of Progressive Aspect in a Slavic Dialect in Albania

Abstract

The article focuses on two markers of progressive aspect that are emerging in a Balkan Slavic dialect in Albania, presumably under Albanian influence. One of them dates back to locative (ǵe ‘where’). Two processes intertwine on the grammaticalisation path of the other (toko): originally an adversative conjunction (‘but’), it was structurally mapped to its polysemic (adversative, but also affirmative, progressive, conditional) Albanian counterpart po. At the same time, its choice to mark progressive was additionally motivated by the phonetic similarity with another Albanian progressive marker duke. In the first third of the 20th century both markers were used as synonyms. However, during the subsequent process of language attrition the language community in question split into three groups regarding the use of the markers: of the last six remaining speakers one speaker used only ǵe as an optional marker; one speaker used toko as an optional marker; four other speakers used toko as a regular progressive marker.