Ndihmesa të Kolec Topallit për çështjen e nyjave të shqipes (Mbi monografinë “Nyjat e Shqipes”, Toena, Tiranë, 2009)

Abstract

This paper discusses the contribution of Prof. Kolec Topalli about one of the most complicated questions of the historical grammar of Albanian, the articles, with their specificity of two types, the postposed and the preposed one. The author has dedicated a complete monograph to this question, attempting to resolve the problems left in suspense or solved unpersuasively. Among the numerous new proposals, there is a new view of the mode (way) of rising of the articles, one of the most obscure questions in the history of the albanian articles. He analyses critically the two main theses of the rising of the postposed article in Albanian – the Pedersen’ thesis of the priority of the preposition of the article to the adjective (pus i thellë  pusi thellë  pusi i thellë), and the thesis of Çabej about the priority and the older age of the enclisis in Albanian. The author’s proceeding starts off the genitive determined phrase *i mish i dash “this meat of this ram”, in which the reduced demonstrativ pronomen (a)i realised the definiteness analytically. The demonstrative pronomen with function of definiteness, preposed to the second definite substantive joined the foregoing substantive in the phonetical sintactical process, thus becoming a definite article. The paper points to some comments which can be made to this theory, focusing at two remarks: 1. the starting from the genetive phrase presumes the formation of the enclitic article originally in substantives of the same masculin gender in the phrase. Otherwise, if the second noun was a feminine (*i mish e lopë), as in Alb. the article accords in gender with the foregoing noun, the first substantive would have changed gender receiving the article e: *imishe lopë → *mishe e lopë. Whereby the author is constraint to operate with the concept of the grammatical analogy to justify the spread of the process in phrases with constituents of different gender. 2. As to the proclisis of the demonstrative, which for the author is the normal topics in europian languages which have articles, we should considerate the specificity of Albanian as a typologically balcan language, where the postposition is inherent, as in rumanian (Çabej, Demiraj, Rosetti, Banfi, Brâncuş et al.). For both languages linguists have noticed a common tendence to the postposition of unindipendent determinants (Demiraj), inherited from an older phase, which can be the common balcanic substrate, whether thraco-illyrian (Rosetti et al.), or protoalbanian (Demiraj, Hamp, Schumacher-Matzinger, Joseph et al.).