Gerunds in Bulgarian

Learning Bulgarian and English,  it soon becomes obvious that each language makes a lot of grammatical distinctions that the other one doesn’t. English present continuous versus present simple, Bulgarian direct verses indirect object pronouns, and many others. Sometimes it gets so bad that I suspect my Bulgarian friends and teachers are making up new grammar on the spot when they correct me.

For example, I learned early on that the gerund in Bulgarian (a verb that is used in the same way as a noun) was formed by adding to the root of the verb. So говоря, I speak, becomes говорене, speaking. I think about speaking, Мисля за говоренето. Good so far.

But then I thought, well, if I want to say something like, “While speaking, I think” I should use the same form, right? Wrong. To make THAT kind of gerund, for an action that occurs at the same time as another, I should use the verb root plus -ейки. Speaking, I think translates to говорейки, мисля.

Okay, fine, but what about using the gerund as an adjective, as in “that speaking man over there thinks.” I don’t suppose that kind of gerund works that same as in English? No it does not. “That speaking man” would be онзи говорящ човек
. Good news, though, онзи говорящ човек мисли could mean either “that man over there thinks (every day, in general)” or “that man over there is thinking (right now).” There’s no difference.

Why? Because in English, around the time of Shakespeare, people started using the gerund as an adjective. “That man speaks” “He does speaking.” “He is a speaking man.” “He is speaking.” Thus a verb became a noun, then an adjective, then a verb again, and an entire new series of tenses came into being.

Bulgarian doesn’t do that. Yes, you can say той е говорящ човек, човекът е говорящ (literally “he is a talking man,” “the man is talking”) but the second sentence sounds very strange to Bulgarian speakers. Why? Because, first of all, there are different forms in Bulgarian for nominal, verbal, and adjectival gerunds. You can’t switch them around like you can in English. Second, and more importantly, Bulgarian doesn’t make a distinction between ongoing and general actions (I am speaking now vrs. every day I speak), it makes a differences between complete and incomplete actions ( the closest you can get in English is phrases like I ate the sandwich, I ate UP the sandwich, see more here). Since all things happening now are logically incomplete, it doesn’t make any sense in Bulgarian to make a distinction between different kinds of present-tense actions (when they have to, Bulgarian-speakers use phrases like обикновено, често, по принсип.