Deadlines: 31 August 2026

The team of Linguistique balkanique are welcoming contributions to its next issue, which is scheduled for publication in December 2026. We invite you to submit your original works on yet unexplored aspects of the Possession in Standard Average European and the Balkan Sprachbund.

The expression of possession is a key domain where several Europeanisms and Balkanisms intersect, including have-perfects, external possessors, and case syncretism (especially genitive-dative). This makes possession particularly well suited for investigating both Standard Average European (SAE) features and contact-induced convergence within the Balkan Sprachbund. As shown by Haspelmath (2001), several core Europeanisms involve possessive relations, including have-perfects, dative external possessors, and the absence of a grammaticalized alienable/inalienable distinction in adnominal possession. From a broader typological perspective, Stolz (2006) emphasizes that possessive constructions, including split possession and related relational patterns, are especially sensitive to processes of analyticity and case reduction, which play a central role in shaping European morphosyntactic patterns. Building on this line of research, Stolz et al. (2008) provide functional-typological analyses of possessive and related commitative structures across European languages, highlighting recurrent strategies in the encoding of possession and its variants.

Within the Balkan Sprachbund, possessive constructions are likewise shaped by deep functional convergence, including the restructuring of nominal relations and the spread of possessive datives and genitive-dative syncretism (Асенова 2002; Friedman & Joseph 2025). Building on this perspective, Krapova & Dimitrova (Кръпова, Димитрова 2024) reveal systematic micro-variation in the morphosyntactic encoding of possessive relations, making possession a transparent domain for disentangling broader European patterns from Balkan-specific innovations. This micro-variation is particularly well documented in the South Slavic area, where varieties show both contact-sensitive and internally driven alternations in possessive marking and argument structure (Sobolev 2008, Nomachi 2015).

This special issue aims to bring together descriptive, typological, and theoretical contributions addressing how possession is encoded across languages and levels of grammar (nominal, clausal, and discourse-related strategies), and how possessive patterns are shaped by contact-induced change and internal developments.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Possession in SAE and the Balkan Sprachbund
• Alienable vs. inalienable possession
• Possession and ownership
• Predicative possession
• Locative and existential possession
• Case syncretism in possessive and related domains (e.g., genitive-dative; comitative-instrumental, among others)

Guest Editors: Iliyana Krapova, Tsvetana Dimitrova

References:

Haspelmath, M. 2001: The European linguistic area: Standard Average European. – In: M. Haspelmath et al. (eds.): Language Typology and Language Universals. Vol. 2. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 1492-1510.

Stolz, T. 2006: Europe as a linguistic area. – In: K. Brown (ed.): Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Vol. 4. Elsevier, pp. 279-295.

Stolz, T., S. Kettler, C. Stroh, A. Urdze. 2008: Split Possession. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Studies in Language Companion Series, 101].

Friedman, V. A., B. D. Joseph. 2025: The Balkan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Cambridge Language Surveys].

Sobolev, A. 2008: From synthetic to analytic case: Variation in South Slavic dialects. – In: A. L. Machukov, A. Spenser (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Case. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 717-729.

Nomachi, M. 2015: Possessive constructions in the South Slavic languages: Some implications for areal typology. – In: D. L. Dyer, B. D. Joseph, C. E. Kramer (eds.): Od Čikago i nazad: Papers to Honor Viktor A. Friedman on the Occasion of his Retirement. University of Mississippi, pp. 337-355.

Асенова, П. 2002. Балканско езикознание. Основни проблеми на балканския езиков съюз. Велико Търново: Faber.

Кръпова, И., Цв. Димитрова. 2024. Българският език в европейския езиков ареал. София: Университетско издателство „Св. Климент Охридски“.