the semantics of the bcs and bulgarian motion verbs ‘ doći ’ and ‘ dojda ’ – ‘ to come , arrive ’ : a contrastive corpus-based study

The verbs doći in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian (= BCS) and dojda in Bulgarian (= Blg.) are among the most frequent motion verbs. They are used in both concrete contexts (of human motion and motion of various objects) and metaphorical contexts in which features of concrete motion are transferred into abstract domains. A semantic examination of such verbs may reveal tendencies related to universal and language-specific meaning extensions of motion verbs. Our contrastive semantic study is based on a small parallel corpus of BCS literary texts and their Blg. translations. We examine contexts in which BCS doći relates to Bulgarian dojda, and those in which BCS doći relates to other Bulgarian verbs or phrases (implying either spatial notions such as ‘go out’, ‘go down’, ‘return’, ‘come nearer’, and ‘appear’, or some non-spatial notions such as ‘take a deep breath’, ‘come to one’s senses’, etc.). Our questions are: What are the differences in the semantic networks of these two seemingly very similar verbs in very closely related languages? In which situations with concrete and abstract motion are doći and dojda “perfect matches,” and in which ones are they less perfect matches? Which metaphorical extensions are common, and which are limited to one language only, and how can this be explained? What facts about verbal (near-)synonymy does a parallel corpus study reveal? [1] Introduction: Corpus and method The aim of this analysis is to show the advantages of using parallel corpora in studying the semantics of spatial expressions in closely related languages – in our case, two South Slavic languages: BCS and Bulgarian. We focus on one of the most frequent motion verbs in these languages, doći and dojda ‘to come/arrive’.1 [1] This analysis is part of a larger project examining verbs prefixed with od-/otand doin BCS and Blg. These verbs construe motion events expressing a concrete or abstract source of motion (od-/ot-), or a concrete or abstract goal of motion (do-). [252] šarić & tchizmarova For the purposes of our analysis, the most useful material is original BCS texts translated into Blg. or Blg. texts translated into BCS. A few parallel corpora available on the internet include texts in several Slavic languages (Intercorp, RuN, ParaSol);2 however, in these corpora, we initially found only one source translated from BCS into Blg. and no source translated from Blg. into BCS. Fortunately, we found some other electronically available BCS texts and their Blg. translations3 that we used to compile our small parallel corpus consisting of six BCS literary texts (all novels) translated into Blg. The corpus is presented in table 1. table 1: The corpus used in this study bcs originals bulgarian translations abbr. # words originals Andrić, Ivo (1954): (Lilija Kackova, 1976): Prokleta avlija Прокълнатият двор PA 26,519 Brlić-Mažuranić, Ivana (1913): (Hari Stojanov, 2011): Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapicá Чудните приключения на чирака Хлапич ŠH 25,618 Kapor, Momo (1975): (Hari Stojanov, 1983): Foliranti Фолиранти Fol 62,830 Kapor, Momo (1976): (Hari Stojanov, 1984): Provincijalac Провинциалист Pro 69,109 Krleža, Miroslav (1932): (Sijka Račeva, 1966): Povratak Filipa Latinovicza Завръщането на Филип Латинович PFL 66,073 Pavić, Milorad (1984): (Hristiana Vasileva, 1989): Hazarski rečnik Хазарски речник Haz 88,318 total: 338,467 We extracted the examples with all the morphological forms of the BCS verb doći (pf.) and dolaziti (impf.) and the parallel Blg. examples with dojda (pf.) and idvam (impf.).4 We also extracted the Blg. examples with dojda and the corresponding BCS sentences that do not contain doći. The corpus sample in table 2 on the facing page shows what our data look like – the leftmost column shows the lemma searched for (doći in the Serbian original text, Haz in ParaSol) in its immediate context, the middle column shows its Blg. translation, and in the rightmost column we have added our translation into English. In the corpus sample in table 2, BCS and Blg. use doći and dojda, confirming what dictionary descriptions (e.g., (Stojanov 2011)) and random collections of language data suggest: these verbs are perfect or near-perfect equivalents; they share the same stem and seem to be used as translation equivalents in a large [2] Available at: http://www.korpus.cz/intercorp/ (Intercorp); http://parasol.unibe.ch/ (A Parallel Corpus of Slavic and Other Languages); http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/projects/run/corpus/ (RuN). [3] We would like to express our gratitude to Harry Stojanov, who gave us permission to use his Bulgarian translations of a few BCS literary texts and provided us with the files, and to Kjetil Rå Hauge, who helped us compile our corpus. [4] According to (RBE 1984, 353–360), the imperfective form of dojda is doxoždam or doxaždam; however, because both imperfective forms are somewhat archaic, in our analysis we have treated idvam as the imperfective equivalent of dojda following contemporary Bulgarian usage norms and in line with more recent sources such as (STRBE 1994), (Fetvadžieva 2001), (OR 2014), and others. OSLa volume 6(1), 2014 a contrastive study of bcs and bulgarian motion verbs [253] table 2: Corpus sample corpus: pavichazar english translation bcs blg 218 Hazari su nezavisno i moćno pleme, ratnički i nomadski narod koji je u neizvesna vremena došao s Istoka, gonjen nekakvom vrelom tišinom, i u razdoblju od VII do X veka naseljavao kopno između dva mora Хазарите били независимо и силно племе, войнствен номадски народ, в неизвестни времена дошъл отИзток гонен от някаква пареща тишина, и в промеждутъка от VI до X век населявал сушата между две морета ‘The Khazars were an independent and strong tribe, a warlike nomadic people that came from the East during an unknown period, chased by some burning silence, and who inhabited the land between two seas between the seventh and tenth centuries.’ 814 Godine 1117 došli su nekiHazari uKijev knezu Vladimiru Monomahu. В 1117 година някакви хазари дошли в Киев при княз Владимир Мономах. ‘In 1117, some Khazars came to Kyiv to Prince Vladimir Monomakh.’ number of similar contexts. However, our study reveals a different situation. In our corpus, there are considerably fewer correspondences in the use of doći and dojda in BCS and Blg. than we expected. Table 3 presents our results in numbers, showing that 44% of the BCS instances of doći in our corpus are not translatedwith the Blg. verb dojda. table 3: Results for doći (pf.) source: #examples with doći doći = dojda doći = another verb doći = na-/pri/Ø-stigna 1. Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića 72 36 36 18 2. Foliranti 19 16 3 2 3. Hazarski rečnik 96 54 42 22 4. Povratak Filipa Latinovicza 54 29 25 7 5. Prokleta avlija 27 12 15 7 6. Provincijalac 23 17 6 1 total 291 164 127 57

šarić & tchizmarova For the purposes of our analysis, the most useful material is original BCS texts translated into Blg.or Blg.texts translated into BCS.A few parallel corpora available on the internet include texts in several Slavic languages (Intercorp, RuN, ParaSol); 2 however, in these corpora, we initially found only one source translated from BCS into Blg.and no source translated from Blg. into BCS.Fortunately, we found some other electronically available BCS texts and their Blg.translations 3 that we used to compile our small parallel corpus consisting of six BCS literary texts (all novels) translated into Blg.The corpus is presented in table 1.We extracted the examples with all the morphological forms of the BCS verb doći (pf.) and dolaziti (impf.)and the parallel Blg.examples with dojda (pf.) and idvam (impf.). 4 We also extracted the Blg.examples with dojda and the corresponding BCS sentences that do not contain doći.The corpus sample in table 2 on the facing page shows what our data look like -the leftmost column shows the lemma searched for (doći in the Serbian original text, Haz in ParaSol) in its immediate context, the middle column shows its Blg.translation, and in the rightmost column we have added our translation into English.
In the corpus sample in table 2, BCS and Blg.use doći and dojda, confirming what dictionary descriptions (e.g., (Stojanov 2011)) and random collections of language data suggest: these verbs are perfect or near-perfect equivalents; they share the same stem and seem to be used as translation equivalents in a large [2] Available at: http://www.korpus.cz/intercorp/(Intercorp); http://parasol.unibe.ch/(A Parallel Corpus of Slavic and Other Languages); http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/projects/run/corpus/(RuN).[3] We would like to express our gratitude to Harry Stojanov, who gave us permission to use his Bulgarian translations of a few BCS literary texts and provided us with the files, and to Kjetil Rå Hauge, who helped us compile our corpus.[4] According to (RBE 1984, 353-360), the imperfective form of dojda is doxoždam or doxaždam; however, because both imperfective forms are somewhat archaic, in our analysis we have treated idvam as the imperfective equivalent of dojda following contemporary Bulgarian usage norms and in line with more recent sources such as (STRBE 1994), (Fetvadžieva 2001), (OR 2014), and others.'In 1117, some Khazars came to Kyiv to Prince Vladimir Monomakh.' number of similar contexts.However, our study reveals a different situation.In our corpus, there are considerably fewer correspondences in the use of doći and dojda in BCS and Blg.than we expected.[2] analysis [2.1]The semantics of doći = dojda We outline the semantics of doći = dojda on the basis of the parallel examples in which we found both verbs to be perfect equivalents.Doći and dojda are the proto-OSLa volume 6(1), 2014 [254] šarić & tchizmarova typical examples of motion verbs prefixed by do-'(up) to'.These do-verbs in motion context illustrate the to schema, expressing motion in space towards a goal, as shown in figure 1.The meaning of do-verbs involves a path and is presented as a trajector (TR) moving towards a landmark (LM), 5 often an LM-boundary.
figure 1: The prototypical meaning of do-, the to schema: Motion in space towards a goal.
The to schema applies to motion up to a certain border, be it an entity's selfpropelled motion or caused motion.The do-pattern is very productive in BCS and Blg., especially with verbs indicating self-motion of animate entities (e.g., BCS/Blg.doletjeti/dolitam 'fly up to').
Doći and dojda are employed in spatial scenarios with concrete or abstract moving objects (TRs); illustrated in (1)-( 2) that move to and reach concrete or abstract locations (landmarks).Whereas example (1) illustrates the concrete motion of animate entities in physical space towards a concrete spatial location (a town), example (2) illustrates metaphorical motion of an abstract entity towards a human LM.The fictive motion metaphorically represents a mental activity: the metaphorical arrival of an idea, thought, or revelation.
( We use the terms "trajector" (TR) and "landmark" (LM) following standard practice in cognitive linguistics; for example, (Langacker 2008, 70ff.).TR (or "figure") is the focus element in a spatial relation, and LM (or "ground") is the background element.The location or motion of the TR is characterized in terms of its relation to the LM.[6] Throughout the article, BCS original sentences are provided in (a) and Bulgarian translations in (b).The lemmas are set in italics for easier reference.As a rule, the English translation follows the original text; the differences between the original and the English translation are discussed whenever relevant.
a contrastive study of bcs and bulgarian motion verbs [255] The parallel corpus examples revealed several interesting issues related to the semantic relation of doći and dojda, which we discuss in the following sections.The first issue is the semantic relation of BCS doći and Blg.stigna and its prefixed forms.
[2.2] BCS doći versus Blg.stigna, pristigna in concrete motion contexts and abstract contexts (phrasal expressions) In a considerable number of examples, doći is rendered by a verb with a different stem.In 57 of 127 examples (45%) in which doći is not rendered by dojda, the choice in Blg. is stigna 'arrive, reach' or prefixed verbs derived from stigna (e.g., pristigna 'arrive', nastigna 'catch up with').BCS has a verb with the identical stem, stići/stignuti.In their primary meaning, 'to arrive at a goal of motion', stići/stignuti and doći function as synonyms in BCS (see, e.g., (HJP 2014)).The same applies to Blg. stigna and dojda.In its other meanings -'catch smb.up', 'manage, cope, find time', and 'happen (to one)' -BCS stići/stignuti cannot be replaced by doći.In Blg., some of the non-spatial meanings of stigna can also be expressed with dojda as in BCS (e.g., stignax/dojdox do izvoda 'reach a conclusion'), whereas other non-spatial meanings cannot be expressed with dojda (or with dojda alone), and require idiomatic expressions instead -for example, nastigna go neštastie (literally, 'a misfortune reached him') or neštastie mu dojde na glavata' (literally, 'a misfortune came to his head'), in which bad events are perceived as self-moving entities that reach a person.
Examples (3)-( 4) illustrate concrete spatial scenarios in which a frequent choice for BCS doći is stigna, pristigna in Blg.In (3), BCS could also use stići (. . .ne bi nikad mogli stići).In Blg., it is also possible to use dojda when the motion is towards the speaker's or listener's location.In contrast, the use of stigna in (3) expresses a more general meaning of reaching a destination.We have also found dojda in contexts in which BCS originals use stići, as (4) shows.Although Blg. pristigam 'reach' (focusing on reaching the goal) and otivam 'go' (highlighting moving away from source) would also be quite natural in (4b), the translator makes a more marked choice by using dojda, thus adopting [7] The English translations in examples such as (3) and ( 5) sound better with go and got, respectively, but the verb used in the original BCS texts is doći. [256] šarić & tchizmarova a first-or second-person perspective when talking about a third party in order to focus on this third party and its potential importance in the following parts of the narrative.This use of dojda signals movement towards an entity that is the focal point of the sentence, and was identified as early as 1894 by the "grandfather of Bulgarian lexicography," Najden Gerov, who asserted that the orientation of dojda is towards the place mentioned (doxoždam) or being talked about (dojda). 8It seems that BCS stići and doći, in one of their meanings in concrete motion contexts, are intra-language synonyms (the same applies to stigna and dojda in Blg.), and inter-language synonyms in the relation between BCS and Blg.
BCS doći in phrasal expressions is frequently translated into Blg.with stigna, as in example (5).In BCS, stići would sound awkward in contexts such as (5), whereas in Blg.dojda does not seem appropriate in this context with a human subject that is also the doer of the action and that ended up having trouble with the law (compare the impersonal expression stigna se do sblâsâk sâs zakona 'it came to a conflict with the law', which does not explicitly mention who got in trouble with the law).Thus, in Blg. it does not seem possible to present 'a conflict with a law' as a metaphorical goal that someone reaches, an image that the BCS original suggests.
'the young man quickly got involved into the dark deals and daring deeds of his friends, and got in trouble with the law.' [8] We are grateful to one of our reviewers for making this observation and providing a great example from the Bulgarian National Corpus: Kogato se otvori văzmožnost, nezabavno šte dojdem tam, kădeto njakoj iska da čue našata muzika.'When there is a possibility, we'll immediately go (literally, come) where someone wants to hear our music.'As example (4) indicates, this meaning can occur also when the verb is in the third person, non-present tense, even when the reported (преизказен) aorist form of the verb is used to convey someone else's utterance; in this case, most likely an imaginary historian rendering a witness' account of events in an imaginary emperor's court (we owe this comment to the same reviewer and Nadežda Kostova).[9] Even so, in informal spoken Bulgarian, the impersonal expression with stigna is more likely to occur than the one with dojda; for example, Stigna se do goljama razpravija 'This led to a big fight / a big fight occurred.'In a similar way, in (8) BCS uses doći whereas the Blg.translation uses stigna.It is also possible to use dojda in Blg.(e.g., dojde mu genialna ideja 'an ingenious idea came to his mind') based on the conventional metaphor that ideas travel (i.e., the idea is the moving TR), but it is not as natural or frequent in Blg. to say toj dojde do genialnata ideja 'he came to an ingenious idea' in which the person is the moving TR and the idea is perceived as a LM, goal, or destination.BCS cannot use stići in (8); however, stići is possible, although it would be less natural in BCS, in example (9), whereas dojda is not a felicitous verb in Blg. in contexts referring to finding or discovering something.
(Haz) b.Гледали на всяка цена да наругаят и прокълнат онези, с които влизали в спор.When BCS doći is used in idiomatic and phrasal expressions to refer to the occurrence of a communicative event such as a talk or an argument (e.g., došlo je do razgovora 'happen, start' in (11)), Blg.cannot use dojda.By contrast, when BCS expressions with doći refer to wants and desires (e.g., došlo (mu je) da 'he wanted to' as in ( 12)), Blg. also has equivalents with dojda: the colloquial or emphatic expression dojde mu (želanie) da 'he felt like (doing)'.However, the translator selected a more stylistically neutral Blg.expression in example (12).In Blg., an impersonal expression with dojda is also possible in examples such as (13), which explains why we found occasional correspondences (e.g., došlo do sukoba = се дошло до сблъсък in (13).The impersonal Blg.construction in (13) with the reflexive particle se, the verb dojda, and the preposition do is similar to the BCS construction with doći and, as stated earlier for sentences ( 6)-( 7), can be used for the emergence of conflicts, fights, arguments, and the like.
Our data exhibit systematic differences between BCS idiomatic and phrasal expressions with doći such as doći u priliku 'get a chance', doći u kontakt 'establish contact, meet', došlo je do razgovora 'happen, start' as in (11), and their Blg.equivalents that do not use dojda in similar contexts.In some cases, our corpus contained BCS expressions like došlo (mu je) da 'he wanted to' (as in ( 12)), došlo je vrijeme 'the time has come', and so on, in which Blg. has equivalent expressions with dojda; for example, dojde mu (želanie) da 'he felt like (doing)', and dojde vreme za 'the time [10] In the more abstract contexts of ( 10)-( 13), BCS doći is translated into English with a range of verbs such as come, be, and want.22)-( 27) show, all of our sources contained single cases of opposite construals of motion events in which the goal-oriented verb doći/dojda 'come, arrive', which emphasizes arrival at a destination, is rendered by the source-oriented verb otići/otivam 'leave', which emphasizes leaving a spatial location.
Translating a verb meaning 'come' with a verb meaning 'leave' and vice versa is possible because in a motion scenario arriving at a spatial goal implies leaving a spatial location.Leaving and arriving seem to be a conceptual unity.In language coding of motion events, we explicitly focus on certain parts of the motion path; [11] BCS can use javiti se 'appear' in examples such as (20).However, javiti se would imply a less vivid image and merely suggest a metaphorical presence of her (ona), whereas doći can apply to a metaphorical and concrete presence.[12] The perfective form otida 'go' can be shortened to ida.Confusingly, the imperfective verb idvam 'come' also has an equivalent form ida. Dictionaries list these forms as ida2 (= 'go') and ida1 (= 'come'), respectively (RBE 1990, 33-42).'Wherever s/he comes, s/he brings about quarrels and hatred.' [13] Further research into the semantics of Blg. and BCS verbs of coming and going is needed in order to explain the choices made in our examples in relation to the notion of "deictic center" (the location of the speaker or the addressee) in the meaning of these verbs, and deictic projection (a speaker's ability to imaginatively "project" to some remote location).Goddard (1997, 158-160) argues that the capacity of English come to support a "deictic projection" -that is, to suggest a point of view of someone other than the speaker himself or herself -relates to the fact that come in its lexical meaning refers to a subjective point of view of an implied person, be it the speaker, addressee, or even a third person; that is, X came to place A entails the component "someone in this place could think: X is in the same place as me" (Goddard 1997, 160).Some of our examples indicate that Blg. and BCS dojda/doći also entail the component that Goddard (1997) postulates for the English verb come, but further research is needed for any definite conclusions. [262] šarić & tchizmarova [2.6] Dojda is used in Blg.translation, doći is not used in the original Dojda is sometimes used in Blg.translation in situations in which doći is not used in the original.In section [2.2] we examined the contexts in which Blg. stigna/pristigna is used for BCS doći.Examples (28a)-(28b) illustrate the opposite case: dojda is used as the translation equivalent of stići.
In addition to stići, in Haz for instance, dojda is used in contexts in which BCS uses some other motion verbs with a more specific meaning (e.g., preći 'transfer; cross', prići 'come closer', dojahati 'ride to', nastupiti 'appear', naići 'come upon').As discussed in section [2.5], Blg.dojda is also used as the translation equivalent of otići 'leave' (in Haz and in other sources).Furthermore, the Blg.translation uses dojda (e.g., дошъл до заключението 'reach a conclusion', Haz) for the BCS verb of mental activity zaključiti 'conclude' found in the original; however, BCS also has an equivalent expression with doći; that is, doći do zaključka 'reach a conclusion'.
Examples ( 29)-( 33) illustrate some recurring situations.In ( 29), the original does not explicitly use a motion verb, although motion is implied (prespava . . .do te foringe; literally, 'sleep until that cart').The Blg. translation using dojda makes the implied motion explicit.In (30), the construal of the motion event expressed with dojda is opposite the one found in the original, odem 'go away' (see section [2.5]).In ( 31 In ( 34)-( 35), Blg.uses dojda in the translation of two BCS idiomatic expressions.In these cases too, BCS could have used equivalent expressions with doći: doći na um 'get into one's mind' in (34) and doći k sebi in (35).The construction doći k sebi is synonymous with the verb pribrati se; both mean 'come to, regain consciousness; collect oneself'.However, the expression da dojda na sebe si 'come to, regain consciousness' and the verb seemingly very similar to the BCS pribrati se, pribiram se 'come home' are not synonymous in Blg.
a contrastive study of bcs and bulgarian motion verbs [267] BCS uses dolaziti (u snove) to express 'appear (in dreams)'.In Blg., this meaning can be rendered with the verb javjavam se 'show up, appear', as in (51), where it is used in conjunction with the dative pronoun mu 'to him' to express recipient (and, by extension, location; i.e. this person's dreams).Alternatively, as (52) shows, dojda (imperfective idvam for repeated events) can be used because of its inherent goal orientation and ability to refer to an entity or location that is in focus.
[4] conclusions The main question we tried to address in this article the extent to which the cognate BCS and Blg.verbs doći and dojda align in meaning. 14In a large number of our parallel examples, BCS doći is not translated with Blg.dojda.Although doći and dojda are perfect equivalents in many examples referring to concrete spatial motion, the differences we analyzed suggest that Blg.dojda has developed a narrower meaning specialization.Dojda is the prototypical deictic verb with the meaning 'come', expressing movement towards a goal that usually coincides with the speaker's and/or listener's location either at the time of speaking or at the time of reference (past or future), or, by extension, with the speaker's and/or listener's traditional location. 15In addition, dojda can express movement whose orientation is not related to the speaker's or hearer's location; instead, the movement is towards an entity or a location that is the focal point of an utterance or sentence.In contrast, BCS doći has developed the meaning of a generalized motion verb, expressing movement to or towards a goal (e.g., going out, going down, returning, coming nearer, appearing, etc.), which far more often than its Blg.counterpart refers to a goal other than the speaker and/or listener.The metaphorical extensions of doći and/or dojda (e.g., meaning 'take a deep breath', 'come to one's senses, etc.) have followed similar patterns.However, when creating scenes in which things are happening to someone, the Blg.verb dojda implies more often than BCS doći that these things are happening to the speaker and/or listener.
Our corpus suggests that BCS doći exhibits a wider range of meanings than does Blg.dojda; for example, doći means 'come, arrive, reach, get to, happen, appear, show up, occur' and so on.Nonetheless, because both BCS doći and Blg.dojda [14] We used BCS sources translated into Bulgarian only, and not Blg.sources translated into BCS, and so our conclusions are preliminary and apply only to translations of doći/dolaziti into Blg.An analysis of dojda/idvam and their translations into BCS has to be left for future research: it requires a different corpus and could reveal different findings (e.g., an additional set of Bulgarian meanings not represented in BCS) than our study did.More research is also needed on how the Blg. and BCS verbs dojda/doći relate to the "deictic centre," "deictic projection," "subject of the narrative," and what Goddard terms an "egocentric interpretation of X's final location by an 'unidentified someone in this place'" that interprets X's final location as "X is in the same place as me" (Goddard 1997, 159).Goddard assumes a great relevance of this "egocentric interpretation" for the semantics of the English verb come.[15] An example of traditional location is provided in (Fetvadžieva 2001): Včera dojdox u vas, no teb te njamaše.'I went (literally, came) to your place yesterday, but you were not there', in which the movement is towards the place where the addressee is expected to be and/or is usually located.
OSLa volume 6(1), 2014 [268] šarić & tchizmarova can refer to movement towards locations other than those of the listener and/or speaker and to events happenings to entities other than the listener and/or speaker, and BCS doći can, of course, refer to movement towards the listener and/or speaker, there is a considerable meaning overlap.Figure 2 presents this schematically.
figure 2: Comparison of the meanings of BCS doći and Blg.dojda in our corpus Figure 2 indicates that the set of entities arriving at a location, any location (in the concrete, spatial sense), and the set of things happening in the world (in the metaphorical sense), expressed BCS doći, subsumes the set of entities usually arriving at the speaker and/or listener's location, or the location in focus, and things most often happening to the speaker or listener, expressed by Blg.dojda.Unlike dictionaries, which provide lists of meanings in isolation, parallel corpora (even small ones such as the corpus used in this study) reveal the systematic differences between semantically similar units such as BCS doći and Blg.dojda in a clear and straightforward way because context disambiguates relevant elements in a scene.

Primary sources
BCS literary texts and their Bulgarian translations -see table 1 in section [1].

table 1 :
The corpus used in this study

table 3 :
Table 3 presents our results in numbers, showing that 44% of the BCS instances of doći in our corpus are not translated with the Blg.verb dojda.Results for doći (pf.) eficiary with the verb dobiti 'get', whereas the Blg.translation, дойде им гост (literally, 'a guest came to them') uses a construction with the dative pronoun and the verb dojda in a dynamic construal involving motion.It must be pointed out, however, that doći is also possible in BCS in a construction semantically similar to dobili su gosta, which is structurally very similar to the Blg.one (BCS došao im je gost 'a guest came to them').BCS doći in abstract, metaphorical contexts versus another verb in Blg.BCS doći occurs in some abstract, metaphorical contexts in which Blg. uses another verb.In these contexts, doći implies 'seem', 'appear'; for instance, in (20b) in which Blg. uses an explicit verb of metaphorical appearance meaning 'appear, show up', 11 whereas in (21b) the Blg.verb means 'seem'.It is not possible to use dojda in either context.
), BCS uses a more specific motion verb (prijeći 'transfer') emphasizing transition from a spatial point A to a spatial point B in the context of a person moving to a new location and starting a new job.И после ме изпрати да дойда до вас и да ви кажа, че тя остава и че й е добре с мен.'Then he sent me to go to your place and tell you that she was going to stay with me, and that she feels good when she is with me.' . .debela Karolina, koja jo kao udovica prešla u njenu službu, masirala ju je poslije jutarnje kupelji po cǐtavu uru.(PFL) b. . . .а дебелата Каролина, която, вече вдовица, бе дошла да прислужва при нея, по цял час й правеше масажи след утринното къпане.'. . . the fat Karolina who as a widow has come to work as her maid, and gave her hour-long massages after the morning shower.'Но когато този човек се приближи , дойде до мен и започна да развързва въжето, с което бях вързан.'But when this man came closer, he came to me and started to disentangle the rope with which I was tied up.' BCS uses the verb prići 'come closer', translated with Blg.dojde nablizo (32b), whereas in (33) it is the other way around: BCS uses doći blizu 'come closer' whereas the Blg.translation uses približavam 'come closer', showing that these expressions are often interchangeable in both BCS and Blg.In addition, (33a) contains yet another example when another motion verb in BCS, pristupiti 'come closer/step forward', is translated with dojda in Blg.(33b).