The Spread of Potential Mood Marking in Conditionals in Standard Macedonian

This paper discusses the consequences of the reintroduction of the potential mood marker bi-construction into the system of conditional marking in standard Macedonian. This marker had been almost lost from the Balkanized conditional patterns in Macedonian dialects which were based on the opposition hypothetical vs. counterfactual. The counterfactual was realized by the isomorphic Balkan conditional type: subjunctive mood in the protasis and a construction based on the future marker ke +imperfect verb in the apodosis. Under the influence of the neighboring Slavic languages the bi-construction reentered the conditional system penetrating into existing patterns and creating new ones. The spread of the bi-patterns is confirmed by the results of the quantitative analysis of the examples from literary works belonging to different periods. It is highly possible that this "comeback" was enabled by the imported conditional patterns with koga 'when' and dokolku 'in case/if' realized in potential mood. The main hypothesis is that the borrowed conditional patterns enriched the system of conditional marking in Macedonian causing its partial realignment. Although semantically overlapping with the Balkan conditional pattern, these two patterns typically code present and future unrealizable situations, often endowed with special discourse functions.