A FEW CHALLENGES TO NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS PRESENTED BY THE FUNCTIONAL-SEMANTIC FIELD OF PERSONALITY IN CONTEMPORARY BULGARIAN

Abstract

While learning Bulgarian as a Foreign Language, students meet diverse challenges. In the present article, we examine a few of the main challenges offered by the functional-semantic field of Personality. To do so we rely on Bondarko’s postulates of Functional Grammar, and on their application to contemporary Bulgarian. We identify two types of Personality challenges: Field Core and Field Periphery Challenges. Of the first type, we examine difficulties caused by homonymy and the number of verb-conjugation suffixes. Among the second type, we note challenges in connection with some peripheral lexical means, mostly pronouns. While personal pronouns, reflexive personal pronouns, and reflexive possessive pronouns could all be a source of difficulties for non-native learners, it is possessive pronouns that appear especially problematic. Thus we are able to confirm the dual nature of Personality-challenges: they stem both from the core of the functional-semantic field, and from its periphery.