Authors

Discussion

Bulgarian is a described as pro-drop language (Bojadziev et al. 1999). In Roberts & Holmberg's (2010) classification, Bulgarian fits the class of consistent NSLs rather than that of partial NSLs. I will provide empirical evidence in support of this. 

The distinctive properties proposed to disambiguate the language types fail to give a satisfactory result. In contrast to Italian, Bulgarian allows overt subjects in topic continuity contexts. Apparently there is microparametric variation in this respect (Sorace 2005, Prentza & Tsimpli 2013). This variation can be partly attributed to the strength of pronominal paradigms (Cardinaletti & Starke 1994). 

Another issue of classification is the availability of null generic pro, which should be a feature of partial NSLs only, while consistent NSLs should make use of a lexical generic pronoun. Bulgarian allows for both options. In addition, there is evidence for the dissociation between the SI construction and indefiniteness and for the fact that SI-constructions are formally similar but not identical to passive constructions (Barbosa 2011, Genevska-Hanke 2019). This contradicts the assumption put forward in Holmberg & Roberts (2013).