On the Verbal System in Metropolitan Gregory Tsamblak's Works and the Middle Bulgarian Translation of John Chrysostom's Homiletic Corpus "On the Seraphim"

The object of investigation in the present paper is the comparative study of the temporal system in translated and original works of Tarnovo and non-Tarnovo origin from the 14th century, published in the last decade. The study focuses on the parallel between the verbal system of the largely unresearched pre-Euthymian homiletic manuscript of six homilies “On the Seraphim”, translated by Dionysius Divni, and six works of the representative of Tarnovo Literary School – Metropolitan Gregory Tsamblak, which are genealogically connected with it. The following aspects have been studied contrastively: the paradigm of the verb tenses – Present tense, Past Imperfect, Past Aorist, Past Perfect, Plusquamperfectum, Future Simple, descriptive future-tense forms, Past Future tense; the unchanging infinitive; the verboids – present active participle, aorist active participle, passive participles; passive voice; conditional and imperative mood. Their similarities (conformity to Middle Bulgarian tendencies and Athonite influences) and differences (the degree of archaisation, individual style) have been inspected.