This study examines the morphological and semantic development of the modal construction formed with either the imperfect of 'to want' (Croatian/Serbian) plus the infinitive, or with a modal particle from 'to want' (Macedonian) plus the imperfect of the main verb. The Balkan conditional is analyzed using material from diverse sources, including epic folk poetry, dialectal texts, and the standard literary language in the South Slavic languages, as well as in the Balkan non-Slavic languages of Greek, Albanian, Daco-Rumanian, Istro-Rumanian, and Arumanian. Specific syntactic and semantic contexts are analyzed, and the Balkan conditional is compared to other modal constructions in these languages. One of the characteristic analytic verbal forms shared by the languages of the Balkan league is the Balkan conditional or the so-called 'future-in-the-past'. In the majority of these languages, the Balkan conditional has the status of a grammatical category, whose invariant components are 'modality', specifically 'potentiality', and 'reference to past tense'. With such components, these expressions most frequently and naturally refer to actions which did not take place, i.e., the past, contrary-to-fact conditional.

This volume assembles contributions addressing clausal complementation across the entire South Slavic territory. The main focus is on particular aspects of complementation, covering the contemporary standard languages as well as older stages and/or non-standard varieties and the impact of language contact, primarily with non-Slavic languages. Presenting in-depth studies, they thus contribute to the overarching collective aim of arriving at a comprehensive picture of the patterns of clausal complementation on which South Slavic languages profile against a wider typological background, but also diverge internally if we look closer at details in the contemporary stage and in diachronic development. The volume divides into an introduction setting the stage for the single case-studies, an article developing a general template of complementation with a detailed overview of the components relevant for South Slavic, studies addressing particular structural phenomena from different theoretical viewpoints, and articles focusing on variation in space and/or time.

The book deals with some syntactic and semantic aspects of the shared Balkan Sprachbund properties. In a comprehensive introductory chapter, Tomic offers an overview of the Balkan Sprachbund properties. Sobolev, displaying the areal distribution of 65 properties, argues for dialect cartography. Friedman, on the example of the evidentials, argues for typologically informed areal explanation of the Balkan properties. The other contributions analyze specific phenomena: polidefinite DPs in Greek and Aromanian (Campos and Stavrou), Balkan constructions in which datives combine with impersonal clitics or non-active morphology (Rivero), Balkan optatives (Ammann and Auwera), imperative force in the Balkan languages (Isac and Jakab), clitic placement in Greek imperatives (Boškovic), focused constituents in Romanian and Bulgarian (Hill), synthetic and analytic tenses in Romanian (D'Hulst, Coene and Avram), "purpose-like" modification in a number of Balkan languages (Bužarovska), Balkan modal existential “wh”-constructions (Grosu), child and adult strategies in interpreting empty subjects in Serbian/Croatian (Stojanovic and Marelj), conditional sentences in Judeo-Spanish (Montoliu and Auwera).

Black Sea Sketches is a portrait of some of the diverse musical cultures surrounding the Black Sea and in its hinterlands. Its six separate chapters follow a very broad trajectory from close-ups of traditional music (chapters 1-4) towards wide-angle studies of art music (chapters 5-6), and each of them opens windows to big, border-crossing themes about music and place. A wide variety of repertoires is discussed: ancient layers of polyphonic music, bardic songs, traditional music from the coasts and mountains, the sacred music of Islam and Orthodox Christianity, the art music of Europe and West Asia, and present-day popular music ‘scenes’. The usual practice is for each chapter to begin with a Black Sea coastal location before reaching out into the hinterlands. The result is a collection of six relatively discrete essays on different locations and topics, but with underlying thematic continuities, and offering a wide-ranging commentary on cultural difference. Firmly grounded in ethnographic and documentary research, this is an important study for scholars and researchers of Ethnomusicology, as also of Caucasian and Russian/East European Studies.

With Muslim, Croatian, and Serbian journalists and historians as contributors, Burn This House portrays the chain of events that led to the recent wars in the heart of Europe. Comprised of critical, nonnationalist voices from the former Yugoslavia, this volume elucidates the Balkan tragedy while directing attention toward the antiwar movement and the work of the independent media that have largely been ignored by the U.S. press. Updated since its first publication in 1997, this expanded edition, more relevant than ever, includes material on new developments in Kosovo. The contributors show that, contrary to descriptions by the Western media, the roots of the warring lie not in ancient Balkan hatreds but rather in a specific set of sociopolitical circumstances that occurred after the death of Tito and culminated at the end of the Cold War. In bringing together these essays, Serbian-born sociologist Jasminka Udovicki and Village Voice Washington correspondent James Ridgeway provide essential historical background for understanding the turmoil in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo and expose the catalytic role played by the propaganda of a powerful few on all sides of what eventually became labeled an ethnic dispute. Burn This House offers a poignant, informative, and fully up-to-date explication of the continuing Balkan tragedy. Contributors. Sven Balas, Milan Milosevi ́c Branka Prpa-Jovanovi ́c, James Ridgeway, Stipe Sikavica, Ejub Stitkovac, Mirko Tepavac, Ivan Torov, Jasminka Udovicki, Susan Woodward

The book provides an encyclopaedic overview of the language contact between Slavic languages and Romani in Eastern, South-Eastern and East-Central Europe. It is based on Yaron Matras’ pragmatic-functional approach to language contact and follows a new direction in Romani linguistics that conceives Romani as a subgroup of closely related languages rather than a single language. The central topics discussed in the book are: Slavic impact on Romani phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax; forms and functions of Slavic verbal prefixes in Romani; Slavic impact on the Romani lexicon; Romani elements in the nonstandard lexicon of the Slavic languages; writing Romani with ‘Slavic’ alphabets.