to mean younger. use of suffixed demonstrative pronouns (тъ, та, то). These developed later into suffixed definite articles. orthographical: original [ы] and [ъi] merged to [ы] sometimes the use of letter 'Ѕ' (dz) was unified with that of 'З' (z) verb forms naricają, naricaješi were substituted or alternated with naričą, naričeši lexical: use of words with proto-Bulgar (Turko-Iranian) origin, such as кумиръ, капище, чрьтогъ, блъванъ, etc. Middle Bulgarian In the period between 12th and 15th centuries the structure of the language changed quite radically. Few of these changes can still be observed in contemporary written records, thanks to the tendency towards archaicism driven by a desire to preserve the purity of the Cyrilo-Methodian tradition. The phonetic features of Middle Bulgarian include: Changes to the nasal vowels, which lose their nasal element in the majority of the Bulgarian dialects. The frequent confusion of the letters for the front and back nasal vowels suggests that the two vowels were phonetically very similar. As in other Balkan Slavic languages /ы/ becomes /и/ (although it is thought this change occurred later in Bulgarian). The yat vowel falls together with /e/ in Western dialects, with some manuscripts confusing it not only with e but also with the front nasal letter. In Eastern dialects the situation is more complex, as is reflected in the treatment of jat in the modern literary language (based on the Eastern pronunciation, i.e. [ja] when under stress and before a hard consonant, [ɛ] everywhere else). As for consonants, the East/West distinctions of hardness and softness become more clearly defined, with the hardening of consonants occurring more in the West while the Eastern dialects preserve the opposition hard/soft for most consonants. The language underwent some morphological changes as well: starting from the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire a confusion of case endings is to be observed along with the increasing use of prepositions in syntax. This linguistic tendency resulted in the gradual loss of the complex Slavic case system, rendering Bulgarian and Macedonian significantly more analytic than their relatives. Scholars dispute whether this has anything to do with phonetic changes, such as the confusion of the nasals, or whether it is purely due to the influence of grammar developments across the Balkans. Also dating from the High Middle Ages is the use of the prefixes по- and най- to indicate comparative and superlative degrees of the adjective. The earliest signs of