Lectures on the historical grammar of the Russian language. Historical grammar
In modern Russian, sounds do not differ in length and brevity, but traces of existence in early period of the Common Slavic language of long and short vowels inherited from the Indo-European language-base, but then changed in different ways in the Common Slavic language. A reflection of these new alternations of vowels of different quality are the following modern Russian alternations:
"behavior-drive"; “rooster-sing” - the alternation of E-O there is a lack of a vowel sound. Since the modern Russian fluent E goes back to the reduced b, which disappeared in a weak position and turned into E in a strong position, the Russian alternation E-o absence the vowel was preceded by the common Slavic two-term alternation E-L.
“Blacksmith-forge” - the modern alternation of U-O in a position before consonants diphthongs were divided: syllabic vowels O in diphthongs (OI and AI) remained in one syllable, and the non-syllabic sound And in the form of a consonant B adjoined the next vowel. Thus arose on the common Slavic soil new alternations living in the Russian language U-OV.
"reduction-short" - the modern alternation of ORO with the non-consonant RA arose in the late Common Slavic period (V-VIII centuries AD) from the diphthongic combination of the vowel O with a smooth OR in a position between consonants according to the law open syllable. In such combinations, the South Slavs observed the movement of the vowel and smooth and the prolongation of the vowel sound OR-
RA. Among the Eastern Slavs, due to the longitude of the smooth one, a secondary vowel began to develop after it, similar to the vowel before the smooth one, which, probably, at first was shorter than the usual O and E, but with the fall of the reduced ones, it cleared up to a full vowel formation: OR > ORO.
“call-call” - the modern alternation at the root zero of the sound O reflects the Old Russian alternation of weak and strong reduced b according to the law of loss of quantitative vowels, the consequence of which is the process of loss of reduced ones. In the word “call” at the root “zv”, the reduced one was in a weak position, it ceased to be pronounced and gradually disappeared. In the word “call”, the reduced b was in a strong position and underwent a compensatory lengthening and sounded like O.
Task 2.
Historical alternation of consonants in Old Russian.
Task: write out from the sentences words in which there are results of common Slavic mitigation of consonants and consonant groups under the influence of prehistoric iota and front vowels. When explaining, follow the scheme: the original sound that has been softened (or a group of consonants); the law that caused the relaxation; phonetic conditions for softening a given sound in a given word (and not in general); mitigation results; chronological framework of the process.
Stand up to me, unsimilar, slander me.
Embrace your soul with impiety.
The bysha is equally floating, starting to gallop in his boat.
Gray birds have different clothes.
Beashe is in an ace (tuga-mountain) and sadness is dejected with heart.
It's pitiful to emit a voice.
Uchrnivsha from the burning of the cave.
I say swearing: tell us, old man, that they are lying.
Morning behold God's help.
Before dying of his speech, more than before understanding the prophets.
Be the existence of self-driving all the Russian lands to Volodymyr the son of Svyatoslav.
Come to Vyshegorod the night of calling Putsha and the Vyshegorod man and speech.
It is pitiful to let out a voice.
Lying to sleep and rather sleep him in a lot of thought and in sadness, strong and heavy and terrible.
Spacious crown to receive from the hands of the ruler.
See the current blaze of weapons and sword-like appraisal.
The time is approaching for the comfort of the blessed father and teacher.
The softening of consonants and consonant groups is caused by the law of syllabic synharmonism. Some of them softened in the early Slavic period (III-
II millennium BC - before the 5th century AD), part in the late (V-IX century AD).
Early Common Slavic period:
. softening back-lingual consonants before b: “stand up”, “embrace”,
"crown"; before E: “beashe”, “more”;
. mitigation of sonorants (P, L, N) and anterior lingual: “issuing”,
"self-driving", "cave";
. mitigation of the anterior lingual Z, S: "uzre";
. softening of the labials at the beginning of the word (P, B, M, C): "bysha";
Late Common Slavic period:
. change of labials not at the beginning of the word: “unlike”, “Svyatoslav”;
. change in the front-lingual consonants D and T before J: “come”, “before”;
Task 3.
Consequences of the unequal fate of the Old Russian reduced vowels b and b in strong and weak positions.
Task: from the texts of the corresponding option, choose words for the following consequences of the fall of the reduced ones:
. the appearance of fluent vowels O and E in prefixes, prepositions, roots, suffixes;
. the appearance of the sound F in Russian words;
. stunning voiced consonants at the end of words;
. consonant assimilation; according to sonority-deafness, hardness-softness, whistling to the next hissing (according to the method and place of formation);
. hardening of the soft final (labial) consonant;
. dissimilation of consonants;
. simplification of consonant groups at the beginning, end and middle of words.
Of all modern writers, I did not know a single one who was as passionately and confidently liberal as Pisemsky.
Of all the Chekhov family, I am the only one lying or sitting at the table.
Be healthy and write more often.
Society treats you with full sympathy.
The father is fasting.
I agree with your calculation.
The falsehood was that I seemed to want to teach with my Sakhalin and at the same time I was hiding something and holding myself back.
She is not boring.
Of course, I am flattered that they want to translate My Life.
I myself would gladly discover something that would fight for existence day after day, like everyone else.
He began to scold me for not burning people's hearts with a verb.
There is no hope that the development of the case will correspond to the tasks.
Tell me about everything you receive, otherwise, I repeat, it is boring to send when you are in the unknown.
My feuilleton is almost ready, it is very small, and I would like to add something else.
The appearance of fluent vowels O, E:
. in prefixes: modern - with sympathy - I agree - inform - I hide - I restrain;
. in the roots: day - day, me - me;
. in suffixes: liberal - confidently flattering;
. the appearance in Russian words of the sound Ф (at the end of words a and before a deaf consonant): everything, everyone, healthy, in that, ready;
. stunning voiced consonants at the end of words: from, be, something;
. assimilation of consonants: o by loudness-deafness: as if, I repeat; o by hardness-softness: I agree, flattering, unknown, hopeful, modern, passionate, confident;
. dissimilation of consonants: what, by calculation, to scold, boring, of course;
. simplification of consonant clusters by dropping out or merging consonants: passionately, existence, obscurity, fit, sympathy, modern.
Task 4.
Labialization (1, 2, 3) of the sound E, their reflection in modern Russian.
Task: determine the type of labialization (1, 2, 3), the conditions for its occurrence and the chronology of processes.
“milk” - before the formation of full-tone on East Slavic soil, the original -EL- (with L solid), which gave non-conformity in non-Slavic languages
-LE-, passed into the combination -OL- due to the labialization before the solid L of the front vowel E into the back vowel O, then this is secondary
-OL-, as well as the original -OL-, gave full consent in the East Slavic languages
-OLO-.
"sturgeon" - sound E inside the word under stress, before a hard consonant.
“carried” - the sound E inside the word under stress, before a hard consonant.
Task: explain why the process of the third labialization took place, although there were no conditions for it:
In all cases, the transition from E to O took place after the 15th century by grammatical analogy, since there were no conditions for the third labialization in words:
"buyochek" - like "buyok".
"cheap" is like "cheap".
"on a birch" - like "birch".
"begin" - as "started".
"in flight" - as "pallet".
"for the soul" - as "water".
"Yours" is like a "spear".
"ear" - like "that".
"foolish" - as "your".
"face" - like a "ring".
Task 5.
Old Church Slavonicisms in Russian and East Slavic Phonetic Features of Parallel Russian Words.
Task: From the text of task 2 of the corresponding option, write out words with Old Russian and correlative Old Slavonic phonetic features.
Old Russian phonetic features:
. full voice: vrany - crows, voice - voice.
. initial LO, RO: lodyu, exactly - equal.
. consonant H on revenge T + J, CT, GT + front vowel: slander.
. consonant Zh in place of D + J: before - before, I need, I look.
. initial O: ot, however.
. pronunciation of E as O under stress at the end and in the middle of a word: about, everything (third labialization).
. a combination of OL, OR, EP, between consonants in place of common Slavic reduced b, b + smooth R, L: perfect, holding on;
. the absence of a reduced AND at the end of the stems of nouns and adjectives: at night.
Old Church Slavonic phonetic features:
. disagreement: grace, Vsevolod, stop - short, like - adapt, strange - third-party.
. initial RA, LA: spread out, work, work.
. consonant Щ in place of T + J, CT, GT + front vowels - speech, property, warming, otveshtav, powerfully, pleshti.
. Railway in place D+J: before.
. initial E'': single, barely.
. preservation of E under stress at the end of a word and inside before a hard consonant
(the third labialization is missing): done, heaven, already.
. preservation of the reduced AND in a weak position (at the end of the stem of nouns and adjectives): pleasure, brethren, God's, God's, night.
Bibliography
For the preparation of this work, materials from the site were used.
http://base.ed.ru
Grammar is perhaps one of the first sciences of language; its origins lie in the works of ancient Indian philologists. This term has also been used in Ancient Greece in the meaning of the discipline that studies the rules of writing and reading. It is from these two traditions that both European and Russian grammar originate.
Grammar - a section of linguistics
Historical grammar of the Russian language is a subsection general grammar, the subject of study of which is text and word formation, i.e. the formal side of the language. As the name already suggests, this is the branch of linguistics responsible for the correct use of language in speech and writing. Hence such derived words as “literate” and “gramota”, which are semantically associated with the letter, the correct word.
Grammar establishes connections between words and segments of speech, and also regulates the formation of words and language structures. She studies the formal side of the language - its grammatical structure. At the same time, the object of her research varies from the morpheme (the smallest significant to the text (the largest independent part of the
Usually, grammar includes two sections of linguistics: these are morphology and syntax. The first one studies the word in its grammatical meaning, the second - constructions from words. In addition, orthoepy, vocabulary, phonetics, graphics, spelling of the Russian language are closely related to grammar, including historical.
Unity of grammatical and lexical
You should also not forget about the inseparable connection between grammar and vocabulary, the form and content of the utterance. Sometimes the lexical meaning of a word determines its grammatical features, sometimes the other way around.
For historical grammar, the relationship between vocabulary and grammar will be important. For example, phraseological units are formed through the process of lexicalization: the grammatical form is fixed in the language as an unchangeable and separately significant lexical unit. Grammarization, on the contrary, affirms the word as a grammatical indicator, translating it into the category of affixes and auxiliary words.
In Russian, it is also a consequence of the interaction of historical grammar and vocabulary. New words in a language are not always formed by incrementing units: with the development of society, the meaning of a word may become obsolete and acquire a new or additional meaning. 
With the course of history, the language is transformed, ordering the structure of its elements - the system becomes clearer and simpler. However, in order to understand this, it is necessary to have an idea of the historical processes that have taken place and are taking place in the language.
Origins of historical grammar
The historical grammar of the Russian language, like all Russian grammar in general, originates in the works of Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov, who dealt with the issues of the relationship of the Russian language with other Slavic and European languages. The works of the scientist approved grammar as a scientific discipline. Its heyday falls on the 19th century and is associated with such names as Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov, Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevsky and Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev.
"Historical Grammar of the Russian Language" by Valery Vasilyevich Ivanov is already a modern stage in the development of linguistic science. His book was published in the 80s of the last century and is still considered an authoritative guide for students of philological faculties.
Subject of study
Nowadays, historical grammar is one of the sections of linguistics that describes the patterns of historical changes in the structure of the language both at the level of sounds and words, and at the level. Moreover, the interest of science is both written and spoken (dialect) speech. The latter even to a greater extent contributed to the construction of the language system.
V. V. Ivanov, mentioned above, focuses on the fact that historical grammar reflects dynamic process transformation of the language system in time. Language develops according to its own laws and internal rules its individual sections (phonetics, syntax, morphology, and others).
Grammar of the Russian language by F.I. Buslaev
Since historical grammar is a discipline studied in high school, then it is worth mentioning the main works and textbooks on this topic.
“Historical Grammar of the Russian Language” by Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev was a significant contribution to the works on this topic. By and large, he is a pioneer of the method of comparative linguistics. The innovation of the approach lies in the fact that the author explains what is happening in modern language transformations based on related languages. It is from the fusion of Old Russian, Old Slavonic and other Slavic languages formed a modern literary equivalent.
The author does not just build patterns in the grammatical structure of the language, but seeks out their causes in the origin of words. For Buslaev, the history of language serves as an aid in an attempt to comprehend those phenomena that are recognized as exceptions by modern linguistics.
Ivanov. Historical grammar of the Russian language
Buslaev's work is concluded in two parts: the first is devoted to sounds and words, that is, morphology, the second - to syntax. Thus, the number of parts of the book corresponds to the number of grammar sections.
A manual by the Soviet linguist V.V. Ivanov, intended for students of philology, has a different structure. The author separately considers the issue and features of its interaction with related Slavic languages. The textbook traces the history of the development of language elements of various sizes - from sounds to syntactic constructions. Separately, the history of the origin and development of each of the parts of speech is given. 
Historical grammar of the Russian language for schoolchildren
The school's Russian language course does not provide hours for studying historical grammar: the program is aimed at mastering the modern literary language, and not at deepening into its history. However, the Russian language with this approach turns into a boring subject, the main purpose of which is to cramming the rules and various paradigms. How much simpler and more understandable language will be if its past is revealed a little! It is necessary to understand that language is not a frozen block, but a constantly changing system: like a living organism, it lives and develops.
There are several ways to include historical grammar in school Russian. Firstly, this is the conduct of separate lessons on the topic. Secondly, the principle of historicism can accompany the course of a regular lesson as additional material to the program. Examples of polysemantic words in the Russian language, features of phonetics, and - these and many other topics will become much clearer if they are explained using the conclusions and observations of historical grammar. 
It should also not be forgotten that the course of literature cannot do without the help of the history of the language, especially when getting acquainted with the monuments of ancient Russian writing. For example, “The Tale of Igor's Campaign” is not only replete with obsolete and incomprehensible words in the text, but the title itself requires a separate historical commentary.
The merit of historical grammar
Knowledge of the facts of historical grammar allows a more meaningful approach to the study of the language. Moreover, it becomes clearer even when reading the schemes and paradigms that represent it. To write and speak correctly, it is not necessary to memorize a lot of rules and exceptions by heart - the historical grammar of the Russian language will help to understand the processes logically occurring in it.
Historical grammar
A discipline that considers the evolution of the grammatical structure of one language by comparing linguistic facts relating to different time layers. The name "historical grammar" is inaccurate: traditionally, it includes not only historical morphology and historical syntax, but also historical phonetics. Sometimes it is specified that historical grammar describes and explains the development of the language from the appearance of the first written monuments to the present, while the previous periods of “prehistoric” development are within the competence of comparative linguistics (comparative linguistics)
However, the history of the literary idiom, which is a special discipline, is not included in the historical grammar of the Russian language (as well as other Slavic ones) (in other scientific traditions it may be different)
Combining the data of historical grammar, based on testified forms, and data of etymology as an important component comparative historical linguistics, in which hypothetical constructions play a much greater role, complement each other and provide knowledge of the development of individual languages.
Brief conceptual and terminological guide to etymology and historical lexicology. - Russian Academy Sciences, Institute of the Russian Language. V. V. Vinogradov RAS, Etymology and history of Russian words. J. J. Warbot, A. F. Zhuravlev. 1998 .
See what "Historical Grammar" is in other dictionaries:
Literary Encyclopedia
Historical grammar- HISTORICAL GRAMMAR. Grammar, considering grammatical facts Ph.D. language in their history, i.e., outlining the history of the grammatical facts of this language. Because, under grammar, they usually understand not only the doctrine of the forms of the language, but also the doctrine of ... ... Dictionary of literary terms
Exist., number of synonyms: 1 istgram (1) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary
historical grammar- Grammar, considering grammatical facts Ph.D. language in their history, i.e., outlining the history of the grammatical facts of this language. Since, under grammar, they usually understand not only the doctrine of the forms of a language, but also the doctrine of sounds, then I. G. can ... ... Grammar Dictionary: Grammar and linguistic terms
See historical grammar (in the article grammar) ... Dictionary of linguistic terms
Grammar (from the Greek γράμμα "record"), as a science, is a section of linguistics that studies the grammatical structure of a language, the patterns of constructing correct meaningful speech segments in this language (word forms, syntagmas, sentences, texts). These ... Wikipedia
There is a section of linguistics that studies the grammatical structure of a language, the patterns of constructing correct meaningful speech segments in this language (word forms, syntagms, sentences, texts). The grammar formulates these patterns in the form of general ... ... Wikipedia
- [ama], grammar, wives. (Greek grammatike). The doctrine of the structure of any language or group of languages (ling.). French grammar. Historical grammar. Comparative grammar of Slavic languages. || Educational book laying out the basics ... ... Dictionary Ushakov
This term has other meanings, see Grammar (meanings). Grammar (other Greek γραμματική from γράμμα "letter") as a science is a branch of linguistics that studies the grammatical structure of the language, patterns of construction ... ... Wikipedia
This term has other meanings, see Grammar (meanings). Grammar Church Slavonic Meletius Smotrytsky ... Wikipedia
Books
- , . This book will be produced in accordance with your order using Print-on-Demand technology. Historical grammar of the Russian language, compiled by F. Buslaev. Third edition, revised and...
- Historical grammar of the Russian language, compiled by F. Buslaev,. Historical grammar of the Russian language, compiled by F. Buslaev. Third edition, revised and enlarged. Syntax. Reproduced in the original author's spelling of the 1869 edition ...
General characteristics of the morphological structure of the Russian language at the beginning of the historical period. Parts of speech in the Old Russian language of the late X-X Icenturies The main trends in the development of the morphological system of the Russian language. According to the "Historical Grammar" V.V. Ivanova
The system of parts of speech in the original system of the Old Russian language was generally the same as in the modern one. In it, the name and the verb were completely opposed to each other. In terms of content, they were opposed as a class of words denoting objects and their attributes, a class of words denoting an action or state. In terms of expression, they were opposed as words having the categories of gender, number and case, words having the categories of tense, aspect, mood, person and number. At the same time, the category of number common for the name and the verb in the names characterized their quantitative aspect; in verbs, the number forms were determined by the syntactic connection with the carrier
action or feature. Numeric Forms one name or verb formed the paradigm of one word. The verbal categories of tense, form, mood and person in terms of content denoted the relationship of an action or state to the moment of speech (present, past, future tense), to its completeness or incompleteness (perfect - imperfect species), to reality, convention or motivation (indicative, conditional and imperative), and in terms of expression they were characterized by forms of inflection or word formation.
Within the name, a noun and an adjective were opposed, but this opposition was less distinct than in modern language. The fact is that along with pronominal (or full) adjectives in the Old Russian language there were also nominal (or short) ones that changed in the same way as nouns. Although pronominal adjectives, as well as nominal ones, arose in the preliterate era, they nevertheless arose later than nominal ones, and originally there were only short adjectives that could act simultaneously as nouns without any change in form. In terms of content, nouns and adjectives were opposed as names of objects to names of features. In terms of expression, they were equally characterized by the categories of gender, number and case, but if for nouns these categories were independent, then for adjectives they were determined by a syntactic connection with nouns.
Within the name, pronouns were distinguished, denoting indications of a person or object and having specific features in grammatical categories; these features in the Old Russian language of this period of history had personal pronouns of the 1st and 2nd person (they had no category of gender) and reflexive (which had no categories of gender and number).
A feature of the Old Russian language compared to the modern one was the absence of numerals as a special part of speech, which is in modern Russian ( we are talking about cardinal numbers). The point is that if there is a language
words expressing numerical concepts, numerals were not distinguished into a special grammatical class with their own categories inherent only to them. The names of numbers up to four, according to their grammatical properties, were close to adjectives, and from five to nouns. The formation of numerals as a special part of speech took place in historical period development of the Russian language, although in a relatively early era.
Finally, in the Old Russian language there were also adverbs, but the class of this part of speech in the 11th century. was limited, since the formation of adverbs in most cases occurred at a relatively late time. The foregoing does not mean that in the Old Russian language the composition
adverbs was limited both in terms of their meanings and in terms of the way they were formed. On the contrary, adverbs already in the original Old Russian morphological system could express various adverbial characteristics of the action (place, time, reason, purpose, etc.) and differ in structural features - the Old Russian language had its own specific suffixes that formed adverbs. However, along with
Meanwhile, over the course of the history of the language, the class of adverbs experienced a number of changes: some of them were lost, but most importantly, new adverbs arose, formed in new ways and, probably, on the basis of other parts of speech. These questions: how adverbs arose in the history of the Russian language, what parts of speech formed the basis of these adverbs, in what ways and by what means new adverbs were formed - these questions remain largely unresolved, controversial, debatable. Different scholars offer different solutions, but the problem of the history of the formation of Russian dialects still requires new research.
2. Lexical meaning of the word - it is a reflection in the word of the phenomena of reality (VV Vinogradov). LZS is fixed in the minds of speakers, correlated with the sound complex of a language unit with one or another phenomenon of reality, most words name objects, their features, quantity, actions, processes and act as full-fledged independent words, performing a nominative function in the language. The meaning of the word reflects only various features, i.e. those with which you can distinguish objects from each other.
Lexical meaning structure:
Simeological aspect. Meaning as a reflection of linguistic reality in it as a sign.
Structural-semantic. Meaning as a semantic organization of the word.
Functional-style aspect. Meaning as a reflection of the sociolinguistic attitude to the word.
Denotation- the subject meaning of the word, denotes the volume (class) of serial (or unique) phenomena of reality and serves as the name of the subject correlation of the word. The denotation characterizes a class of homogeneous objects in the broad sense of the word (a table is a type of furniture), covers the scope of the concept.
Significat- reveals the essential features, phenomena of reality, constitutes the content of the concept.
Connotation- this is an additional meaning to the main lexical one. (Brother is the son of parents, in relation to other children of these parents; Brother - with tenderness, affection; Bro - ...). The connotation includes 4 aspects:
emotional;
expressive;
stylistic;
estimated.
In a word, all 4 aspects can be realized, and maybe one.
LEXICAL MEANING AND CONCEPTS.
Words in the language are divided into significant and non-significant.
Non-significant are particles, prepositions and conjunctions.
The object of lexicology is only significant words.
It is significant words that have a nominative function, i.e. A word is the smallest unit of language capable of isolating a single thought. Based on the definition that the word is a sound unit of human speech, denoted by the phenomena of reality, in their dissection, grammatically designed and equally understood by the number of people speaking the same language, it can be argued that the main function of the word is the function of naming.
All significant words have this function except for pronouns. Pronouns have a demonstrative function.
Each word correlates with certain concepts, it is this correlation that is usually called LZ. An important ability of the word is the ability to generalize, this is an important function of generalization. Summarizing, whole groups, classes are called. Concepts are formed in our minds under the influence of the surrounding world. Objects and phenomena are named according to the feature that distinguishes them from other objects.
A sign placed in the category of distinctive or differentiated is characteristic not only for specific objects, which is why a general differentiated sign performs the function of generalization.
It must be remembered that between the word, its meaning and concept, you cannot put an equal sign, i.e. the meaning of the word and the concept are not the same. A concept can be expressed by a combination of words. For example, Railway, Earth. One concept can be expressed in different words (synonyms) (hand - hand). One word can express several concepts. The meaning of a word can have additional features, the meaning is wider than concepts.
Lexical value types
Comparison of various words and their meanings allows us to distinguish several types of meanings in the Russian language:
According to the method of nomination, direct and figurative meanings of words are distinguished. DIRECT - this is a meaning that directly correlates with the phenomena of objective reality: it does not depend on the context and on the nature of the properties with another word. PORTABLE - this is the meaning that arises as a result of the transfer of the name from one subject to another. Direct and figurative meanings are defined within one word. Different meanings of the same word are called lexico-semantic variants (LSV).
According to the degree of semantic motivation, motivated and unmotivated meanings are distinguished. UNMOTIVATED - these are meanings that are not determined by the meaning of morphemes in the composition of the word. MOTIVATED - these are the meanings that are derived from the meaning of the derivative stem and word-forming affixes. The degree of motivation of the same word may not be single.
If possible, lexical compatibility is divided into free and non-free. FREE - based on only subject-logical connections of words, but cannot be combined with such words as a stone. Lexical compatibility is called valency in the scientific literature. There are monovalent words (limited combinations). Words with monovalent compatibility are called collocations. Collocations gravitate toward stability, but into the category of stable combinations, i.e. Phraseological units are not yet included. NON-FREE words are characterized by limited possibilities, lexical compatibility, which in this case are also determined by subject matter.
3. Historical changes in the paradigm of names (the process of unification, the loss of the dual number, the relationship of full and short forms of adjectives). Principles of allocation of types of declension in antiquity. Unification of types of declension of nouns, the reasons for this process and the result. Source gram Ivanov V.V.
The nouns of the Old Russian language in its original system were generally characterized by the same categories that are inherent in them in the modern language, that is, the categories of gender, number and case. However, only the first category, which determined the distribution of nouns into three genders - masculine, feminine and neuter, was in principle the same in the Old Russian language as it is now. As for the category of number, unlike the modern Russian language, in the Old Russian era, not two numbers were distinguished - the singular and the plural, but three numbers, because there was also a dual number. Finally, in addition to six case forms, i.e. nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental and local (modern prepositional) cases, there was also a vocative form, which, however, had special inflections not in all numbers and not for all nouns.
Throughout the development of the Russian language, various changes took place in the forms of expression of grammatical categories, gradually leading to the establishment of those forms that are observed in the modern language. However, the biggest changes in
the history of nouns underwent types of declension, which in ancient times had a different character compared to the modern Russian language.
In the Old Russian language, by the era of the beginning of writing, there was a multi-type declension, which was expressed in the fact that the same cases of nouns of different types of declension had different endings. In the early period Proto-Slavic each type of declension was characterized by the last sound of the stem, depending on which vowel or consonant the stem ended in (later on, the final sound moved to the ending, i.e., the morphemes were redistributed in favor of the ending).
1. Words with a stem on *o had a hard and soft (*jo and words like ots, where there was no *j, and the original soft consonant arose from a back lingual consonant after a front vowel in the third palatalization) varieties of declension. This type of declension included masculine and neuter words having in Im. n. respectively, the endings -ъ, -о after a hard consonant - a table, a village and -ь, -е after a soft consonant - a horse, a field, as well as masculine words - such as edges, robberies.
2. Words with a stem on *a had a hard and soft (*ja and words like maiden, where there was no *j, and the original soft consonant arose from the back lingual field of the front vowel as a result of the third palatalization) varieties of declension. This type of declension included a) feminine nouns having in Im. n. endings -a, -'a (water, earth), b) some masculine nouns in -a, -'a (servant, governor, young man), c) masculine nouns in -i (judge, helmsman), d) feminine nouns in -yni (knyagyns, slaves).
3. Words with a stem on *i included masculine and feminine words that have in Im. n. ending -b. Feminine nouns at the end of the stem could have both a semi-soft consonant (bone) and a primordial soft consonant (night), and masculine nouns before the end could only have a semi-soft consonant, and not a primordial soft consonant. It is the semi-soft consonant in Im. and V. cases and allows you to distinguish between masculine words with stems in *o and *i: cf. the word path, where the stem ends in a semi-soft consonant (if *j were present here, then *tj would give [h’] in Old Russian); cf. also a dove, where at the end of the stem there is a semi-soft consonant (if there was *j here, then *bj would give [bl ’]), therefore, these are words with a stem on *i.
4. Words with stems in *u included several masculine nouns ending in -ъ in Im. n. after a solid consonant: son, house, vyrkh, vol, floor ‘half’, ice, honey, possibly also the words row, gift, chin, fir and some others.
5. Nouns with stems in *u included several feminine words ending in -ы in Im. p .: father-in-law, circus, luby, etc.
6. Nouns with a stem on a consonant are divided into several groups depending on the consonant of the stem, which appears in oblique cases or cognates: a) with a stem on *n (m. R.) - day and root; b) with a base on * n (cf. R.) - im., Shm. (cf. name, seed); c) with a base on *s (cf. p.) - a miracle, heaven (cf. miracles, heavenly); *n (m. R.) - kamas, rhemes (cf. stone, belt), d) with a base on *r (f. R.) - mothers, daughters (cf. mothers, daughters); e) with a base on *t (compare) - tel., goat. (cf. in the proverb “Catch our calf and wolf”).
The history of nouns lies in the fact that instead of six types of declension, three types of declension were established (productive declensions became the basis of such an association). If initially the division of words into types of declension was formed on the basis of a semantic feature, then the beginning of a change in the types of declension was laid by the influence of the generic differentiation of words. In the Old Russian language, initially, words of different genders were included in many types of declensions. This can be represented as the following diagram:
Feminine words
* a - productive
*i - productive
*u - unproductive
to the consonant *r - unproductive.
Masculine words
*o - productive
*a - unproductive
*u - unproductive
*i - unproductive
to the consonant *n - unproductive.
neuter words
*o - productive
into consonant *n, *s, *t - unproductive
In modern Russian literary language there are three productive declensions - the first, second, third, which combined the following former types of declensions:
I declension includes words with former basis to *a (water, girl) and *u (letter); in II declension - with the former stem on *o (wolf, father, window, sea), *u (son), *i (guest) and consonant *n (stone), *s (miracle), *t (calf ); in III, declension - with the former base on *i (night), *u (church), *r (daughter).
In some cases, words did not immediately move from unproductive to productive declension, but had an intermediate stage in their history. So, the word day was originally in the declension to the consonant * n. This is the only masculine noun, in the word forms of which, not only in the literary language, but also in dialect speech, the old endings were retained for a long time (cf. R.–M. pad. day). This word very early acquires the form in –en and coincides in phonetic appearance and morphological structure with masculine words with the former stem in *i, and then, together with these words, it passed into the stem in *o.
When describing a particular noun, for each word form it is necessary to indicate whether it is original or new. In the original forms, the ending is preserved, which was originally in the Old Russian language or underwent a phonetic change (for example, the sound [m] coincided with [e]). New are called forms that have survived grammatical changes.
TYPES OF DECLINED NAMES OF NOUNS
