Etimološki slovar slovenskega jezika: prva knjiga, A-J By France Bezlaj (review)

Introduction. This article is written in the development of the theme of the application of linguistic methods to historical research, more specifically, to the research of the circumstances of the origin of the Slavic ethnic group. These circumstances have not yet been clarified to the extent excluding clashes of opinions, down to opinions opposite to each other. In particular, the range of supposed dates for the appearance of the Common Slavic language varies from the 3rd millennium BC to the middle of the 1st millennium AD. The article describes an attempt of restricting this range. Methodology and sources. The main ethno-defining trait is a common language: the Old Russian lexeme ɪ азыкъ meant both “ethnos” and “language”. Usually a common language is, according to O. N. Trubachev, the result of convergence of many originally different dialects. The search for the probable time of the Common Slavic language origin has been accomplished under the following assumption: the factor consolidating dialects into the Common Slavic language (“Slavic Koine”) were kinds of economic activities that spanned a number of tribal groups, including the group of speakers of the actual Proto-Slavic dialect that initiated these activities. The type of this production can be tried to determine by the ancient original Slavic industrial terms. Then, assuming the possibility of migrations of Proto-Slavs from the territory where the Common Slavic language was formed, to the territory inhabited by foreign-speaking tribes, we have searched for the names of local flora and fauna borrowed in Slavic languages, as well as foreign-speaking place names; in the languages of ethnic groups currently living in the territory of the formation of the Common Slavic language, we must, accordingly, find traces of Slavic names of local flora and fauna, as well as toponyms, Slavic by origin. Results and discussion. Examining Slavic vocabulary, we have found there: a) Common Slavic names of copper, lead and silver, i. e. metals that have been simultaneously found in Old Europe exclusively in the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province of the 4th millennium BC; b) the original Slavic terms related to mining and metallurgy; c) the original Slavic names of crops and a number of other plants native to the Eastern Mediterranean and neighboring areas, as well as the names of the agricultural inventory; d) Finno-Ugric borrowings of the names of Northern European fish and Finno-Ugric place names in the absence of German borrowings. In the languages of peoples living in the Eastern Mediterranean one can find zoonyms, phytonyms and place names with unclear etymology, which, upon closer examination, can be explained as borrowings from dialects of the Proto-Slavic language. Conlcusion. The totality of the observed lexical data leads to the conclusion that the ancestral home of Slavs was localized in the Eastern Mediterranean. This data does not correspond to any of other Indo-European (IE) languages other than the Baltic languages, which suggests, in particular, that only Proto-Slavs and Proto-Balts were directly related to the Balkan-Carpathian Metallurgical Province of the 4th millennium BC and that the languages of the respective groups were being formed in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean at that very time.

В статье речь идет о связи исторического развития прилагательного в русском и литовском языках с нейтрализацией семантики определенности/неопределенности. Исследование категории определен ности/неопределенности проводится с точки зрения функциональной грамматики и теории референции (детерминации). Материалом исследования явились прилагательные, собранные из текстов Успенского сборника XII–XIII вв. Сопоставление с литовским языком позволяет сделать некоторые уточнения, касающиеся развития членных форм прилагательных в славянских и балтийских языках. The relationship the interplay between the historical development of the adjective in the Russian and Lithuanian languages and the neutralization of the semantics of a definiteness is examined in the article. The paper describes the peculiarities of the use of simple and pronominal forms of adjectives from the functional grammar and the theory of reference (determination) point of view (I.I. Revzin, N.D. Arutunova, A.D. Shmelev, S.A. Krylov, T.M. Nikolaeva). We takes into account the opinion of the linguists V.V. Kolesov, A.M. Kuznetsov, N.S. Trubetskoy. The conclusions of the research are based on the analysis of all contexts with simple and pronominal forms of adjectives contained in word-index to the Uspensky codex of 12th–13th centuries. We are dealing with 1235 adjectives which are used almost 9 thousand times: there are about 4 thousand samples of usage of simple forms and about 5 thousand of pronominal forms. We suppose more than 1500 cases of simple forms of adjectives in the Uspensky codex illustrate their usage for expressing the definiteness in case if it has already been expressed by lexical means (neutralization). Lithuanian material is analyzed according to the grammars of the Lithuanian language and articles on the adjective and the problem of the definiteness/indefiniteness category in the scientific literature in the Lithuanian language (authors Ambrazas V., Valeckienė A., Spraunienė B., Paulauskienė A., Mikulskas R., Holvoet A., Tamulionienė A.). Comparison of Modern Lithuanian and Old Literary Russian language texts allows to make some clarifications regarding the development of member forms of adjectives in the Slavic and Baltic languages. Due to inseparable pronoun-adjective joining, close and complex relations have developed between the meaning of definiteness and the semantics of different groups of adjectives. This is explained by the fact that the lexical meaning of a relative adjective itself, its word-building possibilities single out, identify the object and can present it as well-known. Distinctive semantics of adjectives would often determine sole usage of pronominal or simple forms. 164 Сравнительное языкознание In modern Lithuanian, an interrelation is also noticed between the possibility of making pronominal forms and classes of adjectives. It should be noted that this relationship is opposite in Old Russian and Modern Lithuanian. In the Uspensky codex of the 12–13th centuries, the category of definiteness is constantly expressed using pronominal forms in the cases where it has already been previously expressed by other means, i.e. demonstrative pronouns, proper names or lexical word meanings. It is vice versa in Lithuanian: when definiteness is expresses using lexical devices (e.g. relative and compound adjectives), such forms are not used or used inconsistently (with proper names, demonstrative pronouns and appeals). Comparison with the Lithuanian language suggests that in the Old Russian language such a situation was quite possible in the beginning.

This paper, which focuses on the democratization of Russian literary language in the aspect of the development of the stylistic system, is a subsequent research paper studying the history of graphics and orthography of the Russian literary language and the methods and means of word formation with the material of simple words with the suffix -ka in terms of its democratization. The road to democracy of Russian literary language is characterized by the extension of the linguistic means of neutral style and its scope of use through “de-Church Slavonic”, russification, folk colloquialism, and non-normalization． During the period from the 11th to early 19th century, the development of Russian literary language and its functions can be seen as a history of constant change in the correlation between Church Slavonic and Russian. In the old Russian, Church Slavonic adopted Russian elements, the ＂Simple Russian＂ of Peter the Great replaced Church Slavic elements with Russian, and in the system of the three styles of Lomonosov, both Church Slavonic and Russian were accepted within the framework of Russian literary language． In Pushkin s artistic works, genetically and stylistically heterogeneous linguistic elements are used by the principles of proportionality and conformity． In the early and mid-20th century a functional stylistic system was established in Russian literary language, and now there is a tendency to re-integrate it within the media language. During the Soviet period, media stylistic was one of several functional stylistics of literary language, which had a “media stylistics ⊂ literary language ⊂ Russian” relationship. However, in the post- Soviet period, almost all Russian languages appear in the media, and this can be called a media language． If there is an area within the media language that can be defined as a media stylistic, the “media stylistic ⊂ literary language ⊂ media language” relationship can be established. If the media style is fused to the media language and no longer exists, the relationship will be “literary language ⊂ media language.” The language that leads to popular culture at the center of public communication is called the common language (общий язык), and in modern Russia, the media language plays this role. The Russian media language mediates the common language and the literary language, so the development of Russian literary language in the 21st century will be the history of the correlation between literary language - media language - common language.

This paper investigates cognitive mechanisms underlying ancient semantic changes in five key lexemes of everyday vocabulary in Russian and English languages: _god_ (“year”), _chelovek_ (“man”), _novyj_ (“new”), _byt’_ (“to be”), and _govorit’_ (“to speak”). It highlights differences in methods of semantic evolution characteristic of Slavic and Germanic traditions. The stages of development of meanings are examined, revealing the employed cognitive transfer mechanisms such as metonymy, metaphor (including functional transfer), abstraction, symbolization and some others. Additionally, a comparative analysis of cognitive mechanisms of semantic change has been conducted, demonstrating possible distinctions in epistemological approaches among researchers studying Slavic and Germanic language groups. The study concludes that there is a predominance of metonymy and anthropomorphism in Slavic languages, while symbolic-metaphorical mechanisms are more active in Germanic ones. It cannot be ruled out that these differences stem from distinct cognitive strategies involved in the semantic development of Slavic and Germanic lexical items. Slavic etymology predominantly relies on metonymy and anthropological conceptual metaphors rooted in social, economic, and ritual practices, reflecting a pragmatic, context-oriented mode of conceptualization. In contrast, Germanic etymology more readily admits symbolically charged metaphorical transfers derived from mythopoetic thought and demonstrates greater openness to imagistic and associative linkages. However, such discrepancies may be attributable less to actual differences in the cognitive models of ancient language speakers than to national traditions in lexicography and scholarly interpretation. This divergence is evident in lexicographic practice: Slavic sources-particularly the Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages edited by O. N. Trubachyov favor rational reconstruction and avoid symbolic or mythopoetic interpretations, whereas Germanic sources (e.g., Etymonline or the works of M. M. Makovsky) more readily incorporate mythological and poetic hypotheses. It is emphasized that the observed tendencies may reflect either the interpretive biases of lexicographers or genuine differences in ancient cognitive frameworks. Resolving this issue requires analysis of a broader dataset drawn from a wider range of sources.

In this article, we describe the design principles of the ten newly published CLARIN-PL corpora of Slavic and Baltic languages. In relation to other non-commercial online corpora, we highlight the distinctive features of these CLARIN-PL corpora: resource selection, preprocessing, manual segmentation at the sentence level, lemmatisation, annotation and metadata. We also present current and planned work on the development of the CLARIN-PL Balto–Slavic corpora.

THE SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW Volume 85, Number I - January 2007 The Russian and Slavonic Languages in Sixteenth-Century Muscovy* CHARLESJ. HALPERIN In memory of BenjaminUroff IN sixteenth-centuryMuscovy authors wrote in one of two languages, first, Slavonic or Church Slavonic, the Russian recension of Church Slavonic, or second, chancery (prikaz) Russian or simply Russian. The relationshipbetween them has been the subjectof considerablediscussion by linguistsand literaryscholarsas a fundamental feature of the evolution of the modern Russian literarylanguage, but historianshave also addressedthe issue in termsof Muscovite culturalhistory.There is no questionbut that texts in Slavonic and chancery language look and feel differentenough to permit assigning them to differentlanguages. A reader of a sermon by Metropolitan Makarii and the Sudebnik (law code) of I550 would have no difficultyassigning the texts to different languages. Scholarsdo not agree on how the languageswere treatedby Muscovites. The linguist Boris 0. Unbegaum, for example, described the coexistence of two written languages, Church Slavonic and chancery language, utilized for differentfunctions, in which chancery Charles J. Halperin is a Visiting Scholar at the Russian and East European Institute of Indiana University. * I wish to express my sincerest appreciation to the four conscientious referees of 7he Slavonicand East European Reviewfor their numerous useful stylistic, substantive and bibliographic suggestions. I have tried to incorporate as many of them as possible. I am solely responsible for any remaining errors. 2 RUSSIAN & SLAVONIC IN I6TH-CENTURY MUSCOVY language,employedin jurisprudence and correspondence, was pure Russianand virtuallyfree of Slavonicinfluence.'Bothlanguages,he observed,couldbe influencedby colloquialexpressions.2 Kuznetsov, on the otherhand,wrotethattherewas no cleardistinction between Slavonicand Russian.3The 'linguisticquestion',therefore,possesses interdisciplinarysignificance. The distinguishedlinguist, philologist and semiotician Boris Uspenskii haspresented themostsystematic theory.4 He viewsSlavonic and Russian(russkii)5 as a diglossia,a specificlinguisticsituationin whichtwolanguagesfunctionas one, the firstas a privileged, literary languageand the secondas a spoken,non-written language.Because nativespeakers learnthebookishlanguagefromthe non-bookish,6 the two languagesareperceivedas one language.To a foreignerthe two languages appearto bejustthat,twolanguages.7 AmongtheEastSlavs fromtheeleventhto theseventeenth century,Slavonic wasthebookish, literary, indeedsacred,writtenlanguage,whichcouldnotbe employed 1 Boris 0. Unbegaum, 'Russe et slavon dans la terminologie juridique', RevuedesEtudes Slaves,34, 1957, pp. I29-35, as reprinted in id., Selected PapersonRussianandSlavonic Philology, Oxford, I969 (hereafter, Unbegaum, Selected Papers),pp. 176-84; id., 'Le russe literaire est-il d'origine russe?', Revuedes EtudesSlaves,44, I965, pp. I9-28, as reprinted in Unbegaum, Selected Papers,pp. 299-311; id., 'lazyk russkogo prava', in Na temyrusskiei obshchie. Sbornik stateiv chest'prof.N S. Timasheva, New York, I965, pp. 178-84, as reprinted in Unbegaum, Selected Papers, pp. 312-I8. 2 Boris 0. Unbegaum, 'The Language of Muscovite Russia in Oxford Vocabularies', OxfordSlavonicPapers, io, I962, pp. 237-54 (hereafter, Unbegaum, 'The Language of Muscovite Russia'), as reprinted in Unbegaum, Selected Papers,pp. 237-54 (p. 237). 3 P. S. Kuznetsov, U istokovrusskoigrammaticheskoi mysli, Moscow, 1958 (hereafter, Kuznetsov, U istokov), pp. II, 27. 4 Boris A. Uspenskii, Istoriiarusskogo literaturnogo iazyka(XI-XVII), Munich, I987 (hereafter, Uspenskii, Istoriia(I987)), pp. 14-21 (esp. I4-I6), 66-72, 244-58 (on Muscovy); id., 'The Language Situation and Linguistic Consciousness in Muscovite Rus': The Perception of Church Slavic and Russian', Michael Flier trans. (hereafter, Uspenskii, 'The Language Situation'), in Henryk Birnbaum and Michael Flier (eds), MedievalRussianCulture,Cal4fomia SlavicStudies,12, I984 (hereafter, AMedieval RussianCulture), pp. 365-85; Boris A. Uspenskii, Istoriiarusskogo literaturnogo iazyka(XI-XVII), 3rd edition, Moscow, 2002 (hereafter, Uspenskii, Istoriia(2002)), pp. 24-29, IOI-II, 365-95 respectively. I wish to express my sincerest appreciation to both Boris Uspenskii and Hugh Olmsted for answering some questions about diglossia; neither is in any way responsible for my conclusions. 5For the Kievan period, it would be preferable to speak of the East Slavic vernacular or Rus' language, which would be cumbersome and violate the linguistic continuity between Kiev and Moscow which Uspenskii implies. In general in this article occurrences of the word russkii,in sources or secondary works, will uniformly be translated as 'Russian'. 6Uspenskii, Istoriia(I987), p. I5; Uspenskii, Istoriia(2002), p. 25. On the other hand, literacy (like religion) was acquired by reading religious texts such as the Psalter. Ivan IV ordered a Circassian who was going to convert to Orthodox Christianity to be taught gramota(Polnoesobranierusskikh...

Starting from the analysis of constructions employed to express the category of reflexive in Hittite, encoded both by the verbal ending set of the middle and by the pronominal marker -za with both active and middle verbal forms, we present a typological parallelism with the Baltic languages that has consistently developed, from a pronominal, a verbal strategy to mark reflexivity. It is also shown that a development regarding the ways of encoding reflexivity involve other Indo-European languages as well. The Anatolian languages attest the reflexes of the original set of endings referring to the semantic categories of Reflexive, Middle and “Resultative”, while the other Indo-European languages attest an innovated “mixed morphology” for the category of Middle and Reflexive as opposed to the proper endings of the historical perfect. Within such a theoretical framework, the development of alternative strategies, using pronominal devices or particles, aims to disambiguate a wide polysemous ending set. A ‘Wackernagel’ (2P) particle in Hittite, namely -z, is particularly active in disambiguating reflexivity. Lithuanian -si, an original pronoun that developed at first into a 2P particle and subsequently into a verbal suffix, extends its functional field and takes over the place of the original middle, as in other Baltic and Slavonic languages.

Starting from the analysis of constructions employed to express the category of reflexive in Hittite, encoded both by the verbal ending set of the middle and by the pronominal marker - za with both active and middle verbal forms, we present a typological parallelism with the Baltic languages that has consistently developed, from a pronominal, a verbal strategy to mark reflexivity. It is also shown that a development regarding the ways of encoding reflexivity involve other Indo-European languages as well. The Anatolian languages attest the reflexes of the original set of endings referring to the semantic categories of Reflexive, Middle and “Resultative”, while the other Indo-European languages attest an innovated “mixed morphology” for the category of Middle and Reflexive as opposed to the proper endings of the historical perfect. Within such a theoretical framework, the development of alternative strategies, using pronominal devices or particles, aims to disambiguate a wide polysemous ending set. A ‘Wackernagel’ (2P) particle in Hittite, namely -z , is particularly active in disambiguating reflexivity. Lithuanian -si , an original pronoun that developed at first into a 2P particle and subsequently into a verbal suffix, extends its functional field and takes over the place of the original middle, as in other Baltic and Slavonic languages.

This article studies Russian verbs which name the action of gratuitous material assistance to those in need, i.e. благотворить, благотворительствовать, благодетельствовать, меценатствовать, жертвовать, спонсировать, and their few derivatives. The author focuses on the history of their origin and use in the Russian language, the development of their meanings, semantic features, and functioning in the text. The analysis of these characteristics of the life of the word in the language allows the author to identify and formulate some norms of the use of these verbs in modern charity discourse for those who speak and write about charity. The study is based on historical and modern lexicographic sources, such as explanatory dictionaries of the Old Slavic Language, Old Russian Language, Russian language of different time periods, as well as examples of word usage, retrieved from The National Corpus of the Russian Language. In spite of the fact that the verbs studied realise the predicate of a situation of charity and designate the subject’s action of providing a poor or deprived object with material support, they considerably differ in terms of time of their appearance in the language, periods of usage, and semantic capacity. The analysis demonstrates that there is no verb that could claim the status of a nuclear verbal lexeme of the semantic field of charity: the word with the widest neutral semantics благотворить has almost fallen out of use, the verbs благодетельствовать and меценатствовать have a narrower application, while жертвовать imposes semantic restrictions on the choice of words for the positions of the object and the instrument of charity, and in the case of the verb спонсировать a specific context of “market” charity is important, in which the subject receives a certain benefit from their contribution.

The article analyzes the interaction of language systems of Church Slavonic, Old Ukrainian, and Polish languages in the work "Zercalo bogoslovii" by Cyril Tranquillion-Stavrovetsky. The Polonisms analyzed in the work are indicative of their role in the system of the Ukrainian language of that time. Firstly, the work is original, and therefore the author chose the words consciously, and among them, there were numerous Polonisms, which accordingly were part of the author's lexicon. Secondly, in the work, the writer aimed to combine Church Slavonic and a common language, that is Old Ukrainian, which is also a confirmation that the Polish borrowings that functioned in the "Zercalo bogoslovii" were an integral part of the Old Ukrainian language. Cyril Tranquillion-Stavrovetsky, teaching Slovenian and Greek, was fully aware of Church Slavonic and Old Ukrainian and he contrasted them, so we assume that he could also oppose Old Ukrainian and Polish. The work singles out a three-member opposition: the features, which are characteristic of the Old Slavonic language, Ukrainian and Polish. Without resorting to the quantitative method, we observe on the old Ukrainian background a clear dominance of the features inherent in the South Slavic group, and we often come across the features of the West Slavic group. There are cases in which the same words or word forms reflect the specifics of Old Slavonic, Ukrainian and Polish languages. The research adopts various descriptive methods, specifically by the way of observation the lexemes of foreign origin were registered; the analysed borrowings were classified according to certain features by means of generalization and classification methods; the method of interpretation was applied to the main findings of the paper. The techniques of comparative and comparative-historical method are used to compare the linguistic phenomena in the analyzed work with the data of modern Slavic languages and dialects. Keywords: Polonism, Church Slavonicism, Old Slavonic language, borrowing, doublet, interaction of languages.

Purpose and objectives of the study. The article is devoted to the history of the spread of Russian speech in the nearby spaces of the Russian cultural and linguistic area, in particular in the South Caucasus, as well as its educational and communicative role in the creation of a universal information system and lexical base, in enriching the speech culture of peoples who speak non-Slavic languages. Research methods. As a research method, a monographic approach was chosen based on the analysis of historical materials on the settlement of Russian speakers in the South Caucasus. Factual materials are systematized and classified by social spheres; the main factors that influenced the nature and content of the language policy and practice of using the Russian language in the region are identified. Research results. Russian speech is considered as a means of unifying the verbal potential of different peoples of the South Caucasus, even in some way as a specific, local "lingua franca" in interethnic communication within the linguistic pluralism of the population of the South Caucasus. The extraordinary educational mission of Russian speech and its place in the transformation of European scientific, cultural and general educational values to the peoples of the South Caucasus in the 19th–20th centuries are the main motives of the article. The fact of modification of the language resources of the Russian language in the conditions of multilingualism of the peoples of the South Caucasus is noted. Morphological, syntactic and semantic changes in the vocabulary of the Russian language in the region under the influence of everyday language practice are revealed. The features of the mutual influence of Russian and local languages, the main factors and consequences of this influence are revealed. Another key point is the modern role and significance of Russian speech in the everyday, socio-economic and scientific-cultural life of the national states of the South Caucasus, in particular the Republic of Azerbaijan. Thus, the Russian language has acquired a certain political and cultural significance for the people of Azerbaijan, and the cultural and historical foundations that have been formed over a fairly long period of time provide an opportunity for the further, consistent development of former linguistic ties. An opportunity was obtained to establish ties with the Russian linguistic area, to develop spiritual relations. On the territory of Azerbaijan there were significant settlements of Russian settlers, with whom local residents established broad economic and cultural ties. Their dialects were very diverse. They influenced the vocabulary of the Russian language. The historical events that have taken place have determined the importance of Russian culture as a factor in interethnic interaction in the South Caucasus. It was the Russian language that became a means of interethnic communication, within the framework of which the development of education took place, and in general enlightenment. Thus, the Muslim population of the South Caucasus was involved in Russian political and cultural processes. There was a kind of linguo-ethno-cultural dialogue in a multi-ethnic environment. Thus, in the period under study, through the Russian language, the process of introducing the Muslim population of the South Caucasus to the global cultural processes took place

The article is devoted to the topical issue of perception and compatibility of paronymic pairs among Greek students. In Greece, there are three departments of Slavic studies: the Department of Russian Language and Literature and Slavic Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of the Athens, the Department of Languages, Literature and Culture of the Black Sea Countries of the Demokritus University of Thrace in Komotini and at the Department of Balkan Studies, Slavic and Oriental Studies of the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki. Students study Russian, Bulgarian and other Slavic languages as foreign languages at these universities. Among the incoming students there are: Greeks (who do not know any Slavic language), who speak one of the Slavic languages (graduated from schools or other educational institutions in their countries) and bilinguals (who arrived or were born in Greece). The purpose of the study programs at these faculties is not only to teach students Russian as a foreign language, but also to give them a complete philological education. Despite the fact that there are quite a few dictionaries of paronyms, there is a lack of educational dictionaries, manuals and electronic resources in the Bulgarian and Russian languages for a foreign audience. Students have difficulties due to misunderstanding, the use of paronyms both in oral and written speech of the Russian and Bulgarian languages at advanced levels. Examples of paronyms with close-sounding semantic correspondences and differences in Russian, Bulgarian and Greek are given. When teaching a foreign language, one should take into account the linguistic and cultural characteristics of not only the native language of students, but also their knowledge of other languages in order to avoid interference. At the end of the article, methodological recommendations are given in the teaching of paronyms.

In the 50’s of the XIX century Peter Lavrovskyi (1827–1886), a prominent Slavic philologist and educator, published a number of works on the ancient Russian (Proto-East Slavic) language and its dialects. Among these studies, which have retained their scientific significance to our time, the book «On the language of northern Russian chronicles» (1852) should be mentioned, in which P. Lavrovskyi, basing on ancient East Slavic manuscripts, studied in detail the nature, origin and history of reduced vowels [ъ], [ь] on the East Slavic territory. Ancient manuscripts were a priority source for the study of the reduced for P. Lavrovskyi: chronicles, deeds, treaties, acts. At the same time, the scientist used the material of his contemporary Slavic languages, primarily East Slavic, as an auxiliary source Key words: P. Lavrovskyi, ancient manuscripts, chronicles, reduced vowels, decline of the reduced vowels, the Common Slavonic language, the Old Russian language, the Eastern Slavonic languages.

The article dwells on the verbs with a diminutive meaning in Russian and Old Slavonic. It describes particular diminutive meanings in action designation and determines originality of prefix models with po- pod-, pri- with the semantics “to do something a little, without making special efforts, not to the full extent, not for long, for some time” for these languages. The work is based on the studies of the Slavic language picture of the world reflected by derivational means. The authors claim that verbs with these prefixes are highly productive in the modern Russian language. They indicate the diminutuve nature of the designated action not fully performed and/or evaluated as such and reflect the mentality of native Russian speakers (uncertainty, emotionality, reflexivity). Old Slavonic and Ancient Greek lexicographic sources contain a small number of units with the meaning of incompleteness and limitation of action. The authors emphasise different shades of attenuation in comparison with the Russian language, an increasing number of verbal units with the meaning of incomplete action in the Old Slavonic language, and the expanded range of partioiral meanings of attenuation. The difference in diminutive verbs of the Old Slavonic and Russian languages is associated with the peculiar worldviews of their speakers. The authors conclude about the original “attentuation” models in the Russian language. They argue that it was important for native speakers to characterise the designated actions from quantitative, productive, temporal, and other aspects relevant to the sphere of the Russian verb.

This paper addresses the problem of the syllabic consonants in the selected Slavic and Celtic languages. We shall consider this issue through the optic of Government Phonology (henceforth GP), as defined e.g. in Harris 1994, Cyran 2003 and Gussmann 2007. Within the framework of GP, the phonological structure of morphemes is constructed in terms of the licensing and governing relations between adjacent skeletal positions – the timing slots. The prosodic positions are then projected onto the syllabic constituents of nuclei (the heads of rhymes) and onsets. In such configurations, onsets are always dependent on their nuclear licensers. A specific proposal advocated in this presentation is that onset-nucleus domains are not only licensing domains but they also constitute the so-called extension domains. It will be further maintained that the phenomenon of the syllabic consonants can be analyzed in terms of segment extension occurring within such onset-nucleus extension domains. It will be demonstrated that this solution effectively accounts for the relevant linguistic facts attested to in Polish, Czech, Slovak or Serbo-Croatian. In our analysis, the distinction between the syllabic and trapped consonants will be adopted which, as will be proposed, derives from different lexical structures of either type. Apart from the available dictionary entries, we shall rely on the data provided by Scheer (2003), Dalewska-Greń (2002) and Rubach (1997). The evidence concerning the behavior of the syllabic consonants in the Slavic languages will also be compared to the Irish situation. It will be proposed that the observable differences are contingent on both structural representations and different parameter settings in the languages under discussion.