Similar Place Avoidance in Slavic and Other Languages

Introduction. This article is based on the results of a comparison of a number of Serbo-Croatian/Slovenian lexemes with a palatal lateral approximant [ʎ] and Western Slavic lexemes with a velarized lateral approximant [ɫ] with related lexemes in Slavic and other Indo-European (IE) languages. It is shown that the Balkan-Slavic [ʎ] irregularly corresponds to the phonemes [l'] and [j] of other Slavic languages and even some IE languages beyond the Slavic group. It is also shown that the West Slavic [ɫ] irregularly corresponds to the phonemes [l] and [w]/[v] of other Slavic and IE languages. Because of this irregularity, these phonetic correspondences are difficult to explain with local dialect features.Methodology and sources. A model based on the generalization of instrumental studies that showed that palatal sounds are characterized by instability of articulation is proposed. This leads to their divergent evolution, transformation into sounds with different stable zones of articulation.In the proposed model, the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiced lateral approximants *[ɫ] and *[ʎ], forming the opposition "hard consonant - soft consonant", in the process of phonetic evolution in IE languages were split into variants with a clearer articulation: velarized *[ɫ] > solid alveolar lateral [l] and bilabial fricative [w]; palatal *[ʎ] > soft alveolar lateral [l'] and palatal approximant [j]. Besides, the original consonants have survived in a number of languages.Results and discussion. Examples of correspondences are given to suggest the presence of *[ɫ] and *[ʎ] in PIE and Common Slavic prototypes. The newly discovered etymological links, such as the links between Russian lexemes баня 'bath' and балий, бальник 'healer, sorcerer' are being discussed.Conclusion. With the help of the mechanism of divergent evolution of the palatal lateral approximant *[ʎ] and the velarized lateral approximant *[ɫ] the irregularity of phonetic correspondences of voiced lateral approximants in Slavic languages can be uniformly explained.Besides, the acceptance of *[ʎ] and *[ɫ] in PIE phonology also lets us to establish some previously undetected etymological relations.

Reviewed by: The evolution of the Slavic dual: A biolinguistic perspective by Tatyana G. Slobodchikoff Boštjan Dvořák Tatyana G. Slobodchikoff. The evolution of the Slavic dual: A biolinguistic perspective. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield), 2019. 212 pp. [Studies in Slavic, Baltic, and Eastern European Languages and Cultures.] ISBN 978-1-4985-7924-7 (hardback), 978-1-4985-7925-4 (eBook). Indo-European comparative grammar offers many fascinating and complex language phenomena for synchronic and diachronic analysis. The dual number is undoubtedly one of the most puzzling and intensively discussed items among these. Almost all ancient IE languages had a dual in addition to singular and plural. But most of the modern languages have lost their dual in the course of their history; no IE language has gained a new dual. In the book under review, Tatyana G. Slobodchikoff gives a methodologically highly elaborated presentation and excellent analysis of how this grammatical category must have developed in the Slavic language group from a prehistoric stage through to the modern spoken languages, drawing on a large set of IE and non-IE languages for comparison. We see it as both a thrilling scholarly read and an indispensable example of methodology for many other fields of analytic language science. Starting with a panoramic overview of the grammatical category of dual in a general perspective against a background of typology and universals, the author passes to a selection of sources from the newer history of Slavic languages. She focusses on these and considers them in the light of several insightful theoretical approaches—Humboldt 1827, Jespersen 1965, Plank 1989, Corbett 2000, Cysouw 2009—followed by a thorough step-by-step analysis and explanation of the difficult, apparently unsolvable and paradoxical linguistic problem of why the dual number is conserved in just a few of the contemporary Slavic languages while it has been entirely lost in the rest of them under seemingly identical conditions. Her new account involves a reinterpretation of Chomsky’s concept of language as a biological and economic organism (Chomsky 2005, 2008 etc.), constantly changing with the purpose of improving its system of grammatical relations, oppositions, and rules, proceeding [End Page 71] from a given stage to another that appears to speakers to be as consistent and appropriate as possible. If we analyze the early Slavic system of singular/dual/plural as [+singular –augmented], [–singular –augmented], and [–singular +augmented] respectively (p. 114), the dual turns out to be the most marked. This excess of markedness can simply be eliminated by “impoverishment”, as most of the Slavic languages have done in creating their singular vs. plural systems. Or it can become less marked as a “reanalyzed dual” through the principle of Morphosyntactic Feature Economy, yielding [–singular] [–augmented] expressed by two separate exponents (p. 115ff). Upper and Lower Sorbian add -j to their dual forms, and Slovenian adds dva ‘two’ to its inherited dual pronouns (e.g., ona > onadva). Therefore, as excellently demonstrated by Slobodchikoff, the different final results in the respective languages—a full three-number-system (singular, dual, and plural) in pronominal, verbal, and nominal inflexion in Slovenian and Lower and Upper Sorbian, opposed to the reduced two-number-system (singular and plural) of the pronouns, nouns and verbs in Old East Slavic and Kashubian—are due to the same driving wheel of change, the gradual appearance of a syncretism in a group of personal pronouns, as can be traced mainly to the 2nd and 1st person forms for dual and plural number, inherited from the well documented, common former language stages. Against the background of the universal rule of systematization, speakers using the respective idiom are forced to reinterpret the asymmetry of the deficient system, and to either add or remove the critical forms in order to repair it. Thus, the tendency for systematization can be considered as the motivating force of almost any step of change within a language system—with irregularities revealing remnant elements of former stages of a changing whole, at the same time usually causing its “improvement”, the direction and extent of which depend on the interpretation by the speakers. The methodical fidelity to Chomsky’s principle of biological economy can lead...

WORD FORMATION OF NOUNS IN BALTIC AND SLAVIC (old common traits and differences) Summary The article deals with the problem of relations of Baltic and Slavic languages on the base of word forma­tion of nouns. Some archaic features of Slavic word formation in comparison with Baltic one are distinguished: 1) nomina agentis with old Indo-European suffix *-tel- were left whale in Slavic, but they were completly pushed out by the corresponding derivatives with new suffixes   *-tāi̯o- (<* -tā- +* -i̯o-),  *- ē i̯o- (<*ē + *-i̯o- ) in Baltic; 2) the adjectives with suffix *-(i) i̯o - kept their produktivity in Slavic, but they were replaced by the corresponding derivatives with suffixes *-in o-, *-ini̯o( <* -ino- +*-i̯o*) in Baltic; 3) the substantives with old Indo-European suffix *-mo- were also productive in Common Slavic, but they were changed by the derivatives with new suffixes * -i-mo-, *-u-mo- in Baltic. There are some mor old differences in Baltic and Slavic word formation. The suffix * -(i) i̯o - was often used on the formation of nomina collectiva in Slavic and in many other Indo-European languages (cf. Slav, s ъ n ь je, Skt. svapn(i)yam, Lat. so mni um , Gk. έν-υχνιον, Lith. sapnỹs “dream”), but this type of derivatives is almost unknow in Baltic. Nomina deminutiva with suffix * -iko- (<i + * -ko-) are very productive in Slavic, but they become extinct in Baltic (especialy in East Baltic). On the other hand the related suffix *-uko- (< u+*-ko-) is mor frequently used in this case in Baltic than in Slavic is. Some suffixes have a different form but a similar function in Baltic than in Slavic, cf. Balt. *-ībā- (< ī +*-bhā-) and Slav. * -iba (<i + -bhā-), Balt. *-ūno-(<ū + * -no-) and Slav. -uns (<u/ou + *-no-). Thees and other differences shows that the Proto-Slavic system of the word formation can be hardly derived direct from Proto-Baltic one. They could be better explained on the base of well known devergence theory, accor­ding to which the Baltic and the Slavic languages were descended from the different dialects of the north area of Indo-European parent language and only a bit later the period of close contacts of Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic came. There are some inovations in Baltic, Slavic and Germanic, which came of on the period, when thees three groups of languages were not separated from the north dialect area of Indo-European. One of thees inovations is sugested to be the suffix * - ī t i̯o - (<*- īto- + - i̯o -), the oldest function of which is the formation of nomina atributiva (cf. Lith. ausỹtė “wintry cap with ear-tabs"”, Latv. lēnītis “warm south or west wind”, South Slav. golit’ ь “naked, poor man”). Through the process of the meaning specialization the derivatives with suffix * - ī t i̯o - got the meaning of nomina deminutiva in Baltic (cf. Lith. sūn ỹ tis, Latv. sūnītis “a little son”), the meaning of nomina patronimica and originis in Slavic (cf. Slav, bratit' ь “a brothes son”, slob o dit’ ь   “countryman from a free land”) and the meaning of nomina collectiva in Germanic (cf. MHG. geveter ī de “parents”). Later on the period of close contacts of Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic languages some derivatives with this suffix got also the meaning of nomina patroninica and nomina originis in Baltic dialects (especialy in West Baltic, cf. Lith. dial, vókytis, Latv. vācītis “German”) from Proto-Slavic and some of them got the meaning of nomina deminutiva in South Slavic languages (cf. vl̥’čit’ ь „a little wolf-cub”) from Proto-Baltic. There are some old inovations which came of in Proto-Baltic and later feld under the Proto-Slavic language. In this way the development of nomina agentis with suffixes * - tā i̯o - (cf. Lith. artójas, OPruss. artoys E 236, Slav rataj ь “ploughman, fanner”), * -ē i̯o - (cf. Lith. siuvė́jas, Latv. šuvējs, ORuss. š ь vej “tailor”), * -iko- (cf. Lith. siuvìkas, OPruss schuwikis (Schuwert) E 496, Slav. š ь v ь c ь “tailor”) which is very productive in Baltic and very rare in Slavic, could be explained. The process of a substitution of old suffixes with o stem for corresponding suffixes with (i )i̯o stem is sugested to come of in Baltic and to touch slightly Slavic languages too. The result of this process is the formation of Common Baltic and Slavic suffixes * -el i̯o - (from *- elo- ), *-ēl i̯o - (from *-ēlo-), *-ōl i̯o - (from *-ōlo- ) , * -ik i̯o - (from * -iko-).

Zajednica govornika mađarskog jezika je dolaskom na Panonsku niziju dospela među narode koji govore indoevropskim jezicima. U interesu svoga opstanka mađarski jezik je morao da se prilagođava indoevropskim jezicima. On je masovno preuzeo latinske, nemačke i slovenske reči. Nisu samo indoevropski jezici uticali na mađarski jezik nego je i mađarski imao uticaja na njih. Naročito je bio jak njegov uticaj na bunjevački i na rusinski jezik. Sa aspekta arealne tipologije, mađarski jezik se može svrstati među članove dunavskog jezičkog saveza. On je svoj karakter formirao prema stalnim vezama sa indoevropskim jezicima. U sistemu mađarskog jezika na svojstven način se prepliću tradicionalni elementi i indoevropski obrasci. Kao indoevropski obrasci tretiraju se priloške odredbe u funkciji atributa i relativne rečenice koje zamenjuju atribute. Takođe indoevropski uticaj pokazuje upotreba opisnog oblika za izražavanje budućeg vremena i zamenjivanje glagola sa nastavkom -hat, -het sa glagolom tud i infinitiva. Na vezu mađarskog jezika i indoevropskih jezika uticala je i činjenica da su mađarski jezik usvojili i mnogi asimilovani Nemci i Sloveni. Indoevropski uticaji na sistem mađarskog jezika ipak nisu bili toliko vdeliki da bi se zbog njih taj jezik promenio u indoevropski.

Introduction. The proposed article critically examines the explanation of the origin of nasal vowels in Slavic languages by incorporating an open syllable law. It is shown that the convergence of many closed syllables, ending with nasal consonants, into two kinds of open syllables with nasal vowels contradicts a number of facts of evolution in the opposite direction, e. g., evolution of nasal vowels towards combinations ”a vowel – a nasal consonant“ in Balkan Slavic languages (Bulg. пент ”five“, вънзел ”knot“), as well as to the observed interpretation of Slavic nasal vowels in acts of borrowing by languages without nasal vowels, e. g. OCS дѫбрава ”oak forest“ > Rom. dumbrávă. Methodology and sources. The proposed model results from generalization of the data of instrumental phonetical research, which show that the articulation of palatal consonants is unstable leading to there divergent evolution, i. e. transformation to sounds with more definite zones of articulation, e. g. palatal lateral approximant *[ʎ] split into palatalized lateral liquid [l'] and fricative [j]. In the proposed model Proto-Indo-European (PIE) syllable velar nasal consonant *ŋ̍ in the process of its phonetic evolution in Indo-European (IE) languages split into a variety of nasal vowels with different articulations, which further on irregularly transformed into vowels without nasalization or into combinations of vowels with nasal consonants (e. g. OInd. paŋktíṣ, OIsl. fimt, Lith. penkì, OCS пѩть, OHG finf, fimf, funf "пять", etc., from the common PIE prototype with syllable nasal *ŋ̍). Results and discussion. Examples of PIE prototypes of lexemes meaning “water bird”, “tooth, sharp edge”, “five”, as well as lexemes, related to Russ. нутро, ядро, неясыть, уж, угорь, нагой, нога, ноготь are presented. All prototypes contain a nasal syllabic, which is split producing four types of reflexes in IE languages. Newly discovered etymological links, such as the connection between Russ. Lexemes meaning “leg” and “corner”, are discussed.Conclusion. The proposed model permits to uniformly explain the facts of synchronous existence of related Rus. недро ”insides“ and ядро ”nucleos“, related нутро и утроба ”belly“, related OCS ѫты, Lith. ántis and AGr. Att. νῆττα “duck”, related Rus. неясыть “a kind of owl; pelican” and ненасытный “insatiable”, etc., using the notion of divergent evolution of the PIE syllable velar nasal *ŋ̍.

The existence of a singulative, i.e. a marked secondary singular inflection, is cross-linguistically relatively widespread and a number of linguistic strategies are commonly employed to express it (cf. the Bantu language Swahili, Insular Celtic, or Slavic). While various studies have addressed the singulative in non-Indo-European languages or discuss them adequately in grammar books, little work has been done on the singulative in any living Indo-European (IE) language. This is unfortunate, because in the modern p-Celtic languages the use of diminutive formants in order to form a secondary singular, i.e. a singulative, is quite productive, in particular in Welsh, Breton and Cornish. Through examination of evidence from Slavic languages, in particular Sorbian, a possible development of the singulative in both p-Celtic and Slavic is proposed below. Although not as productive as in the p-Celtic languages, clear traces of similar formations of the singulative can still be discerned in particular in Upper and Lower Sorbian and also survive in other Slavic languages. In addition, such a derivation pattern or the singulative is suggested for Old Greek below and it is suggested that singulatives were much more common in proto-IE. However, it is not claimed that this approach explains all diminutive or singularisation processes in the languages under discussion.

The research aims to explore the etymology and semantic field of the zoonym “cow” in the linguocultural contexts of the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic language families. The article analyzes the origin of the word “cow” in Slavic, Turkic, Romance and Germanic languages, identifying its core and additional meanings, commonalities and specific features. This analysis makes it possible to determine the national characteristics in the expression of knowledge about people, animals, and the world in mythological and religious beliefs by the native speakers. The scientific novelty of the research lies in considering the zoonym “cow” not only as a linguistic object, but also as a cultural phenomenon intertwined with history, mythology, religion, and human lifestyle. This zoonym is studied for the first time in a comparative aspect using data from Slavic, Turkic, Romance and Germanic languages, with the aim of identifying, analyzing, and describing national cultural features, similarities, and differences. As a result, the study proves that the etymology and semantics of the word “cow” in the contexts of the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic language families display shared roots, dating back to a distant past, and indicate profound connections between the peoples. Despite some differences among the peoples who speak Slavic and Turkic languages, such as national specificity of worldview, varying living conditions, traditions, history, and religion, the words designating the cow in various linguocultures are part of a unified history, connected to the use of this animal in human life.

A pluricentric language is a language that is used in at least two countries where it has the official status of a state, commonwealth or regional language with at least partially its own (codified) norms that usually contribute to the personal identity of speakers. Pluricentric languages have one dominant variant and (one or) several non-dominant varieties. As a result of the political fragmentation of the Hungarian language area that developed after the First World War, and then, confirmed by the peace treaties after the Second World War, the Hungarian language is one of the pluricentric languages in Europe. The article examines the results of close linguistic contacts in non-dominant varieties of the modern Hungarian language used outside Hungary. The consequences of language contacts are highlighted on the basis of lexical borrowings, which are fixed in a specific online dictionary. The dictionary consists of borrowed words of foreign origin used by autochthonous Hungarian minorities living in the Carpathian Basin outside Hungary. In addition to words and phrases that are used exclusively in the speech and writing of Hungarians in countries neighboring Hungary, words that are also used in Hungary, but with a different meaning, were also collected in the database. As of the end of September 2022, the dictionary database contained 5,034 dictionary entries (words). Since this online loanword list contains direct borrowings from many languages of the Carpathian Basin that are in contact with Hungarian (mostly from the official or state languages of Hungary's neighboring countries, including Slovak, Ukrainian, Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and German), the database is a rich source for the study of contacts between Hungarian and Indo-European languages. Based on the material of the online dictionary, it was found that among the lexical borrowings of the Hungarian language –as a result of centuries-old contacts between Hungarian and various Slavic languages –borrowings of Slavic origin constitute the largest layer of vocabulary of foreign origin in the Hungarian language. The result of the project is a dictionary database that provides an opportunity for a comparative analysis of the vocabulary of non-dominant variants of the pluricentric Hungarian language.

Linde’s theory and practice of etymology must not be evaluated solely through the lens of modern linguistics, but also from the point of view of late 19th century language (especially Slavic language) studies. Against the general background of late 18th/early 19th century linguistics, his theory of etymology may be granted tentative approval, even though it contains many mistakes and nonsensical conclusions. Linde compiled the views of many of his predecessors (such as de Brosses, de Gébelin, Adelung, Ihre, Wachter and Dobrovský), but also attempted to modify some of their thoughts and add his own. It is not true (as stated in Zwoliński 1981) that no connection exists between the etymological theories of Dobrovský and Linde. The Polish lexicographer did indeed partially utilise the Czech’s work. Such approval cannot, however, be extended to Linde’s etymological practices as regards comparing Polish and Polish-Slavic lexical material: even though 65% (i.e. 547) of etymological fields contain correctly compiled vocabulary, mistakes occur in 35% (i.e. 292) of them. That Linde’s etymology-deriving principles were ineffective is evidenced by the fact that each of these 292 etymological fields should – based on the state of knowledge in the late 19th/early 20th century – be split into from 2 to 19 etymological fields. On the other hand, his etymological lists that cite words from many Indo-European languages, such as Polish and other Slavic languages, Latin, Greek, German and Baltic languages, and Sanskrit, should be viewed with some approval. Most of the comparisons found in Linde’s etymological treatise, which contains about 1,300 entries, bear similar marks of plausibility. The possibility of Bopp, Rask and Grimm being familiar with the inquiries of the Polish lexicographer and amateur linguist cannot be excluded. In the 19th century, Linde’s etymological principles influenced the so-called inspired linguists, including J. Kamiński, J. Lelewel, A. Mickiewicz and C.K. Norwid.

From PIE to OCS: ALG or MAC?*0. The Slavonic languages present a real challenge to I(ndo-)E(uropean) studies. (In keeping with British usage, Slavonic will be used throughout this review.) The problem is that their development was most peculiar, especially in the field of morphology. In order to grasp the problem one has to bear in mind the characteristic traits of IE morphology. It is assumed that IE prior to its dissolution was a highly inflecting language. Its morphology relied basically on ablaut, accent, and desinences to convey grammatical information. Furthermore, the desinences in nominal inflection were largely of the -(V)C# type.The phonological development of the Slavonic languages led to the annihilation of most of these means to express grammatical information. At some stage in this development, in Common Slavonic (CS) the basic syllable structure presented a clear case of a langue a syllables ouvertes (in Martinet's terminology), which means, inter alia, that no consonants were allowed in word-final position. At the same time the role of ablaut was greatly reduced in morphology and it was practically abolished in nominal inflection. To complete the picture the accentual system was subject to comprehensive remodelling.As a result of these developments large-scale syncretism of grammatical forms might be expected. This in turn could have led to the breakdown of the inflectional system (as was the case with nominal inflection in the Romance languages). Surprisingly neither happened in the case of the Slavonic languages. The oldest recorded form of Slavonic, Old Church Slavonic (OCS), shows only a comparatively modest amount of syncretism in its inflectional paradigms. In nominal inflection, indeed, the most productive type (the so-called twofold nominal declension, cf. Lunt 2001: 54) is syncretic to a minimal degree only. What is more, the inflectional system did not break down: the nominal inflection in Slavonic is actually one of the most conservative in IE.How is this to be explained? Why did the system of nominal inflection not break down when elsewhere syncretism resulted in the abolition of the respective categories or forms (cf. the syncretism of aorist and imperfect after the shortening of -aa-/-ea- in Church Slavonic and the eventual loss of these tenses in most Slavonic languages)? The answer is simple: the break-down of the system was avoided because syncretism did not occur on a large scale, even though it should have. And syncretism did not ensue because many of the desinences of nominal inflection in Slavonic do not correspond to those we might expect as a result of regular sound-change.So far the matter seems to be rather straightforward. It is, however, not satisfactory for IE linguistics. The desinences attested in Slavonic that do not match those that regular sound-change would bring about call for an explanation. There are three possible ways to explain them:a. It is assumed that special rules apply to word-final syllables. These special rules are generally referred to as auslautgesetze (or ALG in Orr's shorthand).An argument in favour of this approach can be seen in the fact that many IE languages show a different development in auslaut as compared to other positions. Usually this can be attributed to the influence of accent (cf. Germanic or Armenian: they show large-scale reduction in final syllables or even complete loss due to the influence of initial or penultimate accent, respectively, whereas other syllables undergo no changes at all or changes that are clearly different).This argument, however, is more of a typological nature and does not necessarily apply to Slavonic. The comparison with Baltic makes this clear. Both Slavonic and Baltic had a free and mobile accent, but Slavonic underwent much more radical changes in auslaut than Baltic. In Baltic there is only a loss of final occlusives: *-s# and *-R# were retained in P(roto-)B(altic) and even final nasals leave traces in writing and in some Lithuanian dialects to this day. …

This paper investigates ‘before’, ‘until’ and ‘as long as’ clauses in the Baltic languages in their wider areal and genealogical context in a sample of 72 modern and ancient doculects of European and Indo-European languages. In a bottom-up construction of the semantic map of ‘before’, ‘until’ and ‘as long as’ connectors from parallel text data, a fourth cluster intermediate between ‘before’ and ‘until’ with negative main clauses is identified. The typology resulting from the different overlaps of clusters locates Baltic languages in an intermediate zone between Western, Eastern, and Northern European languages. This goes hand-in-hand with a high diversity of Baltic languages in their typology of ‘before’, ‘until’ and ‘as long as’ clauses. The temporal connectors found in Baltic varieties can be classified according to whether they originate from strategies expressing temporal identity (simultaneity) or non-identity (non-simultaneity). Many connectors in Baltic derive from correlative constructions and originally express identity, but can then shift from simultaneity towards posteriority as they gradually lose their association with correlative constructions. Since temporal clauses are never atemporal and are hence incompatible with permanent states and since negation often expresses permanent states, negation—a marker of non-identity—is prone to develop non-polarity functions in ‘before’ and ‘until’ clauses. The Baltic and Slavic languages are rich in various kinds of expanded negation (translation equivalents in other languages lack negation) and expletive negation (negation does not have the function of expressing negative polarity) in ‘before’ and ‘until’ clauses. However, indefinite negative pronouns often retain their negative semantic value when standard negation in temporal clauses is expanded and semantically bleached.

With interlanguage corpora, this study investigates the handwriting errors by Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners from eight countries and three language families (Indo-European languages, Slavic languages, Romance languages), including wrongly written characters and misused characters. The results indicate that the most common mistake among elementary, intermediate and advanced learners is wrongly written characters mainly caused by misuse of components, especially confusion between components and miswriting of components. Besides, stroke errors also matter. The reduction and improper location of strokes, in particular, trouble learners a great deal. As to the misused characters, how to differentiate similar characters is where the difficulties lie. On the whole, from the elementary stage to the intermediate stage, both types of errors decrease significantly, while after the intermediate stage, the decrease of wrongly written characters is more significant than that of the misused characters. Moreover, for advanced learners, the frequencies of these errors are basically the same. The study findings demonstrate that it is crucial for CFL learners to rapidly develop their awareness of orthography between the elementary and intermediate stages. This will last roughly 9 months. Advanced learners are usually well aware of orthography, but their awareness development of the form, pronunciation and meaning is not synchronized. They still make mistakes with details when writing. This research is instructive in the teaching of Chinese character handwriting. It points out the problems and countermeasures of online Chinese character handwriting courses during the pandemic and thus contributes advice to online Chinese character teaching during the long-term future.

Semantic categories can be studied effectively using a comparative approach, since it allows to determine the general and specific features of the object under study against the background of the languages under consideration, but also to see the peculiarities of native speakers’ perception of the surrounding world. This is also relevant for the category of aspectuality. The discoveries of Slavic aspectology of the 20th century were actively used to study aspectual semantics in other Indo-European languages, including Germanic ones, in which the category of aspectuality has a different character and structure. Some questions in this field still remain controversial, with certain aspectual meanings requiring further study. This research focuses on the semantics of incomplete action in verbs and verb combinations of the attenuative mode of action in the Russian, Ukrainian, and English languages. The type of aspectual meaning under consideration is related to the idea of a partially complete action, action lasting for a short period of time, or insufficient to obtain a full result. Prefixal verbs with diminutive and related meanings are numerous in Slavic languages, which is explained by a developed verbal prefixation in general and special features of speakers of Slavic languages. A comparison of “attenuative” verbs and verbal units in Russian, Ukrainian, and English makes it possible to identify the main meanings of incomplete action in these languages and assess the productivity of their formation patterns in the compared languages. The study has demonstrated the variety of means to express the incompleteness of an action (prefixes, suffixes, adverbial combinations, etc.) in the compared languages, as well as the synthetic way of expressing the specified semantics in Russian and Ukrainian and the analytical way in English. This is explained both by the predominantly analytical structure of English as a whole, and by the likely lesser significance of attenuative meanings for English speakers when actualizing the inner parameters of the action. The analysis has demonstrated the following meanings of the studied units in the languages under consideration: 1) incompleteness of an action and its lesser result; 2) limited action in terms of its duration; 3) simultaneous incompleteness of an action and its complementarity, an addition of something to it; 4) lesser degree of an action, its sporadic character. Individual aspects of the meanings of incompleteness in compared languages do not coincide and and are in the relations of intersection.

Hungarian is a non-Indo-European language, and like other Finno-Ugric languages is agglutinative, which means that word meanings are modified by adding different and multiple endings or suffixes to the words, rather than using prepositions. It differs greatly from Indo-European languages, and thus it is considered ‘unlearnable’ for most speakers of European languages. Hungarian is a language island in the middle of Europe surrounded by Germanic, Neo-Latin and Slavic languages. In spite of its uniqueness, it has survived many centuries, and even now the Hungarian language has 15 million speakers worldwide. It may play different roles in its speakers’ lives: a first language, a heritage language, a language of the environment and a foreign language. In our study, we examine the language attitude of students of Hungarian with different linguistic backgrounds and we take into consideration their linguistic repertoire. The subjects of the study are citizens of other countries living temporarily in Hungary: Erasmus students, who have no Hungarian history in the family and learn Hungarian as a foreign language while staying in Hungary, and students of Balassi Institute with some Hungarian background in the family and who are learning Hungarian as a heritage language. By means of a questionnaire, a language decision task, a semantic rhyming and a phonological rhyming test, we study their attitude to the Hungarian language. We analyze the motivating factors for their stay in Hungary and their linguistic awareness. Our goal is to make Hungary more attractive for non-Hungarian speakers and motivate them in learning the Hungarian language and culture, and thus to contribute to the language maintenance activity.

Polish auxiliary clitics constitute an interesting set of data which draws attention to cross-linguistic differences among Slavic languages. A general principle for clitic placement in Indo-European languages is the one described by Jacob Wackernagel in his 1892 work. He concluded that clitics appeared in the second position in the clause, after the first word in a sentence. This pattern was true to some degree in Old Church Slavonic and still holds for a number of contemporary Slavic languages e.g. Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Czech and Slovak which have second position clitics. Bulgarian and Macedonian have verb adjacent pronominal clitics and Polish has auxiliary clitics (Migdalski 2007, 2010, Pancheva 2005). Also in the older versions of Polish language the above mentioned tendency was strong.
 In Modern Polish auxiliary clitics attach to the l-participle most frequently. However, one of the unusual properties they possess is the ability to choose almost every clausal element for their host. Polish auxiliary clitics can trigger morphophonological alternations on their hosts, which is an affix-like property; however, at the same time they display clearly clitic-like behaviour when they attach freely to words of any lexical class.
 The aim of this paper is to present and analyze the morpho-syntactic properties of two kinds of auxiliary clitics: bound and free. The bound clitics carry person-number agreement markers for past tense (the so called ‘floating’ or ‘mobile’ inflections). The free clitic is the morpheme by used for conditional and subjunctive mood.