Russian Dialects Research Articles

SEMANTICS OF THE VERBALITY ЖИТЬ IN RUSSIAN DIALECTS OF UDMURTIA

The article is devoted to the analysis of semantic features that are noted in the verb жить in Russian dialects of Udmurtia. As the analysis of the material of the corpus of Russian dialects of Udmurtia showed, this verb is found in contexts indicating values different from those known in the literary language. In connection with the need to clarify the layout of the corpus and create a dictionary of Russian dialects in Udmurtia, a definition of the semantics of this verb is required. The semantic features of a dialect word can be established both by linguistic factors: the syntactic role and lexical compatibility, as well as extralinguistic factors: the range of specific uses of the verb, historical information about the settlement of this territory, religious and ideological features of dialect speakers. For analysis, material from various lexicographic sources, as well as etymological information, was used. As a result of the study, an idea about the possibility of double interpretation of the semantics of the analyzed dialect word was formed: on the one hand, from the point of view of its implementation in dialect, as a syncretic unit, on the other hand, from the point of view of its lexicographic representation, as a set of lexical-semantic variants.

IN ADDITION TO THE QUESTIONNAIRE ON THE DIALECT VOCABULARY CONTAINED IN THE CORPUS OF RUSSIAN DIALECTS OF UDMURTIA

The paper presents the progress and the intermediate results on linguistic-geographical information system “Dialect”. New definitions for the dialect words, showing derivational, semantic, lexical specificity of a dialect speech, are introduced into the system to identify the dialect words and their further presentation in the lexical-geographical and lexicographic modules. The questionnaire of LGIS “Dialect” is based on the Lexical atlas of Russian folk dialects’ program and at the same time complements it. The questionnaire refers to the different topics and parts of speech. The questions are based on authoritative lexicographic sources and examples of words usage in Russian dialects of Udmurtia. The words widely used in the dialect language but not included in Lexical atlas of Russian folk dialects’ program as well as a local vocabulary outside other sources were tagged in LGIS “Dialect”. New data for lexical-geographical and lexicographic description of Russian dialects of Udmurtia were received as the result. The analysis of new tagged words provides a deeper understanding of the lexical vocabulary and the dialect differentiation of Russian dialects of Udmurtia.

Диалектные наименования праздников и обрядов как отражение культурно-исторических традиций русского народа

The article studies lexical and phraseological units nominating holidays and ceremonies in Russian dialects, which are spoken on the territory of the Republic of Mordovia. The specificity of nominative processes associated with the naming of a fact that is significant from linguistic and cultural point of view, is determined. The research is carried out on the material taken from the Dictionary of Russian dialects on the territory of the Republic of Mordovia. It has been found that in Russian dialects, the names of religious holidays, which are dedicated to the most revered saints, or the holidays related to a certain time of the year, are actively used. The surviving holidays reproduce elements of the most ancient customs associated with the worship of human deities, the cult of vegetation, water and fire, which magical powers were attributed to. The names of rituals represent a special layer in the dialect corpus. The most illustrative represented are the funeral rite and the rite of baptism. All these rituals are of great importance in the life of the people, since they symbolize a change in the status of a person, his transition from one state to another. The nominations of different phases of wedding ceremony are noted to be most numerous, while funeral and baptizing rites are less representative. The study showed that the names of holidays and rituals in Russian folk dialects reflect cultural and historical traditions, beliefs, customs of representatives of a territorially closed society. They perform peculiar means of representing the ethnic and cultural consciousness of the people.

Verbs with the Prefix za- in Russian dialects of the Amur Region

The article deals with verb derivatives with the prefix za- on the dialectal material that is poorly studied in this aspect — the Russian dialects of the Amur region. The derivational and grammatical meanings of the derived verbs with this formant are characterized in comparison with their literary counterparts. The peculiarities of semantics are revealed and a typology of dialectisms with this prefix is proposed. It is concluded that word formation in this group of dialects is a peculiar form of manifestation of specific and general Russian word-formation tendencies. The relevance and novelty of the work is due to both the general unresolved problem of describing the meanings of Russian verb prefixes, and insufficient knowledge of the specifics of verbal word formation in dialects. In addition, the study of this group of dialects in the derivational aspect is necessary for the construction of a typology of dialects of the Far East and the preparation of a monographic description of them. Turning to the study of prefix verb dialect lexicon can contribute to the introduction of new interesting facts into scientific circulation. Turning to dialects of secondary education, which are under the strongest influence of the literary language, can help to reveal the dynamics of transformations of prefixed meanings.

Белинский о Квитке

The Ukrainian literary critic Yuriy Boyko stated that Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky (1811–1848), the famous Russian literary critic harshly criticized Ukrainian writers who wrote in Ukrainian. In fact, he tried to persuade those who wrote not only in Ukrainian but also in Russian to use only the latter. Belinsky often referred to contemporary Ukrainian literature in his writings. His attitude towards Ukrainian literature and Ukrainian language was rather ambiguous. It was the manifestation of the interest in Ukraine and Ukrainian culture that existed in Russia at that time and also the continuation of the polemics about the existence of the Ukrainian language, which was quite vivid in the first half of the 19th century. The critic believed that the Little Russian language did exist but only in folk poetry of value. Since the time of Peter I, according to Belinsky, due to the separation of estates, noblemen began to speak Russian and at the same time, the Little Russian language spoken by people began to deteriorate. His categorical and unfair conclusion is that there is no Little Russian language but there is a regional Little Russian dialect, such as Belarusian, Siberian, and other similar regional dialects.The paper is devoted to Belinsky’s evaluation of the oeuvre of Hryhory Kvitka-Os- novyanenko (1778–1843), the Ukrainian writer and playwright. In his writings from 1839 to 1846, Belinsky analyzed and sometimes only mentioned Kvitka’s prosaic and dramatic works written in Russian or translated from Ukrainian into Russian. On the one hand, Be- linsky characterized Kvitka as a “wonderful talent” and “an excellent master” but, on the other hand, he called him ironically “the first Russian writer”, mentioning his “mediocrity” and “bad taste”. On the one hand, Belinsky spoke about witty, fascinating, and original works but, on the other, he called Kvitka’s writings artificial or late imitations.The reasons for such ambiguous attitude of Belinsky towards the Ukrainian language and literature, and in particular to Kvitka’s works, are the above-mentioned polemics about the Ukrainian language and literature, the juxtaposition of the patriarchal Ukrainian village subjected to the “disastrous” influence of Russia, and the fact that most Ukrainian writers grouped around the retrograde Mayak, an ardent opponent of Otechestvennye zapiski. The whole problem was not sufficiently explored theoretically, thus Belinsky had no opportu- nity to rely on authoritative research. The level of development of the so-called new Ukrai- nian literature also influenced the critic’s opinion.

К вопросу о страдательном залоге в языках, распространенных на берегу Балтийского моря, с акцентом на севернорусском диалекте

The two characteristics of the passive voice found in the North Russian dialect and in other Circum-Baltic languages, the accusative case of the patient or theme as an argument of a verb with passive morphology and intransitive verbs passivized raise a number of related questions. The author of the present paper explores the issues under discussion from an areal-historical perspective, concluding that the aforementioned languages have a tendency for the agent to be the same element as the subject and the patient or theme to be the same element as the (direct) object of the sentence. In the North Russian dialect, we can see an example where the above fact holds true irrespective of whether the verb has an active or a passive morphology as the theme of the sentence assumes the accusative case regardless of whether it is an argument of a verb in the active or in the passive voice.The question as to what lexical elements can function as subjects is itself interesting. Moreover, there seems to be a correlation between what level of abstraction the syntactic category of subject has reached in a language and the existence of a pure passive mean- ing. The less abstract the category of subject is, as in case of Circum-Baltic languages, the farther structures with a passive morphology seem to be from a pure passive meaning. In languages such as English, however, where virtually any noun can function as a subject, there seems to be a pure passive meaning and there is only one morphological way of form- ing passive sentences.The nature of linguistic similarities found in genetically less related languages spoken in the same area has been given a number of varied accounts. The most salient of them ap- pears to be B. Drinka’s explanation based on the influence of Western European languages on ones spoken in the East of the area where once the Hanseatic League existed in the middle ages and I. Seržant’s theory concerning the foregrounding of the agent as passive structures with a stative interpretation gradually assumed a dynamic one.In fact, participles in the North Russian dialect ending in -n / -t can express a dynam- ic, that is, eventive interpretation with a perfect meaning and can even co-occur with the -sja / -s’ postfix, the latter phenomenon being absolutely unimaginable in Standard Russian, where the two affixes are in complementary distribution. The author assumes that the topic should be studied from the perspective of sociology and cultural anthropology as well since linguistic similarities and differences often reflect similarities and differences in thinking beyond the realm of linguistics.

Russian Dialects as a Resource for Finniс Historical Lexicology

This article proposes a reconstruction of a number of Vepsian and Ludic Karelian derivatives of lexemes, referring to the dialectal vocabulary of the Russian dialects of Obonezhye region. Having been lost from the aforementioned Finnic languages due to the Russification of the population living along the transit waterways used for the development of Obonezhye region since the time of Veliky Novgorod, they have survived as substratum or borrowed units in geographically adjacent Russian dialects. Vepsian and Karelian language data are traditionally used for the etymological interpretation of the Russian dialect lexicon. The reverse approach, i.e. the involvement of Russian dialects as a resource for Finnic etymological studies has not been widely used. When reconstructing, it is important to consider such parameters as the area of the Russian word, aiming at a well-defined Finnic language etymon; patterns of phonetic substitution and adaptation of specific Finnic sounds and sound combinations into Russian dialects; the existence of a word and its semantics in related languages. Additional opportunities are provided by the use of toponymic data due to the massive character and good preservation of toponyms. The article reconstructs several Vepsian and Ludic derived lexemes which have not been recorded in dictionaries or other sources. Among them, there are lexemes with suffixes -(e)k and -(e)h (*katek ‘thin ice’, *torek ‘noise, crackling, rumbling’, *čapek ‘overgrown undercut’, räbeh ‘damp low place in the forest’), Vepsian verbal name *kütm <* kütkim ‘leash for cattle’ with the -im suffix, Ludic term *hörpäk ‘stake with branches for drying hay’ with the suffix -äk and Vepsian landscape term *pugend ~ *pugond ‘swift with a narrow bed on the river’, in which the suffix -nd (< -nto) is embodied. The source of Russian dialectal data is the monumental publication Russian Dialect Etymological Dictionary. Vocabulary of Contact Regions (2019) prepared by S. А. Myznikov. A lot of work was done in it to find Finnic roots for Russian lexemes. The author of the dictionary had natural difficulties in attributing Russian dialect lexemes, for which their Vepsian or Karelian etymon did not survive. The interpretations presented in the article, along the way, clarify, supplement, and sometimes correct the etymology of the Russian Dialect Etymological Dictionary.

Na with the Accusative: Marking the Addressee of Speech in some Western and Southern Russian Dialects

In this paper we will consider a construction with a preposition na (on) and an addressee of speech with verbs govorit’ (to speak) and skazat’ (to say) in some Southern Russian and Western Russian dialects. In standard Russian, the semantic role of the addressee of speech is marked with the dative case. We will focus on the examples from Russian dialects that use a different marker of the addressee of speech: the preposition na with the accusative case. The research is based on the data extracted from several dialectal corpora, including the Rogovatka corpus, (Starooskolsky district, Belgorod region) the Malinino corpus (Khlevinsky district, Lipetsk region), and the Opochka corpus (Opochecky district, Pskov region). Thus, we analyzed Western Russian (Opochka corpus) and Southern Russian data (Rogovatka and Malinino corpus). Constructions with the preposition na can have several meanings that can be distinguished into 2 groups: contexts with invectives and contexts that contain an impulse (motivation) to action. In the paper, we will consider these two groups of meanings as three stages of a semantic shift. We can suggest that the metaphorical transition of the construction occurs as follows: 1. A surface of a real physical object; 2. A sound wave on a surface, in which the addressee of speech acts with a component of aggression; 3. Influence and control of this addressee.

Variation in ethnonym-based names of clothing items in Russian dialects: a cultural and sociolinguistic study

Though modern linguistics pays great attention to the theory of nomination, in particular to the study of thematic groups, the dialectic names of clothing items are among the least commonly investigated types of words. Indeed, no one to the best of our knowledge has addressed the question of ethnonym and toponym-based names of clothes in a variety of Russian dialects. The aim of the present study is to broaden current knowledge of the given issue. The core problem of the given paper is the nominative models of the ethnonym and toponym-contained names of clothing items in Russian dialects and their analysis from cultural and sociolinguistic perspectives. Based on numerous examples, the authors single out the major nominative models of clothing vocabulary and come to the conclusion that word combinations are a striking feature of the Russian dialects since they more accurately specify the object.

Północna grupa gwar białoruskich jako przykład związków z sąsiednimi grupami etnicznymi i językami

The article discusses the Northern subdialect group of the Northeastern Belarusian dialect, which is one of the least studied in terms of its structure and genesis. It is characterized primarily by a number of lexical and lexical-semantic features, typical not only for this area of Belarus, but linking it with Russian dialects and dialects of the Baltic languages. These features were formed in various historical periods: the oldest (from before the writing system appeared) include, among others, the so-called cokan'e and the preservation of the suffix -dl- forming the names of farm tools; the syncretism of noun endings probably dates back to to the general Russian period, while the pronouns íchny, jéjny and the verb forms jadzióm and dadzióm are newer innovations from the period of the formation of Belarusian dialects.

ЭТНОЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЙ КОММЕНТАРИЙ К ДЕРИВАЦИОННО-ФРАЗЕОЛОГИЧЕСКОМУ ГНЕЗДУ СЛОВА ПЕЧЬ В СЕВЕРНОРУССКОМ ДИАЛЕКТНОМ ДИСКУРСЕ

The article analyzes the cultural and semantic features of the derivational-phraseological nest of the word pech' in the Northern Russian dialects (mainly in the Russian dialects of Karelia and the border regions). Based on the linguistic data, the author reconstructs the idea of pech' in the traditional culture of the Russian North; analyzes the content of the derivational paradigm for the lexeme pech '; determines its secondary meanings associated with the development of space outside the house. The article shows the reflection of pagan ideas and practices in the semantic structure of the word and its derivatives, the interaction between the conceptual fields of “pech’” and “house”, “pech’” and “family”.

Basic pain terms in Beserman Udmurt

This paper is devoted to semantic structure and syntactic properties of predicates of pain in Beserman Udmurt. Beserman is a variety of Udmurt spoken in northwestern Udmurtia, which has undergone contact infl uence of Russian dialects and of Turkic languages. We analyze meanings and compatibility of units which denote pain, describe grammatical encoding of diff erent participants of the situation of pain — the experiencer, the body part where pain is located, and the cause of pain. We consider the following parameters to be relevant for encoding the situation of pain in Beserman Udmurt: type of experiencer, location of pain and its cause (including a human making someone feel pain), pure pain vs. pain accompanied by functionality loss, physical pain vs. painful emotions, intensity of pain and its type. We compare Beserman Udmurt data with those from idioms which either are closely related to Udmurt genetically or are in the situation of close contact with it — namely, with the data from Komi-Zyrian, certain Russian dialects, and Turkic languages. We show that unlike Komi-Zyrian, its relative, Beserman Udmurt encodes diff erent types of pain on the lexical level (i. e. by verbal roots and ideophones), not on the grammatical one (i. e. through morphological derivation). In this respect, Beserman Udmurt resembles certain Turkic languages. The diversity of argument encoding in expressions of pain is a common trait of Beserman Udmurt and Komi-Zyrian; it seems to be supported by the infl uence of Russian dialects.

Сакральный образ «дерево-олень» в северорусской народной культуре

The paper considers the hypothesis that the image of a “tree-deer”, imprinted in the Northern Russian folk culture, was formed on the basis of figurative and semantic identification of a deer / elk and a tree. The analysis of such analogies, traces of which are preserved in folklore and in Russian folk dialects, is carried out taking into account the peculiarities of pagan worldview. Due to the antiquity of the cult of these animals, which developed in the hunting period, its signs have to be searched not only among the few archaisms of Slavic culture that have come down to our days, but also among traditional cultures of the Northern peoples. The fact that these animals, like the “world tree”, were once cosmological symbols explains the origin of the figurative-semantic relationship between a deer / elk and a tree. This is what determines the interchangeability of the image of a deer / elk and the image of a tree observed in folklore. In this context, the Genesis of a number of homonyms and similar words that exist in the Russian dialect lexicon, united by a corresponding theme, also becomes comprehensible. Moreover, the author conducts analysis of a number of images of deer / elk found in Northern Russian decorative and applied art (on embroidery and wood carving) in the context of representations that existed in the Slavic magical protective practice. This allows for understanding why the “tree-deer” image was endowed with sacred properties.

ИЗ ЭТИМОЛОГИЙ РУССКИХ ДИАЛЕКТНЫХ СЛОВ НА «ТАЛ-//ТОЛ-»

The article presents etymological and motivational analysis of three dialectal lexical groups with the root tal-//tol-. The author considers that the dialecticisms under study refer to the word family талый <talyi> (melted) / таять <tayat’> (to melt) and attempts to reconstruct its own motivational logic for each lexical group. The first part of the article analyzes the word талы/толы <taly/toly> (eyes), the origin of which currently remains not clear enough. The author provides the known hypotheses of the word origin, which include both the initial version (bringing to the family таять (to melt) and an assumption of borrowing. The initial version of the word origin is developed based on its semantic and functional characteristics, the peculiarities characterizing the perception of the organ of vision in language and culture, and motivational patterns in dialectal designations of eyes. The version of the origin of the word as borrowed from the Turkic languages is critically analyzed through reference to the patterns of the appearance of Turkic borrowings in Russian dialects. The second part of the article is devoted to the lexical group талики/толики <taliki/toliki> (ripe cloudberry). Different sources treat these lexical unit as a Finno-Ugric borrowing, on the one hand, and as related to the Russian word таять (to melt), on the other hand, thus interpreting them as a result of semantic loan translation from Finno-Ugric. The paper provides some additional arguments in favor of the version that the names of ripe cloudberry belong to the family таять (to melt), while admitting the possibility of the original (not loaned) origin of the naming. The third part of the article deals with the dialectal word талица <talitsa> (rutabaga), the etymological solutions for which are unknown. The author considers this word to have origin in the verb таять (to melt), which is argued based on the peculiarities of the secretion of juice from rutabaga while its being cooked. In conclusion, some other names of cloudberry and rutabaga are compared, and general semantic lines of ‘melting’ and ‘steaming’ for the analyzed phytonyms are derived.

ЛОКАЛЬНАЯ САМОИДЕНТИФИКАЦИЯ ЖИТЕЛЕЙ СИБИРСКОГО СЕЛА (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ АВТОБИОГРАФИЧЕСКИХ РАССКАЗОВ)

The article examines the local level of national-territorial self-identification. Interest in this issue is due to extralinguistic and linguistic factors. Extralinguistic factors are associated with increased migration and globalization in the modern world, which leads to a smearing of the territorial and national identity. The relevance of the stated problem is due to its inclusion in the paradigm of modern linguistics that studies the issues of the relationship between language and thinking thus revealing the linguistic potential of the modeling of cognitive processes. The aim of the article is to determine factors on which local self-identification is based. Research materials are autobiographical short stories of people living in the villages of Tomsk Oblast. Local self-identification is understood as the awareness of one's belonging to a certain territory and its community, history and events, which manifests itself in the linguistic picture of the world, in the system of values, ideas, stereotypes and norms, and is reflected in the language. The main source of the material is the texts of the Tomsk dialect corpus, recorded during dialectological expeditions from 1946 to the present in the areas of distribution of Russian old-resident dialects of the Middle Ob region. As an additional source, recollections and oral autobiographical short stories of witnesses of dispossession and exile to the Narym region are used. Local self-identification is expressed most clearly by lexical units with the semantics of belonging to a territory, to a place of residence: mestnyy [local], zdeshniy/izdeshniy [of this place], privezennyy [brought/imported], derevenskiy [rural], korennoy [indigenous]. The analysis of autobiographical stories reveals the actualization of such criteria as birth and permanent residence in a certain area; the presence of ancestors who were born and lived in the same locus as the speaker; emotional attachment to the area, knowledge of the local language, and some others. Local self-identification is expressed in the nominations selo [village]/derevnya [country] and gorod [city], which are endowed with the attributive properties of “ours” (svoy [one's], nash [our], derevenskiy [rural], mestnyy [local], zdeshniy/izdeshniy [of this place], korennoy [indigenous]) and “theirs” (ne nash [not ours], chuzhoy [strange], priyezzhiy [newcomer]). The analysis of the autobiographical short stories of rural residents shows that local self-identification is determined not only by living in a certain territory, but also by the way of life of people, the system of norms, ideas and values. It is inseparable from self-presentation and characteristics of people living in a particular territory. The stereotypical image of a villager reflects, first of all, the specifics of rural existence, which is based on labor and closeness to nature. The local identity of the inhabitants of the Siberian village is formed through the system of oppositions “city-village”, “old-resident-migrant”, “Siberia-European part of Russia”.

Способы образования наименования «лодки» в диалектах карельского языка

Introduction: the article presents the results of a comparative analysis of the Karelian-language names of boats, taking into account the data of closely related Karelian languages. The article considers the issue of interaction of languages and cultures of the Karelian, Finnish and Russian population, resulting from close contact, which is confirmed by the presence of Russian and Finnish loan words in the Karelian language and Karelian loanwords in the dialects of the Russian language. Objective: to identify the ways of formation of boat names in the dialects of the Karelian language. Research materials: dialect names of boats in the Karelian language. Results and novelty of the research: the novelty of the study is in the first etymological analysis of the vocabulary under consideration with the involvement of dialect material of the Karelian language. The author comes to the conclusion that the lexemes denoting different types of boats are in most cases identical in the dialects of the Karelian language. Linguistic analysis showed that the formation of the studied lexical-thematic group in the Karelian language was influenced by the Russian and Finnish languages; the reverse process is also observed – the borrowing of Karelian vocabulary into Finnish and Northern Russian dialects. More than 30 different Karelian dialect variants of the lexemes used to designate boats were analyzed. The theoretical significance of the research lies in the fact that the analysis of the Karelian-speaking names of the boat, compared with the names in other languages, makes it possible, in general, to deepen knowledge of the lexical composition of the Karelian language. The practical significance is determined by the fact that the results obtained in the course of research work can be used in university courses of the Karelian language (lexicology, dialectology), as well as in teaching local history and ethnography.

Vatican Psalter Vat. slav. 8: Paleographic, linguistic, and textual features of the manuscript

The article describes the graphic and orthographic features of the unique Old Russian Psalter stored in the Vatican Apostolic Library (under the code Vat. slav. 8). This codex has practically not attracted the attention of researchers because it was difficult to access. It is now available on the Internet and can be fully studied. The Psalter was written by a highly qualified scribe who developed a special font for his manuscript — a half-letter, built following certain principles as the study showed. The orthography of the manuscript is focused on the ancient Russian norms of the 16th century. However, it has very important innovations: superscripts appear that imitate a slight Greek aspiration, as well as the writing of omega and “uk” in the South Slavic manner. The localization and dating of the manuscript have been clarified. It was written no earlier than the 1420s as evidenced by the special “bead” initials, as well as the spelling of omega with a high center. Some features of the Central Russian dialect can be traced in the scribe’s writing. The codex was brought to Italy by Metropolitan Isidore who fled from Moscow (from the Chudov Monastery) in September 1441 with many other Greek and Slavonic manuscripts. As a result, this Manuscript can be associated with the scribes of this monastery. A small format of the Vat. slav. 8 suggests that this was a travel book. Apparently, the scribe created this manuscript for personal needs. He included a number of rare church services in the codex, in particular, the unique Tuesday church service of the akathist of the Blessed Virgin Mary according to the charter of Mount Athos.

On the Etymology of Lexemes with the Root ринд-/рынд- in the Northern Russian Dialects

This article attempts to find out the origin of a number of homonyms, as well as their correlates (phonetic, lexical-semantic variants, and derived words), i.e ри́нда / ры́нда, ры́н(д)ега / ры́нюга, ринь / рынь, etc. They are recorded in the Northern Russian dialects in independent and related (as part of phraseological phrases) use in two areas, i.e. the north-western regions of Arkhangelsk region and Belozerye. The main source of dialect material is the card catalogue of the Dictionary of Dialects of the Russian North, which makes it possible to take into account a number of additional parameters during the etymologisation and semantic reconstruction of dialecticisms: the exact geographical reference, the number of fixations, etc. From the point of view of semantics, these dialecticisms can be divided into five groups: the natural sphere (meteorology), various spheres of human activity (fishing, cooking, clothing (with some conditionality)), as well as human behaviour. The linguistic geography data indicate the borrowed character of the lexemes and the Finno-Ugric languages as the source languages of borrowing. For the lexemes of each group, a source is found in the Finnic languages (Karelian and/or Veps) or Sami, taking into account information about the former settlement of the Finno-Ugric peoples in the specified territory, as well as the correlation и // ы and the origin of the phoneme ы in the dialecticisms studied.

From the History of Russian Dialect Words I (говéд(т)ник, дохóрь, есáк, жёл, жерсть, жим, дýнда, дóхта, сбрéндить)

The study of Russian dialectal vocabulary remains one of the most pressing problems of etymology. This article is devoted to the origin and history of a number of Russian dialect words. Namely, the author provides revised explanations for some dialecticisms from the already published issues of the Russian Etymological Dictionary (говéд(т)ник, дохóрь, дóхта, сбрéндить), as well as from its unpublished issues (есáк, жёл, жерсть, жúмы). Most of this material is missing from the Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by M. Vasmer.The essence of the explanations proposed is as follows:говéд(т)ник, говéдник, говéнник ‘fastening (in front of a sleigh)’ originates from головéнник ‘head, front part of the sleigh’ from голова ‘head’, головной; дохóрь ‘marten’ supplements the lexical data on Proto-Slavic *dъchor’ь ‘ferret’; есáк ‘motif, melody’, есáчить ‘explain with signs’ should be linked with Old Russian ясáк ‘sign, password’ = ясáк ‘tribute’ < Turkic jasaq ‘tribute’, ‘code, law’;жел (жол) ‘acorn’ is identified with Belorussian dial. жэл and Bulgarian dial. жел ‘acorn’ < Proto-Slavic *žьlъ ‘acorn’, cf. Lithuanian gìlė ‘acorn’;жерсть, etc. ‘pole’ can be related to *žьrdь > Russian жердь with the suffix -tь, as in Russian ýжасть vs. ýжас ‘horror’; жúмы ‘pleated boxcalf boots’ is correlated with жúмы ‘folds, gathers’ from жимáть, iterative to *žęti, *žьmǫ ‘press’ > Rus. жать, жму ‘press’. The initial d- in the variant джúмы could appear as a result of rebracketing in combinations вот жимы, под жимы, etc. (of boots); дýнда ‘fat man’ is explained as a reflex of Proto-Slavic *dunda ‘fat woman’, an onomatopoetic or descriptive word that cannot be separated from Lithuanian dundà ‘rake’;дóхта ‘peat’ may be a relic of the Proto-Slavic *deg- ‘burn’ (> *žeg-) with preserved d-, cf. Russian дёготь ‘tar’, etc.; сбрéндить ‘go crazy’ perhaps comes from *сбрéндить ‘break off, about the string of a wool beater’ and *брéндить ‘beat wool with a wool bow’ of onomatopoeic origin, cf. бры́ндить ‛to beat the wool’ — бры́ндить ‛play the balalaika’ and so on.

On the Semantic and Motivational Interpretation of Russian Dialectal Vocabulary with the Meaning of Disgust (посвирывать, кобзовать, скабежливый, etc.)

This article employs the semantic and motivational aspects to study three Russian dialect words, namely Pskov and Tver Regions посви́рывать ‘to be picky, to disdain’, Kaluga Region ко́бзовать ‘to disdain’, Don, Volgograd, Ryazan, and Tambov Regions скабе́жливый ‘squeamish’. The choice to refer specifically to these linguistic facts is determined by the fact that some of the lexical units presented have not been previously discussed in literature, while, in the author’s opinion, some have controversial etymological solutions. The author states that the word посви́рывать has the root -вир-. Here, the idea of turning is recognised as a motivationally significant one since it reflects popular observations of the behaviour of a person who rejects something. Thus, the axiological assessment of squeamish behavior is fixed in the word’s inner form. The author connects the word ко́бзовать with кобызиться ‘to act arrogantly; to be stubborn, to be obstinate’, where быз indicates ‘a whiny, capricious child’. An assumption is made that a number of lexical units, such as Vologda Region бзли́вый ‘spoiled, capricious’, Perm Region скобы́чка ‘a quarreler and a mean person’, etc. belong to the same family. The author builds potential lines of their semantic and motivational development. The family includes designations of character traits (arrogance, boastfulness, foppery, cockiness, quick temper, cunningness) and human behaviour (such ideograms as ‘to cry’, ‘to frown’, ‘to be angry’, ‘to take offense’). The author hypothesises that the lexical unit скабежливый also refers to the family of the -быз- root. This conclusion is made based on phonetic variation in the root (скабе́зливый, скабы́зливый, скобызко́й) and the similarity in the development of meaning for all the lexical units studied (also, they share the semantics of arrogance, sensitivity, and tearfulness).