Slavic Languages Research Articles

Sorbian kinship terminology according to the data in Volume 11. "Degrees of Kinship" of the Slavic Linguistic Atlas (preliminary results)

The study expounds up-to-date data on kinship names in the Sorbian dialects based on an analysis of linguistic maps with commentary available in Volume 11. “Степени родства” [Degrees of kinship] of the Slavic Linguistic Atlas which has been prepared for publication by the Bulgarian National Commission. The language material is authentic, collected and verified on site by Sorbian dialectologists. Emphasis is put on kinship names that belong to the all-Slavic vocabulary, as well as on own dialect word formation which lends originality to the Sorbian kinship names. The study outlines the linguistic areas of foreign language loanwords and elements which have replaced completely the native lexis. With nomina affinitatis, a disintegration of the old original naming system and an emergence of differences in the Slavic language territory can be traced. Particular attention is paid to the place of Sorbian dialects both among West Slavic languages, and in the entire Slavic language span. The key methods used in the study are linguo-geographical and comparative.

A longitudinal study of math skills in heritage bilingual children: profiles of strengths and weaknesses.

Many children are exposed to a heritage language in the home context, and they learn mathematics in the school context in the societal language (Italian in the present study). More evidence is needed on how Heritage Bilinguals (HBs) perform in different subtypes of numeracy and mathematics skills in a longitudinal perspective. This longitudinal study aimed to analyze the mathematical skills of heritage bilingual children. 220 HBs (50.5% female, from different linguistic/ethnic groups, including Indo-Iranian, Arabic, Chinese, Romanian, Albanian and Slavic languages) and 440 monolinguals (46.8% female, mostly Italian) were followed from second to third grade (aged between 7 and 9 years). The following tasks were administered: dictation, symbolic comparison, number line, mental calculation, multiplication tables, approximate calculation, problem-solving and written calculations. The results showed an advantage for HBs in approximate calculation, but they underperformed in problem-solving, multiplication tables, and mental calculations. A profile analysis highlighted the percentages of children at risk for math impairment. The study provides a longitudinal profile of strengths and weaknesses in the mathematics profile of children with HBs, with developmental trajectories that vary according to verbal load. The discussion focuses on the role of verbal load in math tasks in the assessment of HBs, and implications for clinical and educational contexts.

The Comparative Typology of Subordinate Conjunctions of Auxiliary Parts of Speech in the Azerbaijani and Russian Languages

This article explores the comparative typology of subordinating conjunctions among auxiliary parts of speech in the Azerbaijani and Russian languages. The study aims to identify and analyze the structural and functional characteristics of subordinating conjunctions in both languages, highlighting their similarities and differences. Through comprehensive linguistic analysis, the research examines the usage patterns of auxiliary parts of speech, focusing on their roles in constructing complex sentences and expressing subordinate clauses. The article presents distinctive features of subordinating conjunctions in Azerbaijani and Russian, offering insights into their syntactic behaviors and semantic effects. This comparative approach aids in a broader understanding of conjunction usage in Turkic and Slavic languages, emphasizing the importance of auxiliary parts of speech in language structure and communication.

The fronting of back vowels after *j in Slavonic

Abstract In the field of Slavonic historical phonology, it has long been known that many of the Proto-Indo-European back vowels become front after *j in Late Common Slavonic (henceforth LCS). We call this sound change Vowel Fronting. Vowel Fronting plays an important role in the rise of one of the major characteristics of the Slavonic languages, namely, the distinction between hard and soft declensions. However, not all the back vowels become front after *j in LCS, and the exact conditions for the vowel fronting have not been found yet. Here we show that the fronting is a regular sound change. The presence or absence of the etymological syllable-final consonants, which are lost in LCS, plays a decisive role in Vowel Fronting. By assuming that Vowel Fronting occurred before syllable-final consonants are lost, we define Vowel Fronting as a sound law that occurs in the following four environments without any exception: (1) in final closed syllables, (2) in light syllables, (3) between two *j’s, and (4) when the nucleus is *y [ɨ].

Water, whiskey, and vodka: the story of Slavic languages

Water, whiskey, and vodka: the story of Slavic languages

Form in flux: The development of exceptional degree morphology in Bulgarian and Macedonian

This paper focuses on two South Slavic languages, Bulgarian and Macedonian, which are famously exceptional among Slavic languages for having no case declension on non-pronominal nouns or adjectives and for having post-nominal articles. In this paper, I explore a different (and far less recognized) property of these languages that also makes them distinctive, not only among Slavic languages but among most, if not all, natural languages. I trace the historical development of the Bulgarian and Macedonian degree morphemes po- (comparative) and naj- (superlative), which are not only of interest from a traditional philological perspective but furthermore present complex issues with respect to a synchronic analysis of degree adjective morphology. Specifically, I address Bobaljik’s (2012) Containment Hypothesis, which states that superlative degree modifiers are morphologically derived directly from comparative degree modifiers. I investigate the Bulgarian and Macedonian degree quantifier series ‘many-more-most’ – Bg: mnogo-poveče-najmnogo and Mac: mnogu-poveќe-najmnogu – which appear straightforwardly to contradict his claim and provide evidence that this exception arose due to a diachronic shift which may still be underway.

Verifying the morpho-semantics of aspect via typological homogeneity

Abstract This article investigates grammatical aspect in Slavic and non-Slavic languages, starting from Slavic languages, by providing crosslinguistic evidence for the presence of the so-called concept-dependent default aspect. This line of research builds on and extends accounts that draw a parallel between the structure and semantics of aspect. I show that structural simplicity (relating to whether the imperfective or the perfective is the derivation base for the respective reverse form) corresponds to prominence in meaning. More precisely, I assume that (im)perfective basic morphological or syntactic representations are indicators for primary interpretations. By building upon existing studies in typology, I introduce typological homogeneity as a criterion for the establishment of a form-meaning (in Slavic morpho-semantic) relationship within (im)perfective realizations of a particular verbal concept. This criterion complements high frequency and preferred choice in associative experiments as properties of aspectual alpha-verbs. In this paper, I discuss typological homogeneity by using the primary example of verbs of evidence collection, also called reveal-type predicates, and by additionally discussing manner-of-speaking and speech act verbs. These novel data provide evidence of typological homogeneity in the aspectual representation.

«Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages. Proto-Slavic Lexical Stock»»: The Project, Development, State, Problems, Solutions

The article highlights important issues of the work on the «Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages» (ESSYa), an impressive project based on the concept of the outstanding linguist, the academician O.N. Trubachev. The context of the origin and development of the idea of creating a unique dictionary is described, and the main principles of reconstruction of the Proto-Slavic lexical fund, which formed its basis, are formulated. The initial idea assumes etymologization not only of literary, but also other strata of all Slavic languages (historical, dialectal and slang vocabulary). The urgent problems in the world etymological science (personnel, financial ones), which are experienced by the ESSJa team, are outlined, due to which it is forced to deviate a little from the original plan. However, the main task remains unchanged; the problems are solved by restricting Proto-Slavic derivations of the third degree and some late formations of Slavic languages.

The Pedagogical Tipiṭaka: OER & the Three Baskets of Ancient Language Instruction

Ancient languages present a unique teaching challenge: for spoken languages, common pedagogy recommends engaging students via dialogue; for ancient languages, no speakers survive with whom to practise. This paper highlights how the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin has approached this challenge by creating the Early Indo-European OnLine (EIEOL) collection, an online educational resource whose lesson series present early languages directly through original, unsimplified ancient texts. Currently accessed by over 20,000 users per month, EIEOL spans 18 languages, from Greek and Latin to Old Church Slavonic, Sanskrit, and other important languages of ancient Asia such as Hittite, Classical Armenian, Avestan, and Tocharian. Each series presents extensively annotated excerpts of original texts in the target language, with accompanying modules explaining grammar and context. The text-centred approach affords learners a direct path to understanding that suits a variety of experience levels and minimises the conceptual grammatical apparatus necessary to begin interpreting original texts. This format fosters theoretical flexibility, adaptable to different approaches and grammatical descriptions of ancient languages. It is also useful for languages whose grammatical structures have shifted dramatically over their history, like Tocharian, or remain hotly debated or under-described by experts. Finally, it facilitates applications to typologically diverse languages and language families, with early Mesoamerican, Semitic, and Sino-Tibetan language series already under development. The EIEOL infrastructure therefore provides a robust platform for free, text-centred, self-paced introductions to ancient languages from a variety of language families.

Campus Life in Contemporary Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian Fiction

The article focuses on the image of campus life as presented in a selection of novels written in Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian after 1989. The author presents generic peculiarities of Slavic campus fiction and analyses the theme of (academic) coming-of-age in Slavic campus fiction. The maturation of student characters in Maryna Hrymych’s Yura and Pavol Parkov’s The Legend About the Language occurred in Soviet Ukraine and Czechoslovakia, respectively, around 1968. In contrast, the protagonists of Jagoda Grudzień’s Erasmopeja and Tania Kalytenko’s Antero undergo academic identity formation in contemporary Scandinavian countries as participants in academic exchange programs. While Hrymych and Rankov portray characters navigating totalitarian societies of the past, Grudzień and Kalytenko situate their students within the anxieties of the globalised world, where remembering the past remains crucial. The author concludes that contemporary campus fiction written in Slavic languages addresses the issues significant for the cultural memory of the particular nation. Collectively, these novels contribute to a sense of continuity in academic culture within East-Central Europe.

Machine-Based and Auditory Identification of Slavic Languages

This paper presents a comparison of auditory and machine-based identification of linguistic origins. Two studies were conducted to assess the ability of lay listeners and a stateof-the-art machine approach to identify Slavic L1 from delexicalized speech samples. The first study involved 228 native speakers of the four Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Czech, Polish and Russian) who had not received any prior training in Slavic philology, phonetics, linguistics, or forensic science. Their task was to identify the linguistic origins of speakers when exposed to limited phonetic cues. The stimuli consisted of meaningless logatomes to control for the lexical information. The second study employed machine-based identification of a spoken language, based on two distinct approaches: (1) formant structure of phonetic signal and (2) a neural network and vector representation of speech samples. The data showed that Slavic native speakers, even when exposed to limited auditory cues, are able to identify speakers’ L1s. Interestingly, in the context of the Bulgarian language, the machine-based identification method performed better than the lay listeners. The results of the experiments provide insight into the advantages of hybrid approaches in investigations related to LADO (Language Analyses for the Determination of Origin). Furthermore, the outcomes of this comparison may contribute to the debate on the involvement of native speakers in L1 identification procedures for closely related languages.

The vowel space of multiethnolectal (Stuttgart) German.

The emergence of multiethnolects, i.e.specific speaking styles or varieties associated with second and third generation speakers from immigrant backgrounds, has been observed and studied in several major cities in Europe and elsewhere in theworld. The multiethnolect that is the focus of this study is one such variety of colloquial German. Most previous research on multiethnolectal German has focused on grammatical features. This paper reports on the first comprehensive study of the vowel system (vowel quality and global vowel space size) of multiethnolectal German, based on data from Stuttgart. The results show that the vowel space of multiethnolectal speakers is in generally more centralized than that of a comparison group. A more detailed analysis reveals that the linguistic background plays an important role, as speakers with a Turkish or South Slavonic language background are responsible for this effect.

Pro-drop in Farsi: A Case Study of Bilingual Speakers

This research is meant to uncover some of the internal grammatical structure of bilingual Farsi speakers who have English as their dominant language. Bilinguals, whose mother tongue is Farsi but whose dominant language is English, are influenced by their dominant language on their mother tongue concerning pro-drop. One of the issues often seen in bilingual speakers of null subject languages is the use of pro-drop in languages such as Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, Slavic languages, and Arabic. This paper will demonstrate how these bilingual speakers incorrectly use the null subjects in their sentences and in addition, how SEN children i.e. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) understand and use the pronoun-dropping phenomenon. Choosing a null pronoun in the non-dominant language seems unacceptable to some speakers because their dominant language lacks pro-drop; therefore, in certain situations, researchers might say that these bilingual speakers do not sound as fluent in their native language as they do in their dominant language. The main focus of this research is the investigation into the preference of bilingual speakers as well as ASD children of English and Farsi and their use of pro-drop

ПРОФЕССОР ҚҰДАЙБЕРГЕН ҚУАНҰЛЫ ЖҰБАНОВ

The article tells about the life path, scientific and pedagogical works of the famous scientist in the applied field of Kazakh linguistics Kudaibergen Zhubanov. The article analyzes the scientific contribution of Professor K. Zhubanov to the formation and development of the Kazakh language: the conversion of the Kazakh alphabet and spelling rules, the transition of the Kazakh alphabet to Latin, the formation of Kazakh terminology, the compilation of the first Kazakh scientific textbooks, etc. Various aspects of the Kazakh language were considered by the scientist from a scientific point of view. In order to identify and reflect the natural laws of the Kazakh language, K. Zhubanov conducted an in-depth analysis of the grammatical, phonetic and lexical features of Kazakh words, as well as the laws of their historical development. In this article, various scientific works of the Professor, devoted to the issues of Kazakh linguistics, have been studied in detail: "Lecture courses on the Kazakh language", "Textbook on the Kazakh language grammar", "Kazakh language program", "New grammar", "Spelling and grammar rules of the Kazakh language”, “From the history of the Slavic language in the Kazakh language”, “Booklet on a book and a folded book”, “Formation of the Kazakh book language”, “The form of the booklet in the Kazakh language”.

Tense and aspect in the interlanguage of Slavic speakers learning Romance languages

ABSTRACT The study addresses the research gap of how being a speaker of a Slavic language influences the ability to convey tempo-aspectual meanings in Romance languages by examining personal and impersonal narratives delivered in written and spoken mode by learners of L3 Spanish and L3 Italian with L1 Slovak and L2 English. Narratives are analysed following the methods of interlanguage analysis proposed by Ellis and Barkhuizen [(2005). Analysing learner language. Oxford University Press] and Salaberry and Comajoan [(2013). Research design and methodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect. De Gruyter Mouton], such as coding for grounding, frequency analysis of tense forms and lexical aspectual classes, etc. Following the ideas presented by Bayley (2013, Data analysis: Quantitative approaches. In M. R. Salaberry & L. Comajoan (Eds.), Research design andmethodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect (pp. 357–390). De Gruyter Mouton), binomial logistic regression models were built which showed that (a) the combination of discourse grounding and lexical aspect is of predictive power regarding the appropriateness of participants’ choices of morphological marking; (b) the distributional characteristics of morphological marking on telic predicates differs from activities and statives. One of the main differences compared to the results of previous studies, conducted on speakers of Germanic languages, is that the data did not provide enough evidence for morphological marking being used to convey primarily temporal distinctions (see Salaberry, 1999, The development of past tense verbal morphology in classroom L2 Spanish. Applied Linguistics, 20(2), 151–178. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/20.2.151; Wiberg, E. (1996). Reference to past events in bilingual Italian-Swedish children of school age. Linguistics, 34(5), 1087–1114. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1996.34.5.1087]) and presented the marking of telic predicates in foreground with perfective morphology as consistent, disregarding the level of participants’ performance.

The verbal expression of events of change in Bulgarian

The paper explores the verbal expression of events of change in Bulgarian, a Slavic language with a uniquely complex verbal system involving triplets of imperfective, perfective and secondary imperfective verbs and aspectual tenses like Aorist and Imperfect. It starts from the observation that English predicates involving events of change generally correspond to Bulgarian triplets of lexically related but aspectually differentiated verbs. It addresses this asymmetry by investigating the properties of the events in the denotation of the triplet members in terms of Rothstein’s (2004) aspectual features [±stage] and [±change]. The paper provides evidence for a systematic mapping between the aspectual properties of the triplet members and Rothstein’s event types and proposes an analysis of the event structure of the triplet members. The findings support both the assumption of independent event types denoted by verbal predicates and the notion of telicity as a VP-level phenomenon, and provide evidence for a strategy of expressing aspectual distinctions in which aspectual properties are not directly tied to the roots of verbal predicates but are partly morphologically and partly lexically encoded.

Научная рецензия на академическое издание: Актуальные проблемы грамматики и лексики славянских языков: сб. научных статей / отв. ред. О. А. Остапчук. М.: МАКС Пресс, 2024. 260 с.

The articles in this collection are based on presentations by Russian and foreign researchers at an international scientific conference dedicated to the memory of Professor Emeritus of Lomonosov Moscow State University and Doctor Honoris Causa of Charles University in Prague, the founder of the Russian school of Czech studies and long-time head of the Department of Slavic Philology A. G. Shirokova. The articles in the collection correspond to A. G. Shirokova’s multifaceted scientific interests: Czech and Slavic studies in synchronic and diachronic aspects, as well as comparative studies both within individual Slavic languages and in the case of comparing a particular Slavic language with a non-Slavic one.

Transliteration of non-Latin texts: from everyday practice to linguistic technologies

This paper discusses various transcoding systems designed to convert non-Latin texts into Latin script. Particularly significant is Romanization for Slavic languages. In general, the Latinization systems fall into two classes: those based on the transliteration approach and the ones based on practical transcription. During transliteration, the main attention is paid to simple correspondence (mutual unambiguity) between original and converted characters that allows for text reversibility, i. e. the ability to restore the original text after re-transliteration. During practical transcription, the primary concern is the sound of words. In the last scenario, it is not always possible to restore the original text. The significance of transliteration extends to historical texts written in non-Latin scripts as well. Latinization systems are broadly utilized in multilingual Natural Language Processing tasks, resulting in their wider use and enhanced need.

On the etymology of the word <i>konoval</i>

The author of the article analyzes the etymology of the lexeme konoval, which originally served to name people who were engaged in grooming and treating horses, as well as other domestic animals. They were homegrown doctors. The attitude towards them was ambiguous. Frequent unsuccessful results of treatment led to the fact that the word konoval began to acquire a negative connotation and, as a result, in the 18th century there appeared another meaning of the word in Russian language: ‘a bad, unqualified doctor’. There is no unity regarding the etymology of the lexeme konoval. There are two mutually exclusive points of view. M. Vasmer believes that this noun is borrowed from the Polish language. The compilers of the “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by N. M. Shansky share this view. The authors of the Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages edited by O. N. Trubachev attribute this lexeme to the Proto-Slavic lexical fund. The author examines in detail both versions of the origin of the lexeme. As a result of the analysis and referring to numerous Polish and East Slavic sources, we put forward a hypothesis that the word konoval is actually Russian. This lexeme originally belonged to the Old Russian language, and subsequently got into the Polish language through Ukrainian.

„Druga ojczyzna” w języku serbskim i chorwackim

In the wake of increasingly more frequent (forced or voluntary) migration, various names for the country chosen by the migrant as the place of work and residence also appear in Slavic languages. Compared to the lexically very numerous and richly motivated names for migrating people, the number of lexemes denoting the new homeland is smaller. Nevertheless, it deserves the attention of linguists and sociologists dealing with migration. This article analyzes the names for the “second homeland” in Serbian and Croatian. Examples of the use of these names are subjected to ethnolinguistic profiling, as stipulated in the ethnolinguistic method developed in Jerzy Bartmiński’s Lublin school. An important role in the profiles of these names is played by evaluation.