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VERBS OF CLOSING AND OPENING IN WESTERN KHANTY // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2017. Issue 4 (18). P. 16-28

This article deals with verbs of closing and opening in the Western local idioms of Khanty (the villages of Ovgort, Muzhi, Vosyahovo, Tegi). The data were collected during fieldwork. The Khanty material is considered within a broader typological investigation adopting the frame-based approach to lexical typology. I discuss the semantic distinctions in the domain concerned and the categorization of the basic frames, pointing out some dialectal variation. The asymmetry between the subdomains of closing and opening is also taken into account, as well as some metaphoric shifts accompanied by morphosyntactic changes.

Keywords: Khanty, verbs of closing, verbs of opening, semantics, lexical typology

KHANTY DICTIONARY BY THE PRIEST VOLOGODSKY: PECULIARITIES OF THE GRAPHICAL SYSTEM // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2020. Issue 4 (30). P. 30-40

The article deals with the graphical system of a Western Khanty manuscript — the Russian-Khanty dictionary created by the priest Vologodsky (1842). The language of this manuscript has not been described in detail so far; there is only some information about its history. I describe the inventory of graphical symbols used in the dictionary and discuss possible phonological correspondences for each of them in comparison with the data from the contemporary dialects of Western Khanty. The dictionary by Vologodsky has some features from Obdorsk and Berezovo dialects; different elements of the graphical (and phonological) system can show the characteristics of various dialects (thus, in many examples the letters о and а are mixed, which may correlate with the distribution of the phonemes /ɔ/ and /a/ in the Obdorsk dialect, but with few exceptions there is no mixing of the letters ш and с / the phonemes /š/ and /s/, which would be expected in the Obdorsk dialect). For some cases we may, however, suggest that the graphical system of the manuscript does not show some of the existing phonological oppositions (cf. no graphical differentiation for the phonemes /a/ and /ă/ consistently distinguished in Western Khanty). Another issue is the marking of word stress, in particular when it falls on the non-first syllables, and the use of two different symbols for word stress: the primary and the most frequent one, and the secondary one occurring on function words, and also on some content words.

Keywords: Khanty, manuscripts, graphics, phonetics, word stress

LEXEMES DENOTING LOUD AND QUIET SOUNDS IN HILL MARI // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2021. Issue 4 (34). P. 47-57

The article deals with adjectives and adverbs meaning ‘loud’ / ‘loudly’ and ‘quiet’ / ‘quietly’ in Hill Mari ( Uralic). The data were collected in fieldwork in the village of Kuznetsovo and in some nearby villages. I relied on the method of elicitation, as well as on the analysis of the corpus of transcribed oral narratives. The material from the published dictionaries was also considered. Studies of the domain in question (although quite rare) in other languages were taken into account as well. The theoretical framework of the article is the frame-based approach to lexical typology, which implies comparing the semantics of lexemes through the analysis of their combinability. I discuss semantic oppositions in the domain under consideration (low sound vs. absence of sound, speech vs. non-speech contexts, special lexemes for human behaviour and environment). Polysemy patterns developed by the relevant lexemes are analysed (the use of intensifiers with broad combinability in the contexts of loudness, the relation to the domain of speed). Some diachronic issues are touched upon, in particular the historical link between the meanings of low sound and low speed. The data are discussed in a theoretical perspective, including the issues of lexical polysemy (cf. papers by E. Rakhilina, T. Reznikova, V. Plungian, among others), caritive expressions in the lexicon (S. Tolstaya, among others), the opposition between a meaning component and an implicature which can be cancelled in a context (E. Paducheva, K. Kearns, among others).

Keywords: Uralic languages, Hill Mari, semantics, polysemy, expressions of loudness, intensification, semantic caritives

Verbs of Falling in the Tatyshly Udmurt Language // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2023. Issue 3 (41). P. 35-46

The article deals with verbs of falling (cf. in English: fall, drop, plummet, plunge, nosedive) in the Tatyshly subdialect of the Udmurt language (southern variant, peripheral-southern dialect). This domain has not yet been systematically studied based on Udmurt language material. The study relies on the frame-based approach to lexical typology, which proposes to describe semantics through collocation analyses of lexemes. The results are compared with the conclusions of the typological project and several language-specific articles on verbs of falling. The data were collected mainly by surveying native speakers (translation from Russian into Udmurt, evaluation and interpretation of sentences in Udmurt). Data from the Udmurt dictionaries and corpora are also considered. We analyze the main semantic oppositions in the domain of verbs of falling in the Tatyshly subdialect of the Udmurt language. First, it is the opposition between falling from above and changing from a vertical to a horizontal position. Second, a special verb for falling involves a subject’s destruction (typical of many languages). Third, there are a number of lexemes describing the movement of liquids and granular substances. We discuss their semantic properties, their connection to the falling of multiple subjects, and the constraints on their use in the latter contexts. Verbs of substance motion refer mainly to the falling of multiple small subjects, while larger subjects require dominant verbs of falling. Fourth, a special lexical item denotes the falling of a subject (either animate or, what is typologically curious, inanimate) onto its front. Finally, we discuss contiguity between the domain of falling and other domains (destruction, rotation, and other types of motion). The semantic reasons for colexification are formulated.

Keywords: lexical typology, semantics, polysemy, verbs of falling, verbs of movement, Udmurt language

The Concept of ‘Straight’ and Its Semantic Relations in Tatyshly Udmurt // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2024. Issue 2 (44). P. 35-45

This article deals with the semantics of lexemes with the meaning ‘straight(ly)’ (e.g., about the direction of motion) in the Tatyshly subdialect of Udmurt (Peripheral-Southern dialect, Southern variety). Methodologically, the study is follows the frame-based approach to lexical typology, which presupposes the investigation of lexical semantics through collocational analysis. The majority of the data was collected by elicitation in the Tatyshly district of the Republic of Bashkortostan (the villages of Nizhnebaltachevo, Staryj Kyzyl-Jar, Ivanovka, Novye Tatyshly, Starokal’mijarovo as well as Verkhnebaltachevo, Bigineevo, Aribash, Urazgil’dy). In addition, the text corpus collected in the field was used, and as a broader background, the data of some other varieties of Udmurt, mainly from dictionaries and corpora, were taken into account. The material from Udmurt is compared with typological generalizations about the lexemes with the meaning ‘straight(ly)’. I show that the meaning in question in Tatyshly Udmurt can be expressed by the lexeme šon′er (and its derivative šon′erak) and by the lexeme ves′ak. I analyze the distributional differences between these lexemes in the contexts in which they describe a straight line with different topological properties and motion along a straight line. Their abstract uses are also systematized. I discuss the secondary development of the meaning ‘straight(ly),’ which is typologically sophisticated: šon′er is probably related to the Proto-Uralic root for ‘good, healthy’ (and has no obvious cognates among the lexemes referring to a straight line in other Uralic languages). At the same time, ves′ak is derived from a universal quantifier ves′ borrowed from Russian. The quantificational semantics is fundamental to ves′ak in other Udmurt varieties for which detailed data are available. In Tatyshly Udmurt, however, it is unproductive and replaced by a narrower class of usages referring to a straight line.

Keywords: Uralic languages, Udmurt language, Tatyshly subdialect, lexical typology, semantics, polysemy