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THE SIMILARITY OF NARRATIVE STRATEGIES IN NGANASAN AND MIDDLE TAZ SELKUP (some possible correlations of linguistics and ethnography) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2018. Issue 1 (19). P. 59-68

The paper describes folklore narrative strategies of Nganasan and the northernmost dialect of Selkup. These idioms both exhibit two narrative strategies based on the discourse use of indirect evidentials (Inferential and Reportative). Thus they differ from the rest of Samoyedic idioms which lack the distinction between these two indirect evidentials and thus lack formal means of differentiating the two narrative strategies. The paper discusses possible correlation of the narrative strategies with different folklore genres. It is argued, that one of the narrative strategies in question arose due to a peculiar Samoyedic folclore narrative technique. The paper discusses also some possible correlation of linguistic data with the cultural anthropology of the Nganasans and the Selkups.

Keywords: Middle Taz Selkup, Nganasan, narrative strategies, indirect evidentials, folklore, ethnography, cultural anthropology

PARALLEL DEVELOPMENT OF KHANTY AND SELKUP LANGUAGES IN THE "OSTYAK" AREA. I. PHONOLOGY // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2019. Issue 2 (24). P. 85-101

This paper deals with common linguistic features of Khanty and Selkup languages, which can be interpreted as contact-induced. On the one hand, Khanty and Selkup languages were in a situation of quite a long and stable interaction. On the other hand, each of these languages is characterized by a high degree of dialect divergency, and local variants of both languages in demonstrate a higher degree of interference of linguistic systems. Thus, instances of contact-induced changes are stratified depending on whether they represent a more archaic stratum, being attested in all varieties of Khanty and Selkup, or later contact-driven innovations with a limited areas of distribution. In the paper Selkup data is compared to the data of other Samoyed languages. On the one hand, the comparison shows that Khanty always should be regarded as a donor language, and Selkup - as a recipient language. On the other hand, a comparison of Eastern Khanty dialects with Southern and Northern Khanty dialects one can suspect a "conservative" areal influence on Eastern Khanty, wchich resulted in the retaintion of a number of archaic linguistic features lost by other dialects. Within the domain of phonology the following instances of interference can be distinguished: 1. Phenomena common to the Khanty and Selkup: Consonant systems; Restrictions on the vocalism of later syllables; Paradigmatic ablaut; 2. Phenomena peculiar to the Selkup and Eastern dialects of the Khanty: Vowel systems; "Labialized consonants"; Secondary Selkup vowel harmony 3. Phenomena peculiar to individual dialects of Selkup and Eastern dialects of Khanty: Secondary "Narym" vowel harmony.

Keywords: the Khanty language, the Selkup language, language contact, linguistic interference, dialectology, phonology

PASSIVE IN WESTERN MANSI // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2021. Issue 1 (31). P. 94-131

The paper describes the following aspects of the use of passive forms in Western Mansi narratives: — grammatical semantics of forms with passive morphology (passive in a strict sense, impersonal constructions, adversative, ...); — information structure of passive utterances; — pragmatic conditions for choosing between active and passive voice. On the one hand, in Western Mansi arose a specific correlation between different functions of passive with different communicative structures: — the passive in a strict sense, like the adversative, is used only with a topical object; — the adversative can be used with a topical as well as with a focal subject, whereas the passive — only with a topical one; — the adversative developed a special discursive function: the introduction of a new (focal) subject into the narrative; On the other hand, the passive in a strict sense, whose primary function is a ranking of topics according to their communicative salience, is used in Western Mansi narratives almost automatically. It is used to promote the only one patientive argument — only the main protagonist of a story. This means that speakers do not use passive voice to rank topics; rather they choose a passive form depending on an already predetermined rank.

Keywords: Mansi language, passive voice, grammatical semantics

On the Etymology of the Probabilitative Suffix -qxiə in the Language of the Tundra Nenets // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2023. Issue 1 (39). P. 43-54

The article proposes the etymology of the suffix -qxiə, which is part of several morphologically complex verbal grammatical markers of the Tundra Nenets language. In recent publications, most of these forms use the terms probabilitative or probabilistic. The probabilitative suffix denotes an epistemic estimate based on common knowledge. This suffix has a non-trivial morphological position in the Tundra Nenets language: it is used as the second component in compound markers, the first component of which may be a morpheme based on suffixes of the perfective or imperfective participle. Conversely, no morphemes other than personal suffixes can be used after participial suffixes in the Tundra Nenets language. Grammatical markers historically related to Tundra Nenets -qxiə are found in the Forest Enets and Nganasan languages. In the Forest Enets language, the cognate morpheme is also part of a compound affix where the preceding component goes back to a participial suffix, as in the Tundra Nenets language. In Nganasan, the cognate marker with the same meaning is a syntactically independent element that can be used either as a particle attached to any finite verb form or as an auxiliary that marks the main verb with a connegative suffix. The nontrivial morphological position of the marker in the Tundra Nenets language and its cognate in the Forest Enets language suggests that the forms under consideration in these languages also derive from auxiliary constructions. At the same time, the structure and grammatical form of the elements of these constructions have developed independently in each of the three languages.

Keywords: Etymology, verbal morphology, Northern Samoyedic languages, Tundra Nenets language, Enets language, Nganasan language