A NEW IDEA IN RUSSIAN LEXICOGRAPHY

ABSTRACT

In this article, the first historical and derivational dictionary of Russian language is described. This dictionary characterizes the Russian language lexems from the historical point of view: each word has a date of its occurance in Russian texts, the way of derivation and ethymology (Proto-Slavonic archetype is shown, since this may explain the most of Russian language’s sound alternations). The goals of the project are impungment of pseudo-scientific theories (like, M. Zadornov’s works) and highlighting the derivational issues among philologists and interested readers (therefore, the e-book form is chosen: http://www.drevoslov.ru). ‘Drevoslov’ includes mostly standard Russian language’s matherial (dialectisms are shown only if it is necessary), and the original slavonic words are devided from the borrowings, which are put in the section ‘Inoslov’. The size of the dictionary is more than 8000 words (112 roots), the matherial is being constantly fullfilled. Drevoslov has unique notes about some words and word’s meanings and stylistic functions.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В работе описывается первый историко-словообразовательный словарь русского языка «Древослов», толкующий лексемы с точки зрения диахронии: для каждого слова указывается дата первого появления в текстах, способ словообразования и этимология (возведение до праславянского архетипа, так как именно на этом уровне можно объяснить большинство чередований). Цели проекта – борьба со лженаукой (например, с работами М. Задорнова) и освещение проблем словообразования как среди специалистов, так и среди широких слоёв населения (поэтому для словаря выбрана электронная форма: http://www.drevoslov.ru). «Древослов» включает в себя в основном материал русского литературного языка (диалектизмы описываются лишь при необходимости), при этом исконно славянские корни отделены от заимствований, помещённых в отдельный раздел «Инослов». Объём словаря – более 8000 слов (112 корней), материал постоянно пополняется. Дополнительную ценность словарю придаёт тот факт, что в нём описаны не зафиксированные в других словарях слова (например, вербохлёст), значения (впервые подробно описана разница между прилагательными вербный и вербовый) и заметки о стилистической окраске и функционировании слов (например, боров).

Keywords: historical derivation, lexicography, ethymology, e-dictionary, Russian language history.

Ключевые слова: Историческое словообразование, лексикография, этимология, электронный словарь, история русского языка.

Introduction

Many linguists note that historical derivation is still badly explored [1], and sometimes it causes pseudoscientific theories [2]. So, we have to go deeply into the history of languages and spread the ideas at the same time. A format of e-dictionary is very helpful in this situation. So, this paper is dedicated to the first historical and derivational dictionary of the Russian language ‘Drevoslov’, which is being created since 2013 by a team of scientists headed by prof. A. M. Kamchatnov [3, pp. 23–24]. This work must serve two goals: the scientific investigation of historical derivation and popularization of science (the target group are high school students, teachers and those who are interested in Russian language’s history). Therefore, the dictionary is being created solely in the electronic form: http://www.drevoslov.ru [4]. This website has several parts: ‘Inoslov’ (in this section, the loan translations and borrowings are described), the subsection where the morphemes are described, and the subsection with the primordially Slavonic material. We can also find there some articles about historical derivation, which disprove pseudo-scientific theories (like G. Emel’yanenko and M. Zadornov’s works) and help non-professional readers to learn the basis of linguistics [5], [6].

The dictionary’s site contains valuable notes about the stylistic function of derivation (we still have a few of such works) [7].

Methods

It is important to note that the dictionary is monolingual, linguistic, historical and derivational. The methods that are used in the dictionary are comparative historical, hermeneutical, material’s gathering and analysis etc.

Main results

The most substantial part of the website contains the information about Slavonic roots and all their derivatives (where verbs and nouns are divided). A word’s description in the dictionary starts from the word’s etymology, the research of the word’s history stops on the Proto-Slavic epoch, since the vast majority of the allomorphs can be explained by this level.

Picture 1. The derivational chain on the site looks like this

As it was noted before, every word of a chain is described; we have the information about the way of derivation, the word’s etymology, the word’s presence in the historical and the contemporary Russian dictionaries, and in Russian National Corpus (ruscorpora.ru) [8]. This combination of the sources helps us to discover and describe new (or vanishing) rare words and word's meanings. Such happened during the analysis of two words: ‘verbovyj’ / ‘verbnyj’; both words mean ‘willow’ adj. But ‘verbovyj’ is vanishing from the Russian language, while ‘verbnyj’ is staying in the set word combination ‘verbnoje voskresenije’ (‘Palm Sunday’). And it is noticeable that ‘verbovyj’ doesn't have a religious component in its meaning (in the most of the occurrences), but the word ‘verbnyj’ still has it.

Verbovyj:

«Вéрбовый, вая, вое. Прил. 1) Вербѣ свойственный. Вербовые барашки. 2) Из вербы состоящiй. Вербовые кусты» (Appropriate to a willow tree, made of willow) [9, C. 599]. М. А. Шолохов. Поднятая целина. Книга 1 (1932) ― единственный раз сурово, сквозь стиснутые зубы, бормотнул Давыдов и выхватил из рук какой-то бабенки сухой вербовый колышек, хряпнул его об колено [8].

Verbnyj:

«Вéрбный, ная, ное. прил. Принадлежащiй к цвѣтоносной недѣлѣ. Вербной четвертокъ. Вербная пятница. Вербное воскресенье» (Appropriate to Palm Sunday) [9, p. 599].

The only dictionary of Russian language, which shows it, is Drevoslov (http://www.drevoslov.ru/verbatree/7586-verbnyj).

It is important to note that the subject of the dictionary is solely Standard Russian Language, and the dialectal material is included only if it is necessary (for example, it happened with the word ‘verbina’ )’big willow rod’), which existed in Russian language in the 18th century, but now it is very exotic (only 1 occurrence in ruscorpora.ru, excluding surnames and toponyms: Что делать с остальными вербинами, не знали [Василь Быков. Знак беды]). But this word still occurs in the North-Russian dialects: «Вéрбина, ы, ж. 1. То же, что 1. Верба (в 1-м знач.). Тихв. Новг., Великолукск. Пск. 1852. Пск., Новг.» ([11, p. 121]). Thereby, we can trace the word’s history and functioning only in connection with the dialects [12], so the dialectal material is described.

Also, it was necessary to include in the dictionary lexeme ‘verbohl’ost’ (a Cossak dance with a whip), because there was no dictionary (even dialectal) which would have described this word (http://www.drevoslov.ru/verbatree/7588-verbohlyost).

Another case where the dialectisms are necessary is the word ‘borov’ (‘castrated pig’): for the understanding of its etymology we took dialectal dictionaries, and it occurred that we have there much wider meaning of the word than in Standard Russian language: in dialects, any castrated animal could be named ‘borov’:

«Бóров <…> Кастрированный бык. В стаде боров. Мужик запряг борова в сани и в лес за дровами. Лунин. Пенз., 1953. Боров один в стаде-то есть. Кириш. Ленингр» (Castrated bull: there is a bull [‘borov’] in the herd; the man harnessed the bull [‘borov’] in the sled and went into the forest to cut some woods [Penza]; there is a bull [‘borov’] in the herd [Leningradskaya oblast’]) [9, p. 103].

Afterwards, when the ethymology was forgotten, even uncastrated animal could be called ‘borov’:

«БÓРОВ, а, м. 1. Самец свиньи. Пачти́ ф кáждай семьé сви́ньи и бóраф. Аш. Трубецкое. Бóраф жывё, а свиння́ паги́ла. Остр. Кайново» (Male pig: almost every family has female pigs and a breeding male pig; the male pig [‘borov’] is alive, but the female pig is dead.) [13, p. 116]; «БÓРОВ¹, -а, м. Племенной козел. Бóрова нáть, веть с кéм опхóдяцца они́ (козы). МЕЗ. Кмж.» (A breeding goat: we need a breeding goat for them [female goats] [Mezen’; Arkhangel’sk]) [14, p. 78].

We also should note that ‘Drevoslov’ includes such a conception as a virtual word, which is not met in Russian texts, but it can explain some words’ origin. Its existence is supposed, because these words are necessary in a derivational chain [15, p. 102]:

Сбагрять — сбагряю (To shake off)

*С/багр/я/ть — *с/багр/я/j/у, -ешь гл. От основы сбагри/ть в переносном значении. СО — суффиксальный, суфф. -а- со значением отвлеченно-длительного способа действия…

Автор: Александр Камчатнов (http://www.drevoslov.ru/bagortree/5330-sbagryat-sbagryayu).

In the dictionary, 8000 words and 112 roots are already described, and the data are constantly fulled.

Since one of the major goals of the dictionary is to fight with pseudo-scientific ethymology, the Drevoslov’s authors spread their ideas on conferences for youth: the material from the website is discussed on the conferences, held by Vladimir state university (Vladimir, Russia: http://www.vlsu.ru/index.php?id=140&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3275) and ‘Synergy’ University (Moscow, Russia), and also on the the International Scientific Symposium ‘Lexicography of the Digital Age’ (Tomsk, September 24–25, 2021) [16].

The geography of the dictionary's readers is very wide. The users can get the consultation about the historical derivation on the website http://www.drevoslov.ru/home/contacts, so it also helps to refute false ethymology and derivation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can say that the project doesn’t have any analogues and can be useful both for historians of the language and for specialists working in synchronous linguistics.

References:

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