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No 4 (2025)
Articles
Birchbark letters from the excavations of 2024. I. Veliky Novgorod, Troitsky excavation site
Abstract
This article contains a preliminary publication of 30 birchbark letters found during the 2024 archaeological season at the Troitsky excavation in Veliky Novgorod. The vast majority of the published texts date back to the 12th century. Most important in historical and philological terms are the following items: a letter mentioning a military campaign and related negotiations with the prince (No. 1186); a letter about a court case mentioning an ordeal, namely, a water test (No. 1187); a woman’s letter of personal content, filled with emotional figurative language (No. 1229); a note with the curse “hang yourself” (No. 1189); an alphabet with an unusual design (No. 1183); a set of seven ‘labels’ with names (1201), a tag with the word rozmetъ ‘fee schedule’, identical to letter No. 1135 and written in the same hand (No. 1212). Of special linguistic interest are: the contaminated paradigm of the word for fish guts - čerevьe (Nom. sg.) / čerevьe (Nom. pl.), čerevьjaxъ (Loc. pl.) (No. 1173), the oldest example of the Nom. pl. ending -ě in the soft variant of the o-declension (No. 1186); two different symbols for [’o] (No. 1201), unusual forms of Gen. and Dat. of the first-person personal pronoun (No. 1229), the earliest fixations of the words voščaga, gumnica, žukъ, tata; the composition of alphabets (No. 1183, 1195); new etiquette formulas (Nos. 1210, 1211), and new anthroponyms: Vadogostь, Gorěnъ, Voixanъ, etc.
Voprosy Jazykoznanija. 2025;(4):7–41
7–41
Scales in the natural language: Some observations on semantics and typology
Abstract
In this article, we discuss scalar phenomena across domains, taking a scale to be a set of entities linearly ordered by some relation. We address scalar semantics of various linguistic expressions (gradable adjectives, comparatives, approximative constructions, verbal modifiers, modals, focus markers, among others). The study is based on the data from Indo-European, Uralic, Altaiic, Dogon, Gur languages, mostly collected during fieldwork conducted by the authors. The key research questions include the parameters of semantic variation across scalar expressions and the restrictions on this variation. We identify the characteristics of scalar structures used to analyze various linguistic items and describe basic operations on these structures. We argue that there are robust cross-linguistic regularities in how natural languages utilize scalar structures depending on the ontological type of ordered entities. In particular, times form a natural class with degrees in being arranged in a linear order. Individuals and events, in contrast, show a strong preference for a partial order. Finally, propositions are organized into scalar structures that can make use of both partial and linear order.
Voprosy Jazykoznanija. 2025;(4):42–76
42–76
Control in the infinitive purpose construction with the verbs prinesti ‘bring’ and vzjat’ ‘take’ in Russian
Abstract
In the article I consider the use of the conjunctionless purpose infinitive with the verbs prinesti ‘bring’ and vzjat’ ‘take’ in the matrix position in Russian. It is unclear whether the expressed object is a dependent of the matrix verb or the embedded verb and whether the two verbs form a single predicative complex or each constitutes a clause. In the paper, I demonstrate the results of syntactic tests regarding the monoclausality/biclausality of the construction. The data provided speaks in favour of the biclausality of the constructions and suggests that the object resides in the dependent clause. Such a configuration can be called “object-to-object backward control”, and it has been documented previously neither in literature on control nor in studies on purpose clauses. The control of the infinitival subject is also non-trivial. The choice between non-obligatory and subject control depends on the argument structure of both verbs and on their lexical semantics. Finally, I give a possible explanation for the emergence of the construction through merging of the verbs from the GIVE and TAKE frames and purpose constructions with motion verbs.
Voprosy Jazykoznanija. 2025;(4):77–96
77–96
The metrics of poems written by Antonina A. Kymytval in Chukchi
Abstract
This article explores the metrics of poems written by the poet Antonina A. Kymytval. The meter of the verse, written in Chukchi, has not been explored before. I collected a corpus of 40 texts and glossed them manually. After that, I analyzed the number of syllables in a line and the placement of word boundaries, stress, and syllables of different weight in the poems from the corpus. It turned out that the meter of Kymytval’s poems is syllabic; the position of word boundaries, both obligatory and optional, is regulated. The features of neither tonic nor quantitative metrics are detected. Due to the regular pattern of word boundaries, the length of words in Kymytval’s poems is different from the one in spontaneous Chukchi speech. These data show how the verse written in a polysynthetic language can be structured and how it differs from prose.
Voprosy Jazykoznanija. 2025;(4):97–128
97–128
Surveys
The human factor in Russian sociolinguistics (subjective notes)
Abstract
The article is devoted to the “anthropological turn” in Russian sociolinguistics and some theoretical problems related to the study of the “human factor”, or the category of subjectivity. The problem statement itself is based on the interpretation of the “human factor” in sociolinguistics as going beyond the traditional framework of socio-demographic factors and social roles and including language ideologies, language attitudes, identities and other subject-related phenomena. The author focuses on epistemological issues such as the specifics of the development of Soviet and Russian sociolinguistics in the global context from the perspective of the “human factor”, the boundaries of sociolinguistics, primarily with linguistic anthropology. The paper also examines terminological issues related to the translation of the term “language attitudes” into Russian. The author argues that there are narrow (traditional, standard) and broad (modern, integrative) interpretations of sociolinguistics; in the latter case, its expansion goes primarily in the anthropological direction. Both specific studies and whole disciplinary areas such as sociopsycholinguistics, linguistic ecology, ethnography of language policy, and critical ethnographic sociolinguistics are given as examples of the symbiosis of sociolinguistic and anthropological approaches. The specific studies illustrate the possibility of combining the richly detailed micro-level investigations typical for linguistic anthropology and macro-level conclusions and generalizations characteristic of (and expected from) sociolinguistics. In conclusion, some general considerations, prospects, and limitations of this work are given.
Voprosy Jazykoznanija. 2025;(4):129–156
129–156
Reviews
[Rets. na: / Review of:] A model of sonority based on pitch intelligibility. Berlin: Language Science Press, 2023. viii+222 pp. (Studies in Laboratory Phonology, 13.) ISBN 978-3-98554-068-6.
Voprosy Jazykoznanija. 2025;(4):157-164
157-164