Journal archive

Abstract: The article analyzes modern trends in the use of the toponym Moskva-reka with the indeclinable first part. The research material includes the scientific works of the representatives of the Moscow Linguistic School – F. F. Fortunatov, D. N. Ushakov, S. I. Ozhegov and others, as well as the National Corpus of the Russian Language. The aim of the study is to reveal the frequency of usage of the forms of indirect cases of the hydronym Moskva-reke, Moskva-reki, Moskva-reku, Moskva-rekoi in different genre sources – newspaper and magazine articles, diary and memoir prose, fiction narrative text, poetry (for the sake of comparison, information is also provided from oral and multimedia corpora). One more objective of the work is to discuss the problem of defining the geographical name Moskva-reka as a compound word (composite) or a phrase with an apposition, as well as to determine the element which fulfills the function of an opposition in this word combination (according to the author of the article, it is the toponym Moskva that is the apposition and not the common noun as a generic name of an inanimate object). The research methods used in the paper include analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, and the methods of comparative, quantitative, explanatory-interpretive, descriptive, and corpus analysis. The total sample size from the National Corpus of the Russian Language comprises 457 word usages. According to the National Corpus of the Russian Language, the phrase Moskva-reki with the indeclinable first part expressed by a hydronym was first found in printed sources in 1886 – in the memoirs “From My Life” by N. P. Gilyarov-Platonov. Then, after a significant break that lasted for over twenty years, the hydronym is recorded in newspaper publications, memoirs, the diary genre, and, in a smaller number of contexts – in fiction prose and poetry. Some representations of the geographical name Moskva-reka indicate its use in the function of an urbanonym. The data on the activity of the hydronym in various stylistic areas allow concluding that the combinations Moskva-reke and the like have vivid colloquial, journalistic and folklore connotations and cannot claim the status of a strict bookish and literary morphological norm of the modern Russian literary language.

About the author(s) :

Natalia V. Patroeva

Petrozavodsk State University (Petrozavodsk, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3836-6393

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 25.09.2023; date of publication: 30.12.2023

References:

Fortunatov, F. F. (1885). Lektsii po sravnitel'nomu yazykovedeniyu : sravnitel'noe sklonenie [Lectures on Comparative Linguistics: Comparative Declension]. 308 p. URL: https://biblioclub.ru/index.php?page=book&id=68539 (mode of access: 04.08.2023).

Fortunatov, F. F. (1956). Sravnitel'noe yazykovedenie [Comparative Linguistics]. In Fortunatov F. F. Izbrannye trudy [Selected Works]. Moscow, Gos. uchebno-pedagogich. izd-vo, 1956. V. I. 450 p.

Gorshkova, K. V. (1973). Voprosy orfoepii v rabotakh D. N. Ushakova [Issues of Orthoepy in the Works of D. N. Ushakov]. In Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya Filologiya. № 1, pp. 86–90.

Levashov, E. A. (2009). Eshche raz o Moskve-reke i Moskva-reke [Once Again about Moskve-reke and Moskva-reke]. In Russkaya rech'. № 3. Pp. 52-54.

Ozhegov, S. I. (1974). Sklonyaetsya li Moskva-reka? [Is the Word Moskva-reka Declining?]. In Ozhegov S. I. Leksikologiya. Leksikografiya. Kul'tura rechi. Moscow, Vysshaya shkola. 352 p. 

Pravila russkoi orfografii i punktuatsii : Polnyi akademicheskii spravochnik [Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation: Complete Academic Reference Book] (2007). Main ed. V. V. Lopatin. Moscow, Eksmo. 480 p.

Pravila russkoi orfografii i punktuatsii [Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation] (1957). Moscow, Uchpedgiz. 176 p.

Reformatskii, A. A. (1950). Metodicheskie ukazaniya i rukovodstvo po sovremennomu russkomu yazyku [Methodological Instructions and Guidance on the Modern Russian Language]. Moscow, Izd-vo Literaturnogo instituta Soyuza sovetskikh pisatelei. 536 p.

Superanskaya, A. V. (1985). Chto takoe toponimika? [What is Toponymy?]. Moscow, Nauka. 182 p.

Ushakov, D. N. (1995a). K voprosu o pravil'nom proiznoshenii [On the Issue of Correct Pronunciation]. In Ushakov, D. N. Russkii yazyk [Russian Language]. Moscow, Prosveshchenie, AO «Uchebnaya literatura», pp. 180-186.

Ushakov, D. N. (1995b). Russkii yazyk [Russian Language]. Moscow, Prosveshchenie, AO «Uchebnaya literatura». 320 p.