NOUN DECLENSION SYSTEM IN UKRAINIAN MANUSCRIPTS OF THE 14TH-15TH CENTURIES: VARIABILITY OF FORMS

Abstract

The article analyzes the phenomenon of variability in the noun inflection system, found in Ukrainian manuscripts of the 14th-15th centuries, determines the reasons for such linguistic changes, clarifies further unification processes of the noun paradigm in the Ukrainian language, and establishes the place of parallelism in it.

The source base of the research covers the following published texts of business writing: a collection of charters of the 14th-15th centuries, compiled by V. Rozov, documents of the Galicia-Volyn principality of the 13th – first half of the 14th century, prepared for publication by O. Kupchinskyi, a collection of Ukrainian charters of the 14th century, compiled by M. Peshchak, a collection of Ukrainian charters of the 15th century, prepared by V. Rusanivskyi, three volumes of Ukrainian-Moldavian documents published in Romania in the second half of the 20th century, five charters of the end of the 14th - beginning of the 15th century. from the collection of Tomasz Nevodnychansky, which was analyzed for paleographic and linguistic features and published by O. Moldovan, as well as the Dictionary of the Old Ukrainian Language of the 14th-15th centuries, the Atlas of the Ukrainian Language, and other lexicographical works.

Due to the influence of the folk colloquial speech and other language systems, the phenomenon of analogy became especially prevalent, which resulted in the parallelism of the noun endings in various grammatical forms, in particular, in the genitive, dative, instrumental, locative singular, genitive, dative, instrumental plural. A number of linguistic changes in the monuments reflect the strong influence of the oral folk speech. Within the inflection system, the specific features of the Ukrainian dialects, in particular, the southwestern and Polesia dialects are singled out. There is certain destruction of the traditional orthography and the unification of the noun paradigm in the grammatical system of the Old Ukrainian language of the 14th-15th centuries, therefore, the general tendency to combine different types of declension and create a new system of noun declension.