ТЕНДЕНЦИЯ РАЗВИТИЯ АКЦЕНТОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ НОРМ В РЕЧИ СОВРЕМЕННЫХ МОЛОДЫХ МОСКВИЧЕЙ

Introduction

Many linguists have been studying the Russian accentuation issues over the last hundred years . The accentuation norms in specific words have been described adequately and thoroughly enough. Nevertheless, a number of reasons dictate the need to study the accentuation regulations in the Russian words. First of all, these are current changes in the sound structure of our language: some accentuation norms get obsolete, archaic or even leave the language system; they are replaced by other specific features of accentuation; the fact is that the pronunciation considered as wrong yesterday, today may become the literary norm and vice versa. The second reason for the choice of dissertation [3] issue is related to fundamental differences of accentuation norms codified and specified in dictionaries and reference books from accentuation preferences observed in the speech of many educated native speakers of Russian literary language. Let’s consider some examples. For instance, the Orthoepic Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by Ruben Ivanovich Avanesov [1] recommends for the past form of the verb налить (nalit’ – to pour) the pronunciation нáлил (´nalil – he poured up) as a primary option, while, according to the current research data, 95% of people say нали́л (na´lil – he poured up). Accent in the word вклю́чит (´vklyuchit – he will switch on) is prohibited in all dictionaries, only the option включи́т (vklyu´chit – he will switch on) is allowed, but what if more than 90% of today’s youth chooses the variant вклю́чит (´vklyuchit – he will switch on)? Examples of this kind of discrepancies between the dictionary recommendations and actual practice are numerous. But since we have no any reliable statistically documented data on the percentage of literary speaking people preferring and actually practicing a particular accent, many solutions offered by the authors of dictionaries look like their personal preferences.

The norm is changing, and this fact should be taken into account. In connection with abovementioned, two types of norms should be recognized such as a codified dictionary norm and a usual norm, which is considered herein as an objectively existing accentuation preference of an educated native speaker in choosing the “right” expression way.

Thus, the research rationale consists, first of all, in a purely descriptive need to fix a “minor” pronunciation norm in the field of accentuation by detailed description of accentuation features in the speech of today’s young generation. Secondly, in the possibility to compare them with the codified norms in order to identify and describe in detail the phonetic innovations. Thirdly, in the need to formulate internal and external causes of the observed changes by identifying trends in accentuation norms in speech of young Muscovites.

The research object is the speech of Russian native speakers of “minor” literary norm in Moscow in the early twenty first century.

The research subject is accentuation in the speech of young Muscovites in variable accent forms of nouns, adjectives, and verbs.

The research objective is a systematic description of “minor” accentuation norm in its Moscow variant.

The experimental research is based on a set of orthoepic observations obtained in the course of special experiments on sounding speech of young Muscovites (mostly not the first generation) at the age of 16 – 25 years, who were at the time of the experiment high school and university students, both male and female, being native speakers of literary pronunciation norm.

In total, 13,976 answers were received in the course of research: 7,048 – oral narration answers and 6,928 – written questioning results. Representativeness of this selection is indicative of the reliability of the obtained results.

Results

1. Accentuation Norms of Nouns

The first part of this paper describes the results obtained under the experimental study of accentuation norms of nouns in the speech of today’s young Muscovites. We studied the position of accent in 78 words and phrases characterized by variable accentuation or frequent mistakes in accents. The research was conducted based on the types of accent variations to determine linguistic and sociolinguistic reasons of accent changes in nouns. As a result, some generalizations and conclusions were made.

Russian nouns in the speech of young Muscovites are subject to accentuation changes largely due to accent position alignment in forms of the same number and accent contrasting in singular and plural forms under the analogy law. For instance, the nouns such as перстни, лоси, отрасли, месяцы, швеи, госпитали, тени (perstni – finger rings, losi – moose deers, otrasli – industry sectors, mesyatsy – months, shvei – sewers, gospitali – hospitals, and teni – shadows) were studied. Each studied noun has only one codified accent variant  (rarer, preferable): пéрстней, лóсей, óтраслей, швея́м, месяцáм (´perstnei – of finger rings, ´losei – of moose deers, ´otraslei – of industry sectors, shve´yam – to sewers, and mesya´tsam – for months), except for words such as теня́ х (тéнях) (te´nyakh – under shadows (´tenyakh – under shadows)) and госпиталя́х (гóспиталях) (gospita´lyakh – in hospitals (´gospitalyakh – in hospitals)) characterized by a variable accentuation. According to the questioning results, this range is dominated by an the inflexion accent in the ratio of 106 to 69 cases (65%), except for nouns such as перстни (´perstni – finger rings) (62% chose the pronunciation пéрстней (´perstnei – of finger rings)) and госпитали (gospitali – hospitals) (78% used гóспиталях –´gospitalyakh (in hospitals)) that is indicative of the pronounced tendency to accent contrasting of noun singular and plural forms.

Another important reason for variations in the noun accentuation is pragmatic. The studied words such as дымы, джемперы, бункеры, штормы, бунты, банты (dymy – smoke agents, dzhempery – sweaters, bunker – bunkers, shtormy – hurricanes, bunty – uprisings, and banty – bowknots) can serve as an example of “poor knowledge” and rare use of Russian language by speakers affecting the accent variability. According to the research results, based on the use of these nouns by young Muscovites, over 70% of cases were marked by a clear trend of stem accenting in the following words: джéмперов, штóрмы, бу́ нкеров, бáнты(´dzemperov – of sweaters, ´shtormy – hurricanes, ´bunkerov – of bunkers, and ´bunty – uprisings). These words are rarely used by respondents, because they were borrowed from a foreign language not long ago. On the contrary, other accent variations were observed in nouns such as дымы and банты (smoke agents and bowknots): the percentage superiority of inflexion accent in words such as дымы́ and банты́ (dy´my – smoke agents and ban´ty – bowknots) is approximately 66%. Young Muscovites relate these nouns with something familiar and stylistically neutral. The worse knowledge of the considered nouns, the more often accent is “tied” to the word stem; the better knowledge of the words, the more often accent is shifted towards the word’s end.

Hence, it is possible to suggest the completely set tendency to shifting the inflexion accent in most accent types, except for four-, five-, and six-syllable nouns tending to the rhythmic balance. The rhythmic balance tendency is an inclination of the Russian accent to gravitate towards the word center (the balance between pre-tonic and post-tonic word parts) with shifting to its second half. For example, in the words such as нормирование and премирование (normirovanie – rate setting and premirovanie – bonus payment), dictionaries either allow the pronunciation нормировáние and премировáние (normiro´vanie – rate setting and premiro´vanie – bonus payment) only, or consider this variant to be preferable. But according to the research results, it is clear that the system of usual norms is dominated by variants such as норми́рование  (87%)  and  преми́рование  (64%)  (nor´mirovanie  –  rate  setting    and pre´mirovanie – bonus payment). The accent transfer by a syllable backwards is explained by the tendency to rhythmic balance.

2. Accentuation Norms of Adjectives

The second part of this research is focused on adjectives. The position of accent in 43 adjectives with accent variability was studied.

As for long adjectives, the main reason of accentuation changes in the speech of young Muscovites was the need for differentiation of rarely used adjectives with a bookish connotation from common adjectives with neutral or informal connotations (pragmatic reason).

According to the research results, the first ones (rarely used) are characterized by a stem accent, while the second ones, by an inflexion accent: автозаводскóй (72%) (avtozavod´skoi – car making), обходнóй (89%) (obkhod´noi – roundabout), плюсовóй (95%) (plyuso´voi – above zero), громовóй (72%) (gromo´voi – side-splitting), суповóй (87%) (supo´voi – bouillon), ножевóй (95%) (nozhe´voi – cutting tool), and договорнóй (87%) (dogovor´noi – agreement based), whereas in rarely used words the situation is as follows: околозéмный (55%) (okolo´zemnyi – circumterrestrial) and пи́сарский (84%) (´pisarsky   –chancellery).  The established  facts  are  often  in  contrast  with  the  recommendations   of dictionaries, for example, in Orthoepic Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by R. I. Avanesov [1], автозавóдский (avtoza´vodskii – car making) and договóрный (dogo´vornyi – agreement based) are considered as basic variants.

Changes in the accentuation of short adjectives in present-day “minor” pronunciation are related to morphological cause involving accent contrast between long and short forms, feminine singular short adjectives and other forms, as well as accent “alignment” under the analogy law for short adjectives. For example, to study short neuter singular and plural forms, the following short adjectives were selected: мало, полно, пестро, бело, старо, хитры, and красны (malo – little, polno – full, pestro – colorful, belo – white, staro – old, khitry – sly, and krasny – red) (most dictionaries consider the possibility of equal accent options for these adjectives, except for invariable words such as малó и стáро (ma´lo – little and ´staro – old). In the experiment, when choosing the accent, most respondents selected the inflexion accent: малó (97%), старó (70%), пестрó (83%), хитры́ (77%) (ma´lo, sta´ro, pest´ro, and hit´ry); when subdividing short plural adjectives into accent types, most respondents shifted accent to the word’s end instead of keeping it on the stem of adjectives such as тверды́ (84%), грубы́ (54%), and веселы́  (69%) (tver´dy – hard, gru´by – rude, and vese´ly – gay). This variability is related to a pronounced tendency to accent contrast between long and short forms (for instance, крáсный – красна́ , краснó, красны́ (´krasny – kras´na, kras´no, krasn´y; red – she is red, it is red, they are red) and accent “alignment” under the analogy law for short adjectives (for instance, старá, старó, стары́  (sta´ra, sta´ro, sta´ry – she is old, it is old, they are old).

As a whole, the accent grammaticalization leads to a growing trend of transferring the accent to the end of adjectives.

3. Accentuation Norms of Verbs

The third part of the research was devoted to Russian verbs: the position of accent in 51 verbs with a variable accentuation was studied.

The main trend of variations in the accentuation of present/future simple verbs is related to the replacement of fixed accent at the end of verbs with the -ить (-it’) infinitive by mobile accent that is explained by the accentuation regression in this group of words due to the accent grammaticalization:  глýшит (100%),  вклю́чишь  (97%),  пóит (79%),  крóшит (69%), мáнят (90%), and дóят (97%) (´glushit – he suppresses, ´vklyuchish – you switch on, ´poit – he wines, ´kroshit – he crumbs, ´manyat – they invite, and ´doyat – they milk).

It should be noted that the use of verbs such as глýшит (100%), звóнит (29%), вклю́ чит (97%) (´glushit – he suppresses, ´zvonit – he rings, and ´vklyuchit – he will switch on) with a stem accent is considered by many dictionaries. as not meeting the literary norm (or as colloquialisms); this consideration is not consistent with the today’s real speech of the Moscow youth.

Then, accent variations in non-derivative past tense verbs were considered. They are related to the occurrence of progressive accent (accent transfer in inflexion) in the past tense neuter and rarer in plural by analogy with accent feminine singular. For instance, 80% of respondents selected далó (da´lo – it gave); 71% of respondents selected ждалó (zhda´lo – it waited);  82%  –  звалó  (zva´lo – it  called) (at codifying these  options  are marked  as  “not recommended”); 70% – прялá (prya´la – she spun), and 81% of Muscovites selected ткалá (tka´la –she weaved); these data confirm the productive efficiency of these verb accents.

As for prefixed past tense verbs, the accent variation is characterized by shifting the “major” accent from prefix to root in masculine neuter forms and plural in the past tense under the analogy rule, the accent position alignment by infinitive. According to orthoepic dictionaries, accent on prefix is preferable, while accent on stem is allowed. Meanwhile, 53% of respondents, on average, used the stem accent in studied verbs, and only 35% of respondents used the prefix accent: нали́ ли – 93% (na´lili – they poured up), зажи́ ли – 68% (za´zhili – they began to live), отня́ л – 51% (ot´nyal – he took away), прожи́ л – 61% (pro´zhil – he lived), and обня́ л – 62% (ob´nyal – he embraced). It should be noted that the respondents unexpectedly used the inflection accent for the past tense neuter verb (for instance, обдалó – 94%; obda´lo – it poured over) that can be explained by the accent position alignment by analogy with the codified inflection accent in feminine verbs.

Moreover, prefixed feminine singular verbs were characterized by backwards transfer of accent from inflection to stem that may be due to the accent position alignment in past tense feminine similar verbs by analogy to other forms (masculine, neuter, plural) of verbs. Yet, 85% of respondents, on average, preferred the accent on inflexion (for example, собралá– 91%, sobra´la – she collected; полилá – 84%, poli´la – she poured), 15% – on verb stem (for example, проспáла – 8%, pros´pala – she overslept; назвáла – 26%, naz´vala – she named), while 79% of respondents preferred the inflexion accent in a variant pair with the prefix accent and 21% preferred the prefix accent (for example, при́была – 46%, ´pribyla – she arrived; при́няла – 15%, ´prinyala – she accepted).

Accent variations in the post-affix past tense masculine verbs demonstrated almost completed obsolescence of post-affix accent and replacing it with stem accent in the speech of young Muscovites under the analogy rule: извёлся (92%) (izvyolsya – he run distracted) and admissible older variant – извелся́ (8%) (izvel´sya); расплёлся (100%) (rasplyol´sya – he unweaved) and acceptable older variant – расплелся́ (0%) (rasplel´sya), that is, there was the accent alignment by the relevant masculine past tense non-reflexive verb. It stands to mention the verbs such as обняться and наняться (obnyatsya – to embrace, and nanyatsya – to be hired), which also can be used with the prefix accent: 12% of respondents preferred the prefix accent in the verb “embrace” – óбнялся (´obnyalsya – he embraced) and 72% of respondents in the verb “to be hired” –  нáнялся (´nanyalsya – he was hired) that is not recognized by dictionaries, but can be explained by the analogy rule in the speech of young Muscovites.

As for past tense post-affix feminine, neuter and plural verbs, the experiments confirmed the stability of their inflexion accent in the speech of young Muscovites (собрали́сь –  68% of respondents, sobra´lis – they got together; драли́сь – 84%, dra´lis – they fought; дождало́сь – 87%, dozhda´los – it awaited; and лило́сь – 88%, li´los – it poured out), but rare stem accents in these verbs are indicative of the tendency to the accent alignment by non- reflexive masculine verbs and the tendency to rhythmic balance.

Conclusion

Based on the aforementioned, the following conclusion can be made: accentuation norms codified in different lexicographical sources drastically differ from the actual distribution of accentuation options in the speech of today’s young Muscovites. This is due to various linguistic and extra-linguistic reasons. Despite the fact that the dissertation research [3] is as a whole descriptive rather than codified in nature, it should be noted that in most cases the identified innovations are not random, and each change is caused by a particular linguistic systemic reason.