Język cerkiewnosłowiański ruskiej redakcji drukowanych przekładów Dobrej Nowiny. Fonetyka, fleksja imienna i werbalna

Abstract

The aim of the work is to carry out a multidimensional linguistic analysis of two Church Slavonic old prints: the Ostrog Bible of 1581 (OB) and the Jabłeczna Gospel Book of 1771 (EJ), both being part of the Ruthenian recension. The EJ is property of the St. Onuphrius Stauropegial Orthodox Monastery in Jabłeczna (Lubelskie Voivodeship, Poland). The relic was produced at the printery of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in March 1771. The OB, in turn, is the first printed Slavonic translation of the Holy Scriptures, which determined the lot of the Ruthenian recension Church Slavonic language for many centuries, influencing the form of subsequent editions of the Slavonic Bible. The aim of the juxtaposition of the two tests is to show the differences which occurred in the Church Slavonic language between the first printed translation and the 18th century, and to determine the writing norms adopted and applied in printed Gospel texts being part of the Ruthenian language used by the Church. The work comprises an introduction, three chapters and the final results. CHAPTER 1. It is composed of two subchapters. The first of them is devoted to detailed description of the source texts, and the second one, to the history of production of the printed Slavonic Bible. The chapter is a kind of attempt to systematize the knowledge on the production of the printed edition of the Holy Scriptures in Slavonic countries. CHAPTER 2. PHONETICS. This part of the work discusses the relation between the Ruthenian recension Church Slavonic old prints and the phonetic phenomena regarded by researchers as representative for Old Church Slavonic texts. The connections between the old prints and the Russian language were described in greatest detail. The aim of the analysis was to determine the writing norms adopted and applied in printed Gospel texts being part of the Ruthenian Church language. CHAPTER 3. INFLECTION. The morphological analysis was focused on noun, adjective, pronoun and verb inflection. Since the excerpted material did not confirm any significant discrepancies in the adjective and pronoun declination paradigm (the changes mostly refer to phonetics and orthography), the discussion only concentrates on the inflection of nouns and verbs. The conducted linguistic analysis proved that the changes introduced to the printed Gospel texts were very varied. They are manifested both in phonetics and in inflection. The phonetics of both texts is undoubtedly strongly connected with the Old Church Slavonic canon, which is exemplified by ѱ < *tj, *kt, *gt, initial position *je, metathesis with lengthening in *TorT type groups, initial position combinations such as raT-, laT- irrespective of intonation, or l’ epentheticum at labial consonants. Since a native language of the Eastern Slavs was developing along with the Church Slavonic language, many East Slavonic phonetic phenomena spread to the texts. It does not mean, however, that they completely replaced the qualities of the Old Church Slavonic language. Both the OB and the EJ represent simultaneous accumulation of various, often contradictory phenomena, e.g. initial position *u began to function as the Church Slavonic norm apart from the initial position *ju, or the Proto-Slavic *dj > жд and ж combination, with the retention of e.g. secondary yers, their strong position vocalization and weak position reduction, typical for the Ruthenian languages. The difference between the languages of the OB and the EJ involves a greater consistency in spelling, which may prove the meticulous work of 18th‑‑ century editors. The analysis of inflection also confirms the modernization of the language of printed texts. While the paradigm of adjective and pronoun forms remained practically intact (the changes are predominantly in phonetics and orthography: in the case of adjectives, they concern consonant contraction and in the case of pronouns, replacement of simple forms with complex ones), there was a real revolution in noun and verb inflection, which resulted in simplification of declination and the verbal systems. Many phenomena found in the OB, such as equalization of noun inflection, unification of plural forms or elimination of homonymy, were not yet constant but were only signals of the future simplification of the system, already noticeable in the paradigm of forms of the EJ. The comparison of phonetic‑‑ morphological properties of the language in the OB and the EJ confirms a distinct character of each of them. The modernization of the Church Slavonic language was clearly documented in the analyzed texts at various stages of its evolution. Juxtaposing the two texts provided an answer to the question of relations between the particular kinds of Gospel Books. It proved that the complete edition of the Bible differs from the Evangeliary not only in the organization of the content but also on the phonetic morphological level. To sum up, it may be concluded that the Ruthenian recension Church Slavonic language has been undergoing a slow and long course of various transformations, changes and modifications. Probably this process has not been finished yet. The Church language is not a dead language, so certain processes of the Russian language may still affect it and shape its norm.