The message of Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba, briefly summarized in this article, will tell you a lot of useful information about the life and scientific work of the Russian linguist. The information from the report can also be used while preparing for the lesson.

Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba short biography

Lev Shcherbov, a Russian linguist, was born on February 20 (March 3), 1880 in the city of Igumen, Minsk province. However, the boy grew up in Kyiv. In 1898, Lev graduated from the Kyiv gymnasium with a gold medal. Afterwards he entered the Faculty of Science at Kyiv University, and the following year he transferred to St. Petersburg University to the Department of History and Philology. During his student years, he was interested in psychology. In his senior year, Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba wrote an essay “The Mental Element in Phonetics,” for which he was awarded a gold medal. After graduating in 1903, the researcher remained at the department of Sanskrit and comparative grammar.

In 1906, St. Petersburg University sent him abroad. He spent a year in Northern Italy, where he studied Tuscan dialects. In 1907 he moved to Paris and studied English and French pronunciation. In 1907 - 1908 he stayed in Germany, studying the dialect of the Lusatian language. The collected materials were compiled into a book submitted for a doctorate degree.

Returning to St. Petersburg, Lev Vladimirovich begins to work in the laboratory of experimental phonetics. He constantly replenished the office library and built special equipment. For 30 years, the scientist conducted research into the phonological systems and phonetics of various languages of the Soviet Union. Since 1910, he lectured on the subject of linguistics at the Psychoneurological Institute and taught special courses in phonetics for teachers of the deaf and mute.

At the beginning of the 1920s, the linguist created the project of the Linguistic Institute and worked at the Institute of the Living Word. The famous linguist Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba once came up with a phonetic method of teaching a foreign language, paying special attention to the purity and correctness of pronunciation. In 1924, Lev Vladimirovich was elected to the All-Union Academy of Sciences as a corresponding member. At this time, the scientist begins work on the Dictionary Commission. Lev Shcherba's contribution to the Russian language consists of publishing a dictionary of the Russian, as well as the Russian-French language. In the preface of the book, he briefly outlined the theory of differential lexicography he created.

Since the 1930s, Shcherba has been lecturing on phonetics and the Russian language at the Russian Theater Society and at the Leningrad State Conservatory (vocal department). He also created a manual on the French language, “Phonetics of the French Language,” as a result of 20 years of research and teaching work.

In 1937, Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba headed the university-wide department of foreign languages. He is responsible for the reorganization of teaching as such by introducing his own methods of understanding and reading texts in other languages. His ideas were reflected in the brochure “How to Learn Foreign Languages.”

In October 1941, Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba was evacuated to the Kirov region, the city of Molotovsk, due to martial law. In the summer of 19423, the linguist moved to Moscow and returned to his usual way of life. In August 1944, he became seriously ill and died on December 26, 1944.

Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba's contribution to linguistics and the development of the Russian language

Lev Shcherba made a huge contribution to the development of the Russian language: he studied living spoken speech. The scientist was the first to introduce experimental methods into the practice of linguistic research and obtained brilliant results. The linguist did a lot for the practice and theory of lexicology and lexicography. The bilingual dictionary of a new type, “Russian-French Dictionary”, created by him in 1928, is still used in teaching practice.

A significant contribution to Russian grammatical theory was made by the article “On parts of speech in the Russian language,” which explained what is hidden behind the words verb, adjective, noun. Other important works by Shcherba are “Russian vowels in qualitative and quantitative terms” of 1912 and “East Lusatian adverb" 1915.

We hope that the report on the topic “Lev Shcherba’s short biography” helped you prepare for the lesson, and you learned what contribution the Russian scientist made to the development of linguistics and the Russian language.

Books and brochures

1. Additions and amendments to “Russian Spelling” by J. K. Grot with a reference index to it. St. Petersburg, 1911. 46 p. (As a manuscript).

2. Russian vowels in qualitative and quantitative terms. St. Petersburg, 1912, IIIXI+1155 pp.; table IIV.

3. East Lusatian dialect. T. I (with text appendix). Pgr., 1915. IXXII+194+54 pp.

4. Some conclusions from my Lusatian dialectological observations. (Appendix to the book “East Lusatian dialect”). T. I. Pgr., 1915. 4 p.

5. How to learn foreign languages. M., 1929, 54 p.

6. Dictionary of the Russian language, vol. IX. And idealize. M.;L., 1935. 159 p.

7. Russian-French dictionary / Comp. L. V. Shcherba, M. I. Matusevich, M. F. Duss. Under general hands and ed. L. V. Shcherby. M., 1936. 11 p. without pagination +491 p.

8. Phonetics of the French language. Essay on French pronunciation in comparison with Russian: A manual for students of foreign languages. L.; M., 1937. 256 pp.+l table.

9. Russian-French dictionary / Comp. L. V. Shcherba and M. I. Matusevich. Under general ed. L. V. Shcherby. 2nd edition, expanded. and processed M., 1939, 573 p.

10. Phonetics of the French language. Essay on French pronunciation in comparison with Russian: A manual for students of foreign languages. Ed. 2nd, rev. and extension L., 1939. 279 p.

11. Russian-French dictionary for secondary school / Comp. L. V. Shcherba and M. I. Matusevich. Ed. and general hands L. V. Shcherby. M., 1940. 431 p.

Articles in magazines and collections

1. Report of the teacher of the 1st cadet corps L. V. Shcherba “On the service and independent significance of grammar as an educational subject” // Proceedings of the 1st Congress of Teachers of the Russian Language in Military Educational Institutions. St. Petersburg, 1904. P. 1427.

2. A few words about the “Preliminary message of the spelling subcommittee” // Russian Philological Bulletin. 1905. T. IV. Teacher. Department. P. 6873.

3. Quelques mots sur les phonèmes consonnes composées // Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 1908. T. XV. P. 15.

4. [Review of the book:] Materials for South Slavic dialectology and ethnography. II. Samples of the language in the dialects of the Terek Slavs of northeastern Italy were collected and published by I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay. St. Petersburg, 1904 // Le Maître phonétique. 1908. No. XXIII. P. 56.

5. Towards personal endings in Latin and other Italian dialects // Journal of the Ministry of Public Education. 1908. P. 201208.

2. Russian speech. Sat. articles edited by L. V. Shcherby, I. Proceedings of Phonetic. Institute of practical learning languages. Pgr., 1923. 243 pp. (Editor's Preface)

3. Russian speech. Collections published by the department of verbal arts of the State. Institute of Art History, ed. L. V. Shcherby. New series, T. G. L., 1927. 96 pp.; Vol. II. L., 1928. 83 pp.; Vol. III. L., 1928. 94 pp.

4. O. N. Nikonova. To help students learn German on the radio. Phonetics and grammar reference book. Ed. prof. L. V. Shcherby. L., 1930. 22 pp.

5. S. G. Barkhudarov and E. I. Dosycheva. Grammar of Russian language. “Textbook for junior high and high school. Part I. Phonetics and morphology. M., 1938. 223 pp. (Editorial board: L.V. Shcherba, D.N. Ushakov, R.I. Avanesov, E.I. Korenevsky, F.F. Kuzmin); Part II. Syntax. M., 1938. 140 pp.

6. N. G. Gadd and L. I. Brave. German grammar for the third and fourth years of universities and colleges. Ed. prof. L. V. Shcherby. M., 1942. 246 pp.

7. Russian grammar. Textbook for grades 5 and 6 of seven-year and secondary schools, 5th revision. and additional ed., ed. acad. L. V. Shcherby. Part I. Phonetics and morphology. M., 1944. 207 pp.; Part II. Syntax. M., 1944. 151 pp.

8. Collection of spelling exercises for 5th and 6th grades of seven-year and secondary schools. Ed. acad. L. V. Shcherby. M., 1944. 159 pp.

Posthumous editions

1. Current problems of linguistics // IAN OLya, 1945, vol. 4. issue. 5, pp. 173186.

2. The Atlas of Russian Languages and Dialects. Dialectological Conference of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR // The Modern Language Review, 1945, vol. XL, No. 1 (January).

3. New information about stress // Proceedings of the anniversary. scientific sessions of Leningrad State University (1819 1944). L., 1946, pp. 7071. (Abstract of the report).

4. Teaching foreign languages in secondary school. General questions of methodology. M., 1947. 96 pp.

5. Phonetics of the French language. Essay on French pronunciation in comparison with Russian. Ed. 3rd. M., 1948.

6. Same. Ed. 4th. M., 1953.

7. Same. Ed. 5th. M., 1955.

8. Same. Ed. 6th. M., 1957.

9. Same. Ed. 7th. M., 1963.

10. Russian-French dictionary. Ed. 3rd. M., 1950.

11. Same. Ed. 4th. M., 1955.

12. The same. Ed. 5th. M., 1956.

13. Same. Ed. 6th. M., 1957.

14. Same. Ed. 7th. M., 1958.

15. Same. Ed. 8th. M., 1962.

16. Same. Ed. 9th. M., 1969.

17. [Introductory article in the book] I. P. Suntsova. Introductory course in phonetics of the German language. Kyiv, 1951.

18. Grammar of the Russian language, vol. I. Phonetics and morphology. M., 1952.

19. Selected works on the Russian language. M., 1957.

20. Selected works on linguistics and phonetics, vol. I. L., 1958.

21. From the linguistic heritage of L. V. Shcherba: On the tasks of linguistics; What is word formation? (Abstract of the report); On further indivisible units of language // Questions of linguistics, 1962, No. 2.

22. F. F. Fortunatov in the history of the science of language // Questions of linguistics, 1963, No. 5.

23. In memory of A. Meillet // Questions of linguistics, 1966, No. 3.

24. Language system and speech activity. L., 1974.

Proceedings in manuscript

1. In defense of the French language, 1/4 p.l.

2. Opinion of L. V. Shcherba on spelling instructions for the anniversary academic edition of Pushkin’s works. 3/4 p, l.

3. Literary language and ways of its development. 1/2 p.l.

4. A few words about the spelling dictionary for primary, junior high and high school prof. D. N. Ushakova. 1935. X1/4 ;p. l.

5. Grammar (article for ITU).

6. Lecture notes on syntax.

7. About the phonemes of the German language.

Transcripts of reports and lectures

1. Vocabulary as a system of language.

2. On the tasks and methods of dialectological work. 1.5 p.l.

3. Methods of lexicological work. 1 p.l.

4. On the issue of disseminating knowledge of foreign languages in our Union and the state of our philological education, as well as measures to improve both. 1944. 1 pp.

5. Lectures given at the Institute of the Living Word in 1918-1919. (7 transcripts).

6. Lectures on phonetics, given at various foreign language courses in 1928 (6 transcripts).

7. Lectures on methods of teaching foreign languages, given to methodologists in 1928 (3 transcripts).

8. Lectures on the Russian language, given at the Leningrad Theater for Young Spectators in 1933 (2 transcripts).

Shcherba Lev Vladimirovich an outstanding Russian linguist. The greatest fame of L.V. Shcherba received his qualifications primarily as a phonologist and phonetician.

L.V. Shcherba was the most prominent researcher in the fieldexperimental phonetics . Both in phonetics and in other levels of language L.V. Shcherba recognized the importance of the experiment.

L.V. Shcherba createdhis phoneme theory. He understood a phoneme as a sound type capable of differentiating words and their forms, and the shade of a phoneme as an actually pronounced sound, which is the particular in which the general (phoneme) is realized. L.V. Shcherba always emphasized that phonology cannot be separated from phonics (“anthropophonics”) and that they are both united in phonetics.

At L.V. Shcherba’s idea of phoneme autonomy is important. He was led to this by observations of different intonation patterns of the same word-statement (for example, it's getting dark ), associated with a particular emotion (for example, joy, displeasure, etc.). And from this L.V. Shcherba derives a very important proposition for his theory of phonemes about the independence or autonomy of phonemes.

Thus, in his opinion, the same intonation is isolated from specific cases of its implementation and acquires autonomy not because it has certain acoustic characteristics. It is isolated because in each case it is associated with a certain content, which is fully realized by the speakers.

The essence of L.V.’s phonetic concept Shcherba as a whole, right down to the concept of a separate sound, is built on a semantic basis.

“Russian vowels...” contain two definitions of the phoneme: preliminary and final. The first says: phoneme “is the shortest element of the general acoustic representations of a given language, capable of being associated in this language with semantic representations,” and the second: “... a phoneme is the shortest general phonetic representation of a given language, capable of being associated with semantic representations and differentiating words and able to be distinguished in speech without distorting the phonetic composition of the word.”

In the first definition, a phoneme is treated only as a unit that “can mean something in a given language.” In this case we are talking only about the constitutive function. The ability of a phoneme to differentiate words (distinctive function) does not appear in this definition. The distinctive function mentioned in the second definition is in second place. The introduction of a semantic criterion into the definition of a phoneme is an essential feature that distinguishes the position of L.V. Shcherba from the position of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay.

The most significant difference between the teachings of L.V. Shcherba about the phoneme from the teachings of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay's interpretation of the concept of “shade”.This issue is the main difference in the interpretation of the phoneme L.V. Shcherba on the interpretation of phonemes by the Moscow phonological school.

New compared to the teachings of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay was at L.V. Shcherba and the concept of typical, or basic, i.e. most independent of phonetic position, shade. The most accurate description of the main shade can be found in the posthumously published work “The Theory of Russian Writing” (1983). It makes the important point that all shades “have the same function,” and then goes on to say: “Among the variants or shades of each phoneme, one is usually singled out, which is, as it were, a typical representative of them. Normally, this is the version that we pronounce in isolation. Very often, when speaking about a phoneme, they do not mean the entire group of variants or shades, but only this typical representative of them.”

The appeal to the main shade was dictated both by the speech behavior of the speakers and purely practical considerations. Firstly, methodological. L.V. Shcherba believed that mastering correct foreign language pronunciation is possible only when mastery of the basic nuances has been achieved. Secondly, the basic shade can serve as a good help in phonemic identification of the corresponding segment in the speech chain.

Despite the clear contrast between the concepts of phoneme and shade, L.V. Shcherba spoke, however, about the fragility of the boundaries between them. Thus, he wrote that there is no absolute boundary between shades and phonemes. In reality, there are phonemes that are more independent and less independent. As illustrations, he cites the affricate [z], found in St. Petersburg pronunciation, and the vowels s and i. He examines the latter case in detail in “The Theory of Russian Writing” (1983). Based on one group of facts, L.V. Shcherba believed that s and and “as if we have to recognize them as variants of a single phoneme”; other facts made him think that “there is no reason now to completely refuse s in independence."

The complex relationships observed in some cases of sound differences, according to L.V. Shcherby are in connection with the dynamics of phonetic systems. They reflect the processes of origin or, conversely, the disappearance of the corresponding phonological opposition, processes in which phonetic and semantic factors interact.

Along with phonological, a significant place in the work of L.V. Shcherby occupiesarticulatory-acoustic aspect of phonetics.

Together with V.A. Bogoroditsky he can be called the founderexperimental phoneticsin Russia. He motivated the need for objective research methods by the fact that, using only a subjective method, the researcher is unwittingly under the influence of associations with his native language or previously studied languages. “Even a sophisticated ear,” wrote L. V. Shcherba, “hears not what is, but what it is accustomed to hearing, in relation to the associations of its own thinking.” The researcher may “hear” something that is not in the target language and, conversely, may not notice subtle acoustic differences that are essential for a given language and are clearly felt by its speakers.

Objective physiological and acoustic characteristics of sounds, revealed using experimental phonetic methods, are of great interest to linguists also because they make it possible to study phenomena whose internal mechanism is not readily accessible to direct observation, such as stress.

Nevertheless, paying tribute to objective methods, L.V. Shcherba considered subjective methods to be strictly linguistic, which corresponds to his thesis about the leading importance in phonetics of the linguistic (phonological) aspect. Speaking about the subjective method, L.V. Shcherba had in mind, first of all, the analysis of the perception of a particular phenomenon by a native speaker of a given language. From a phonological point of view, this approach is completely justified, since the physical differences between sounds established by objective methods do not in themselves say anything about their functional linguistic significance. After all, the same sound difference can be phonologically significant in one language, but not in another. “...We always,” wrote L.V. Shcherba, “we must turn to the consciousness of the individual speaking a given language, since we want to know what phonetic differences he uses for the purposes of linguistic communication.”

According to L.V. Shcherby, phonemic analysis must necessarily be present in experimental phonetic research. He believed that until we define phonemic oppositions, we do not know the object that is subject to objective research.

L.V. Shcherba created the originaluniversal classification system, presented in the form of tables of vowels and consonants. The table of consonants and the abbreviated table of vowels were published in “Phonetics of the French Language”, and the complete table of vowels was published after the death of L.V. Shcherby in 1951

L.V. Shcherba was a proponent of classification according to active pronunciation organs, i.e. according to those organs on the movement and position of which the articulation of sounds depends, and, consequently, the acoustic effect determined by it. In accordance with this, his tables are constructed.

In the theory of stress L.V. Shcherba distinguished the following types of stress: verbal, phrasal (at the end of the syntagma), logical and emphatic stress. The latter, due to its emphasis, is associated with the full type of pronunciation.

L.V. Shcherba introduced the concept of qualitative stress. Impact is absolute, not relative, and its signs lie in the very quality of the element perceived as impact. L.V. Shcherba distinguished three phonological (or semasiological, as he said) functions of word stress: 1) the function of dividing the text into phonetic words, which include “groups of words with one significant word in the center”; 2) a function that can be called constitutive, forming the sound appearance of a word: “Verbal stress in the Russian language,” he writes, “characterizes words as such, i.e. from the point of view of their meaning”; a special case of this function is the distinction of “visual homonyms” (cf.: then and then, shelf, and shelf and so on.); 3) a grammatical function, characteristic of languages with free and, moreover, movable stress, examples:cities / towns, water / water, burden / carries, nose, nose / sock, give / give out and so on.

In many of his works L.V. Shcherba touched on some aspects of the theory of intonation, which later became the starting point in subsequent studies.

L.V. Shcherba saw intonation as the most important means of expression. Intonation, in his opinion, is a syntactic means, without which it is impossible to express and understand the meaning of a statement and its subtle shades. The most detailed information about intonation is presented in “Phonetics of the French Language” (1963) and especially in “The Theory of Russian Writing” (1983). The function of intonation in the language system appears especially clearly when intonation is the only means of expressing syntactic relations.

To understand L.V. Among the functions of intonation, its role in the semantic division of speech, in which syntagma acts as the minimum unit, is of particular importance.

With the greatest completeness syntagma theory developed by L.V. Shcherboy in his book “Phonetics of the French Language” (1963). L.V. Shcherba wrote that the term “syntagma” was borrowed by him from I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay. However, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay used this term to designate significant words, in general words as constituent elements of a sentence. At L.V. Shcherby syntagma acts as a unit not language, but speech , fundamentally different from the word, although in a particular case it may coincide with the word. Most often, syntagma is built in the process of speech from several words. Syntagma is defined here as “a phonetic unity that expresses a single semantic whole in the process of speech and thought and can consist of either one rhythmic group or a number of them.”

L.V. Shcherba contrasted his understanding of the division of the flow of speech with the prevailing idea in phonetics, according to which this division was determined not linguistically, but by the physiology of respiration. Thus, syntagma is a unit that is syntactic in function and phonetic in form. The intonation integrity of the syntagma, ensured by the absence of a pause within it and the increased stress, makes it the central concept in the doctrine of intonation.

L.V. Shcherba breaks the general theory of writing into two parts: firstly, the use of signs denoting the sound elements of language (the meaning and use of letters) and, secondly, the use of signs denoting the semantic elements of language.

L.V. Shcherba distinguishes between graphics rules for “depicting phonemes” regardless of the spelling of specific words and spelling rules for writing specific words. Spelling rules may “in some cases be in complete contradiction with the rules of the first category.

In “The Theory of Russian Writing” (1983) L.V. Shcherba examines the principles of spelling: phonetic, morphological (or etymological), historical and hieroglyphic, illustrating them with examples from Russian, French, German and English.

L.V. Shcherba solved such important theoretical issues as the question of the semantization of sound differences, the question of different pronunciation styles, and the question of the relationship of orthoepy to spelling. In relation to writing, syllable structure, word stress, and the duration of individual sounds are also considered. The subsequently published work “The Theory of Russian Writing” ends with an analysis of the sound composition of the Russian literary language in its relationship with graphic means.

Main works of L.V. Shcherby

Shcherba L.V. Russian vowels in qualitative and quantitative terms. St. Petersburg: 1912. III XI + 1155 p. [L.: 1983a.].

Shcherba L.V. East Lusatian dialect. Pg.: 1915. T. 1. IXXII. 194 p. [Bautzen: 1973].

Shcherba L.V. Phonetics of the French language. Essay on French pronunciation in comparison with Russian. L.M.: 1937. 256 p. .

Shcherba L.V. Selected works on the Russian language. M.: 1957. 188 p.

Shcherba L.V. Selected works on linguistics and phonetics. L.: 1958. T. 1. 182 p.

Shcherba L.V. Language system and speech activity. L.: 1974. 428 p.

Shcherba L.V. The theory of Russian writing. L.: 1983b. 132 p.

Bibliography of works L.V. Shcherby see: Zinder L.R., Maslov Yu.S.L.V. Shcherba linguistic theorist and teacher. L.: 1982. P. 99100.

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MKVSOU "Korenevskaya evening (shift) secondary school"

Abstract in Russian on the topic:

"ShcherbaLev Vladimirovich as a linguist"

Completed by a 12th grade student: Klyagina Elena Yurievna

Checked by: Kumova Anna Anatolyevna

P. Korenevo, 2015

Introduction

Chapter 1. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby on phonetics and phonology

Chapter 2. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby on orthoepy

Chapter 3. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby morphology

Chapter 4. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby in poetry

Conclusion

Introduction

This essay, the topic of which is Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba as a linguist, is written in line with the works of the linguistic direction.

The material for the abstract was the following works by L.V. Shcherby: in phonetics - “The Theory of Russian Writing”, in orthoepy - “On different styles of pronunciation and the ideal phonetic composition of words”, “On the norms of exemplary Russian pronunciation”, “On the issue of Russian orthoepy”, in morphology - “On parts of speech in the Russian language", "On the auxiliary and independent significance of grammar as an educational subject", as well as the works "Experiences in the linguistic interpretation of Pushkin's poems" II., "Experiments in the linguistic interpretation of Lermontov's poems" German prototype”, “Modern Russian literary language”, “Illiteracy and its causes”, “The latest trends in methods of teaching the native language”, etc.

As the subject of research in our thesis, we chose one of the most prominent linguists of the twentieth century - Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba.

The purpose of the abstract is to analyze the main works of L.V. Shcherby. In accordance with this goal, the following tasks will be solved in the thesis:

1. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby on phonetics and phonology.

2. Analysis of the works of L.V. Shcherby on orthoepy.

3. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby on morphology and grammar.

4. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby on poetry.

The following methods were used when writing the abstract:

1. Descriptive.

2. Comparative.

The abstract consists of a preface, introduction, four chapters, conclusion, and a list of references. The first chapter contains an analysis of the works of L.V. Shcherba in phonetics and phonology, the second in orthoepy, the third in morphology, the fourth in poetry.

Shcherba orthoepy phonetics spelling

Chapter 1. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby on phonetics and phonology

Phonetics was one of the main objects of study for Shcherba throughout his entire scientific career. Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba was the founder of the Leningrad Phonological School and stood at the origins of the formation of such a science as phonology. Suffice it to recall his work on the development of an experimental phonetics laboratory. From 1909 until the end of his life, Shcherba tirelessly developed the work of the laboratory, which was his favorite brainchild.

In 1912, he published and defended his master’s thesis “Russian vowels in quantitative and qualitative terms,” which is notable for the fact that in it experimental phonetic research is carried out taking into account the phonological significance of certain articulatory and acoustic characteristics of speech sounds, and also here for the first time in the history of science, a detailed and versatile analysis of the concept of phoneme is given, which Shcherba borrowed from his teacher I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay.

Shcherba conducted systematic classes, either in the form of a course or in the form of a seminar on experimental phonetics. Even before the revolution, he taught at the university the pronunciation of Western European languages using phonetic techniques. In the 20s, he developed these techniques and developed them into a whole system, widely popularizing it. Together with S.K. Boyanus, he organized various foreign language courses in Leningrad, including the Phonetic Institute for the Practical Study of Languages and the State Foreign Language Courses.

All phonetic phenomena received scientific coverage from Shcherba, and therefore were consciously assimilated by the students. Students worked only from transcribed texts, bypassing spelling. Shcherba believed that a complete understanding of foreign speech and foreign text is inextricably linked with the correct, even intonation, reproduction of their sound form.

Shcherba's programmatic article on phonology is the article "The Theory of Russian Writing", in which he examines some questions in phonology, in particular the question of phonemes.

In the field of phonology, Shcherba is known as one of the creators of the phoneme theory. He is responsible for the first special analysis in the history of science of the concept of phoneme as a word-distinguishing and morpheme-distinguishing unit, opposed to shade (variant) as a unit that does not have such a distinctive function.

Baudouin de Courtenay calls phonemes “indivisible common sound elements capable of differentiating words in a given language. These sound elements are realized in a number of closely related variants or shades, which all have the same function, and therefore do not normally differ in perception and the appearance of each of which depends entirely on phonetic conditions” (p. 152). However, Shcherba himself believed that Baudouin did not develop everything in his theory with proper completeness. In contrast to him, Shcherba does not consider the entire process of dividing speech, but speaks only about the last link of this process - about phonemes. According to Shcherba, a phoneme is “the shortest element of the general acoustic representations of a given language, capable of being associated in this language with semantic representations.”

The difference between the theory of Baudouin de Courtenay and the theory of Shcherba is that Baudouin built his theory of the phoneme, starting from the morpheme; initially he considered even interlingual correspondences of sounds to be one phoneme. In the unity of the morpheme, he saw the basis for combining the sounds alternating in it into one phoneme. At the same time, he considered divergences of one phoneme not only those sounds that never occur in the same position in a given language, such as, for example, non-labialized and labialized t in Russian (for example, eta and eta), but also those that alternate only in certain positions (neutralization positions) (for example, hoda and xot).

Shcherba's point of view is fundamentally different from Baudouin's, subsequently developed by representatives of the Moscow phonological school. He defended the idea of phoneme autonomy, according to which shades of the same phoneme can never occur in the same phonetic position. Hence the discrepancy between the concepts of divergence and shade.

Shcherba says that in the speech stream we can observe a lot of sounds, but we cannot always isolate them, for example, in the words ta and tu we hear the same sound t, but it will be different before a and before y: before a - rounded , but before y - no. But in the case of the difference between vowels before hard and soft consonants, it is more obvious: we feel the difference in the pronunciation of the words became and steel, sat down and sat down, etc. Shcherba gives an answer to the question why we do not always notice these differences: because these differences are not semanticized, that is, this sound difference is not combined with a morphological difference.

Shcherba believes that any practical alphabet should represent only phonemes, and not their variants. The fact is that among the variants of a phoneme we usually single out one, which we pronounce in isolated form.

In his article “Russian vowels in quantitative and qualitative terms,” he formulated tasks for a phonetician:

1. find out the phonetic composition of a given language, otherwise, determine the phonemes it distinguishes;

2. in accordance with the available means, give their full description;

3. state the observed divergences or register, if possible, all the shades of phonemes appearing in a given language, and give a feasible description of them;

4. determine the conditions of these divergences;

5. explain the reasons for their appearance.

He gives almost all the answers to these questions in the article “The Theory of Russian Writing.”

Shcherba gives a list of phonemes of the Russian literary language:

Consonants

Labials: "p, p, b, b, m, m, f, f, v, v"

Front-lingual: "t, t, d, d, n, n, s, s, z, z, w, w, c, ch, l, r, r"

Middle languages: "th"

Rear lingual: k, k, g, g, x, x

Front: "uh, and"

Posterior labials: "oh, oh"

Mixed: "s"

Separately, he mentions the fricative. Shcherba believes that this phoneme has not taken root because it is used only in some words (god, gospodi) and is perceived as southern Russian dialectism. Shcherba considers this phoneme optional.

Shcherba admits that a difficult question is the question of distinguishing phonemes j and j. Many consider й at the end of a word (for example, edge) and at the beginning of a word, after vowels and after ъ and ь (for example, pit, spear, in a boat) as different phonemes. Shcherba admits that there is a great deal of truth in this. He writes: “However, this difference is directly related to the syllabic structure: at the beginning of a syllable, i.e. for the Russian language always before a vowel, one hears “j” (“kraj-a, maj-a, paj-a”), and at the end of a syllable, that is, for the Russian language, always when it does not come before a vowel, “th” is heard ("edge, my, sing"); in the Russian language are absolutely impossible. From this it follows that the sounds “j” and “y” are only variants of a single phoneme. Which of them is considered the main one? Since all consonants at the end of a syllable, being strong-initial, and therefore weak-final, are light in the Russian language. are reduced, then the main variant should be considered “j”, i.e. the strongly finalized version of our phoneme, which will further appear as its symbol.”

Shcherba does not agree with this statement: in the Russian language, many consonants can be both hard and soft. In the Russian language there is no t in general or l in general, but there are t soft or hard and l soft or hard. All this confusion occurs, according to Shcherba, due to the mixing of letters and sounds. In Russian, both hard and soft consonants are denoted by one letter, since very often they alternate within the forms of one word.

The farthest from each other are l hard and l soft, t, d hard and t, d soft. This is proven by the fact that in many dialects the hard l turns into a non-syllabic, which never happens with the soft l.

Shcherba believes that the pairs t/t and d/d are close to the soft ts, dz. Consequently, the development of these vowels goes in the same direction as in the Belarusian language.

Regarding r/r, Shcherba notes: r in the position between vowels approaches a vowel, and soft r can turn into a fricative.

Shcherba classifies the soft words кь, хь, ь not as back-lingual, but as middle-lingual.

Interesting is his remark about consonants before vowels and, e.g. He believes that the softness of the consonants before e (i.e. e) is not at all the result of living assimilation; proof of this is that sh, zh, c do not soften before this vowel.

The phonemes zh, sh, ts, ch have no parallels in the Russian language in terms of hardness and softness. Although in dialects and in independent pronunciation you can hear double soft sew, zhzh: looking (ishyu), squealing (vizhzhyat/vizhzhat), etc. Shcherba does not propose adding the phonemes shsh and zhzh to the list of phonemes of the Russian language, but only because this would be associated with certain difficulties. Despite the fact that they are used very rarely and not by everyone, those who speak this way can distinguish with wives ("zhzhon'mi") and burnt ("zhzhen'mi"). Shcherba calls them “phonemes in potency.”

The phoneme ch does not have a solid parallel, although in some cases it would be necessary and possible (Chinese Yancheng).

Of course, Shcherba recognizes the presence of the phonemes кь, гь, хь in the Russian language. They appear in Russian only before the vowels e and i. However, Shcherba gives many examples when these phonemes appear in other positions: zhget, tkem, seket, etc. He also includes borrowed words here (Kyakhta, gyaur). But he considers the most important evidence of the presence of soft phonemes кь, ь, хь in our system to be that the alternations к/кь, г/гь, х/хь are morphologized and are included in the system of alternation of hard and soft consonants in declension and conjugation: hand- a, ruk-e, etc.

Regarding the softness and hardness of consonants before soft ones, Shcherba agrees with researchers who claim that before soft consonants, the opposition of hard and soft consonants in the Russian language is impossible. Moreover, some soft consonants are assimilated by the next soft consonant (bones, nails). Particularly prone to assimilation are n before soft ty, d and all consonants before j.

In fact, according to Shcherba, contrasting them in terms of hardness/softness with soft ones is quite possible: Germans/Germans, horseshoes/podkovki, bast shoes/bast shoes.

“Assimilation is not necessary even with double consonants: with the second soft, the first does not have to be soft either. Normally we say the word captive with two soft n, but the pronunciation of “Anne”, “in kassa” is not at all necessary, you can also say “Anne” , at the cash register."

In general, Shcherba notes, the distinction between hardness and softness of consonants before soft consonants is little used phonologically in the Russian language. He himself accepts bones, German, door, etc. as the norm for pronunciation. with phonologically hard, phonetically - semi-soft consonants, and throw, take, Kuzmich - with soft.

As a separate case, Shcherba analyzes such combinations as nya, nyo, nyu; la, le, lyu, etc. The difficulty is that there is debate as to what sounds these combinations are decomposed into.

Some believe that these combinations simply decompose into n+a, n+o, n+y, etc. And some even believe that n+ja, n+jo, n+jу. But, says Shcherba, if you try to put these combinations back together, you get nya, nyyo, ny.

Others agree that in the Russian language there is no ja (я) in the combination la, but nevertheless do not identify the vowel in this combination with the sound a.

Shcherba sums up these debates and argues that in such combinations there is no pure sound, but there is something like ua, uо, uу, i.e. these sounds (a, o, y) have a certain appendage resembling a sound that cannot be isolated or lengthened and is not a separate phoneme. Shcherba asks the question: can ua, uо, uу be considered independent phonemes? No, these are phonetic variations of the corresponding vowels, due to the softness of the previous consonants. In dialects these phonemes can still develop, but in a literary language they do not.

But the most controversial issue in this work by Shcherba is the question of what s is: an independent phoneme or a variant of the phoneme i. The fact that s is an option was believed, in particular, by Baudouin de Courtenay.

Disputes arose on the basis that and and ы often replace each other: and can only come after soft consonants, ы - after hard consonants (for example, over a hut - nadyzba, in a game - vygre, etc.). There are no cases of replacement ы through and, since there are no words starting with ы. In the Russian language there are also no productive suffixes for ы, but, says Shcherba, if we wanted to form a slave-slave zh.r. from the word king, they would say tsarina, not tsarina.

“Thus, ы and и seem to be recognized as variants of a single phoneme, of which the main one will have to be recognized as и, since ы does not occur at all in an independent position.”

But intuitively Shcherba does not want to agree with this. He gives the example of D.N. Ushakova: yakat (by analogy with akat, ekat, etc.) to prove that we can still isolate s. Shcherba explains the resulting contradiction from a historical point of view: he believes that y was once an independent phoneme and was not associated with i. Due to certain phonetic conditions, s loses its independence.

Shcherba ends his article with the following conclusion: “In Russian, no matter how much you pull y, it, even being freed from the assimilative influence of the previous solid consonant, remains itself. This is the state of affairs at the moment, and how the language will develop further is difficult to say with confidence. In any case, there is no reason now to completely deny s independence: it can potentially stand in an independent position and can differentiate words (hiccup/hiccup).

By phonetic transcription, Shcherba understands “the recording of the sounds of one or another segment of speech according to the rules of any specific graphics, but without observing any spelling rules,” and he distinguishes phonemic (phonological) and phonetic transcriptions.

In this article, Shcherba also touches on the issue of word stress. He believes that in the Russian language stress is semanticized in three directions: firstly, it helps to divide the speech flow into words and groups of words, since every significant word has stress (for example, he spoke for a very long time, so that everyone got bored); secondly, stress in Russian characterizes the word as such; it is enough to recall visual homonyms; thirdly, Russian stress is grammaticalized, that is, it has a grammatical meaning.

Shcherba also talks about the duration of individual sounds. For example, he notices that in colloquial style, stressed vowels are longer than unstressed ones, and that the duration of consonants also depends on phonetic conditions (for example, wall and wall). Sometimes long vowels belong to different morphemes: give, wall-n-oh, etc. In this case, they can be called double. But in the case of countries, quarrels, etc. the morphological boundary no longer passes through the long vowel. Due to the fact that such confusion occurs, Shcherba believes that “there is also no semantized opposition of consonants in duration in the Russian language and that in all relevant cases we should speak simply about a group of repeating consonants”

In general, Shcherba defines phonetics as “the physiology of the sounds of human speech” and connects the study of phonetics with the study of acoustics, since she also studies sounds.

Shcherba considers the issue of phonetic units, which do not always coincide with acoustic and physiological units. Shcherba cites as an example the so-called “affricates” - “are these simple consonants or do they consist of two sounds, for example: s (ts) from t + s (t + s), s (ch) from t + s (t + w) etc. The very possibility of such a dispute indicates the existence of two points of view. And indeed, physiologically the presence of two elements in affricates is undeniable, but from the linguistic, phonetic point of view of people speaking a given language, s (ts), s (ch) etc. are also undoubtedly simple consonants, since the spirant element in them cannot be extended. Thus, the concept of a phonetic unit does not always cover the concepts of acoustic or physiological units, from which it follows that phonetic units cannot be attributed to either. physiological, nor to physical quantities, but are the result of our mental activity, in other words: since we are talking about a, e, i, p, t, etc., we leave the world of the physical and physiological and enter the realm of the psyche, where and there occurs, so to speak, a synthesis of acoustic and physiological data and their adaptation for the purposes of linguistic communication. This determines the independent position of phonetics as a science: it studies the sound representations of speech, first of all, and then those acoustic and physiological processes under the influence of which these representations arise."

Therefore, the more correct method in linguistics is the subjective method (internal introspection of the linguist), since the main thing is the consciousness of the person whose phonetic differences we would like to know. But on the other hand, the objective method is also very important, since observation here occurs with the help of various recording instruments and experimentation. Shcherba was very often reproached for the fact that he assigns a large role to the subjective principle: you never know what might seem to a scientist, but Shcherba does not particularly highlight any of these principles; he emphasizes the need for their inextricable connection. Today, the injustice of numerous reproaches of that time against Shcherba from representatives of linguistic formalism in psychologism, which precisely gave Shcherbov’s concept a functional-activity (anthropological) orientation, is especially clear.

However, the subjective method has its drawbacks: firstly, not everyone can successfully use this method, it requires experience and a certain talent, and secondly, not everything can be studied using the subjective method, and it also has another drawback : a student of someone else’s pronunciation often hears what he would like to hear or is used to hearing. Therefore, the results of the subjective method should be checked by the objective method.

Chapter 2. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby on orthoepy

Spelling and spelling are the issues that L.V. Shcherba devoted many years to his activities.

The reform of Russian spelling, and then the work on further rationalization and streamlining of the reformed spelling, which did not stop until the last year of his life, took place with the constant participation and ever-increasing influence of the ideas and proposals of L.V. Shcherby. In 1911, he published “Additions and amendments to J.K. Grot’s “Russian Spelling.” In 1930, in the magazine "Russian Language at School" he published an article "On the issue of spelling reform." The two years spent in Nolinsk during the last war were devoted, among other works, to the compilation of an extensive “Theory of Russian Spelling” in two parts. As a major linguist and theorist, he brought consistent principles and a great perspective of a vast scientific horizon to the development of issues of applied linguistics. This book provides the completion of the initiative made by teacher L.V. Shcherba by Professor I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay in his work “On the relationship of Russian writing to the Russian language.” None of the oldest developed European orthographies has received such a thorough, deep and systematic analysis and interpretation. In contrast to the work of Baudouin de Courtenay, Shcherba's book reveals the system of Russian spelling, gives an apology for the merits of some Russian spelling traditions, and outlines the ways for its final codification. Here are instructive and interesting comparisons with materials from the history of spelling norms of many other languages. They allow you to perceive the natural mechanics of spelling norms.

L.V. Shcherba provided great assistance in developing spelling reforms for other peoples of the USSR after the October Revolution. At the Baku Turkological Congress in 1926, he made a report “Basic principles of spelling and their social significance,” published in the proceedings of this congress.

A big problem in the field of applied linguistics that occupied Shcherba was orthoepy. The pinnacle in this area was his report in 1915 at the St. Petersburg society “On different styles of pronunciation and the ideal phonetic composition of words.” This work remains a major milestone in the history of theoretical understanding of orthoepy. This report will be further discussed in our work. Shcherba's scientific discovery immediately clarified many confusing arguments, resolved long-standing, seemingly hopeless disputes, and indicated the path for further orthoepic observations.

In 1916 L.V. Shcherba outlined in French the main differences between the French sound system and the Russian one. In 1936, his note “On the question of orthoepy” appeared in the magazine “Russian Language in the Soviet School” (No. 5), and in 1937 the first edition of “Phonetics of the French Language. An Essay on French Pronunciation Compared with Russian” appeared, which for a long time remained an exemplary book in the study of orthoepy.

In the article “The Theory of Russian Writing” he raises the issue of graphics and spelling. In the rules of spelling, he distinguishes two categories of rules: some talk about the meaning of letters regardless of the spelling of words, others talk about the spelling of specific words of a given language, which may in some cases be in complete contradiction with the rules of the first category. Shcherba gives the following example: in R.p. units m.r. and w.r. for adjectives and pronouns we write r, and pronounce v: red, most, etc. But the sound v in Russian cannot be represented through g. Therefore, says Shcherba, this case belongs to the second category. An example of the first category is the writing in Russian letters of the Chinese geographical names Yancheng, Zhejiang through e. Consequently, this goes against the rules of the second category, according to which e is not written after sibilants. Shcherba's conclusion is that the rules of the second category apply only to Russian words or to words that have become completely Russian.

Unlike Baudouin de Courtenay, Shcherba calls the rules of the first category “rules of the alphabet” (instead of “rules of graphics”), and the rules of the second category “rules of spelling.” Shcherba writes: “...the very concept of “spelling” or orthography arises only at the moment when, for one reason or another, they begin to write differently from what they say, and when, thus, the “correct” spelling is the one that is conventionally accepted by everyone, even if it does not correspond to the sounds of the given word."

Shcherba believed that the spelling reform did not make it easy, although the purpose of the reform was to make it easier to achieve full literacy. “... The spelling of a language used by one and a half hundred million people, by the very essence of things, cannot be absolutely easy, ... one and a half hundred million, settled over a colossal territory, cannot speak the same way, but they must write the same way.” This reform undermined the prestige of spelling, but the task of linguists is to restore the real prestige that “makes it a wonderful tool for communication among millions of people.”

In the article “Basic principles of spelling and their social significance,” Shcherba examines 4 principles of spelling: 1) phonetic, 2) etymological (word production, morphological), 3) historical and 4) ideographic and speaks of their social significance, since “language is a phenomenon social and in its essence serves for communication between people, unites groups, and writing, and even more so in the very essence of things, is perhaps even more than oral language."

According to Shcherba, the phonetic principle (“write as you speak”) is the simplest, but since writing is intended for a large circle of people, there will certainly be discrepancies. The historical principle is ideal for a people with a rich past and history, because according to this principle, people write the way their ancestors wrote, this allows us to use the literature that our ancestors left us. Shcherba gives the example of the word dog. We write the letter o here only because our ancestors wrote it that way. The distinction between “yat” and “e” in the old spelling also applies to this principle.

With the ideographic principle, signs are associated with meaning, bypassing sound. For example, we write the word ball without a soft sign, and the word night - with a soft sign. This is simply a reflection of a certain meaning, as Shcherba believes.

In general, Shcherba concludes that every nation makes its own choice in favor of one or another principle, because “the issue of spelling is painful and painful - and must be worked out in the process of life experience and in each given case, in a given language and in given individual specific cases in their own way, in different ways."

The most important thing is not to get carried away with the phonetic principle, since you still need to learn to write correctly in a meaningful way. Therefore, the etymological principle is good, in which children awaken their thinking and think. And, finally, “social decency and respect for the time of one’s neighbor require writing competently. We must teach in every possible way to this task and try to make it not meaningless, but meaningful, and the path to this lies precisely in the etymological principle.”

In his article “On the norms of exemplary Russian pronunciation,” he speaks, first of all, about the need to revise Russian spelling norms, which no longer correspond to living reality. This problem becomes especially acute precisely after the revolution, since at this time the composition of the Moscow population changes due to the influx of guests from different cities and republics of the Soviet Union to the capital. Before this, living pronunciation was the so-called “Moscow” pronunciation, it was not taught, it was “sucked in, so to speak, with mother’s milk. Muscovites, like Molière’s tradesman among the nobility, did not even think that they were speaking the exemplary Russian language: this language together with pronunciation was acquired by each new generation from the previous one completely unconsciously.”

Guests of the capital brought with them a new, local pronunciation, and the old one began to disappear, Muscovites gradually forgot the old spelling norms. In connection with changes in the very life of the country, the Russian literary language is also changing: it is formed, in particular, by representatives of a wide variety of dialects with the corresponding pronunciation.

Shcherba is trying to analyze what changes in orthoepy await the Russian language in connection with this. In his opinion, “in the pronunciation of the future, everything that is too local, Moscow or Leningrad, Oryol or Novgorod will be swept away”; the Russian language will rely on writing, further moving closer to it; overly complex rules will be simplified, but Shcherba believes that only those things that will not be of value from an expressive point of view will be simplified or disappeared. On the other hand, the difference between simple and double n (wall and wall) cannot be destroyed.

He assigns a special role in recording and studying real pronunciation to linguists and actors, since the latter “can and should not only reflect life in its infinite diversity, but typify it, which is especially important in the matter of orthoepy.” The most important task for Shcherba is to realize the importance of revising spelling norms.

Shcherba valued literacy very highly and said that in the future literacy would become the decisive factor in hiring, i.e. Literate and educated people will always have preference.

The ideal for Shcherba when teaching a person to write competently is “to achieve the necessary limit of mechanization through consciousness, so that this latter is present in all necessary cases and is ready when the mechanism for some reason refuses to serve, even for a minute.” Our writing is based on the etymological (word production) principle, therefore, when writing, we decompose words into their component parts: water-a, water-n-y; earth-yang-oh, earth-yang-k-a. That is why, according to Shcherba, in order to write competently, it is necessary to study the language and its grammar a lot and diligently. And in order for children to write correctly, teachers must infect them with their love for the Russian language, which, to Shcherba’s great regret, does not happen. He sees the reason for this in the fact that teachers do not express their love for the language in any real way, and instinctive love cannot be transmitted to children.

Shcherba thus approaches the question of the development of linguistics at the beginning of the twentieth century. Before this, teaching was left to its own devices, and only at the beginning of the twentieth century a turn towards language as an expresser of our thoughts and feelings began to be noticed. But so far, according to the linguist, very little has been done; we do not have good grammars, an etymological dictionary, synonyms have not been developed, there are no stylistics, etc. Shcherba makes the following conclusion: it is necessary to “promote the appearance of relevant works, support their authors in every possible way, work to improve the qualifications in the field of language among university students and pedagogical universities; radically reform pedagogical technical schools, bearing in mind that all students of pedagogical technical schools will be, first of all, teachers of the Russian language , and therefore must love and know him well, raise his mechanism." Shcherba identifies three more reasons for illiteracy, these are: promiscuity, lack of internal discipline; “new” methods that are unsuitable for life; reluctance to read, lack of necessary books.

Shcherba in his article “On different styles of pronunciation and the ideal phonetic composition of words” raises the question of what is considered a phonetic word, for example, the form “says” or the form “grit”. This question is not so difficult for Shcherba: “... for our consciousness in most cases it is clear what we consider to be the necessary phonetic affiliation of a given word, and this manifests itself when, for one reason or another, we pronounce clearly, distinctly, emphasizing each syllable, - in our case, for example, In such conditions, we free our pronunciation at least from the influence of the most destructive factors - from the influence of stress, proximity and inertia of the organs of pronunciation. After all, it is these factors that force us, against our will, to pronounce, depending. from these or other conditions, all those variants of the word that were indicated above and which are nothing more than the embryos of future linguistic states. All these variants are not normally recognized by us as such, due to the properties of the psychological process that occurs and is known by the name. assimilation. But during the transmission of language from generation to generation, some of them can become the property of consciousness and even displace the old ideal form. Therefore, it is correctly said that language changes as it is transmitted from generation to generation - at the same time its ideal conscious form changes. The most important changes, however, occur in the individual and are determined psychologically and physiologically."

But the ideal composition, according to Shcherba, is not always clear to our consciousness. “In fact, let us imagine that a child has never heard the distinct pronunciation of the word speaks, but has heard only the forms and; he can easily imagine, based on experience with the word moos, that the ideal form of the word will be , and if no one corrects him accordingly, distinct pronunciation, then he will remain with gyrit instead of speaking; but if he has a vague memory of , then consciousness may fluctuate, two parallel forms may arise, etc. So, for example, in my opinion, we have both forms - and hello and hello - exist in consciousness, while the same cannot be said about says and grits, although this latter is even recorded in literature: grit, at least by me, is felt as dialectic.”

Any written language strives to capture the ideal phonetic composition of words, but does not always keep up with changes in the language and therefore reflects the old form.

According to Shcherba’s observations, “students in most cases acquire only those phonetic phenomena that appear clearly in coherent speech, and the ideal phonetic composition of words only where it does not contradict the phonetics of their native language.” He gives the following example: “in French it differs and ( ouvert) and th (fermе), but this difference is clearly audible only under stress. Meanwhile, in the phrase quite often this emphasis is absent, and the difference is concealed; for example: c"еtait hier is pronounced as usual (where and is a middle unstressed e), although in a distinct (syllable-by-syllable) pronunciation the phrase will sound .

Thus, students relatively rarely hear and (ouvert), and since it is unusual for Russian speech, they do not at all assimilate it as an independent sound. Therefore, I have never heard Russians, even those who speak French well in general, who would distinguish, for example, futur from conditionnel in the first person [??lire] and [??lire]."

In order to avoid this, it is necessary to study, first of all, the ideal phonetic composition of the words of your native language and a foreign one, in order to see the differences and pay special attention to them. Shcherba proposes to print two transcriptions in dictionaries: for the ideal phonetic composition of words and for coherent speech, but, unfortunately, very little has been done in this direction.

Shcherba's most significant work on the issue of spelling is the work "On the Question of Russian Orthoepy."

In essence, this work by Shcherba is a polemic with the work of D.N. Ushakov "Russian orthoepy and its tasks." He does not agree that Ushakov is simply establishing rules for Russian pronunciation, and believes that it is first necessary to “establish the very system of Russian phonemes and their shades, selecting the absolutely important ones from the unimportant ones.”

Shcherba gives an answer to the question of which of all possible pronunciations should be standardized: after all, there are no identical pronunciation styles. He proposes to standardize two pronunciations: literal, clear and clear, and the second, which manifests itself in coherent, relaxed speech (and at a slow pace). Shcherba says that literal pronunciation is not artificial, we use it when we want to repeat something more clearly for a person who is hard of hearing, so that there are no misunderstandings and misunderstandings, in singing and in other cases.

Shcherba's entire work is based on contrasting his examples with those of Ushakov. The fact is that Ushakov, as a rule, considers only one pronunciation option, while Shcherba, without rejecting the option proposed by Ushakov, offers an option for the ideal pronunciation of the word, and in this case, Ushakov’s options seem dialectal to him. For example, Ushakov suggests: chis, pitak, but with clear pronunciation, Shcherba believes, you can only say hours, nickel. But Shcherba says: cloudy, melon-like, unlike Ushakov, who suggests: cloudy.

Next, Shcherba touches on the issue of pronunciation of endings. In distinct speech, he distinguishes between Fields (a female name), Field (nominative and accusative, as well as the prepositional case in Field and the dative case of Field - Field) and Poly (genitive case of Field). But he pronounces the words name and banner with a distinct e at the end. Thus, the dispute between Ushakov and Shcherba about pronunciation develops into a dispute about morphology, namely: whose morphological system can lay claim to all-Russian significance.

Shcherba takes a more attentive approach to those issues of orthoepy that at first glance seem insignificant. DN Ushakov, in his opinion, oversimplifies such an important issue of language as the pronunciation of a word depending on different pronunciation styles. Shcherba proposes to standardize the two pronunciation options.

Shcherba examines this question in great detail in his other work, “The Theory of Russian Writing.” Here he calls these pronunciation options full and colloquial. The full style is characteristic, as a rule, of public speech, where it is necessary to clearly pronounce words, and in everyday speech, in those cases already mentioned above. Conversational style is a more conventional concept; here vowels without stress are subject to quantitative and qualitative reduction.

Shcherba shows the difference between the two types of pronunciations with examples.

Our writing, he notes, is based on complete style. However, it also allows for different “pronunciation”, although it is not based on a phonetic principle. Uniformity of writing is important to us, and therefore we choose one of the literary variants as the basis for writing. Shcherba believes that the organization of writing should be based, first of all, on the ease of its assimilation, the speed and ease of reading and grasping the meaning of what is being read.

Shcherba dwells in more detail on the concept of pronunciation, namely: which pronunciation is considered normal and which is defective?

Shcherba considers normal pronunciation to be such pronunciation when even in an unusually pronounced one a familiar, normal sound complex is recognized, for example, the pronunciation of the letter ь is recognized in words such as shchi, shshyuka, etc., or, for example, in the case of different pronunciation of words with unstressed o: karova or cow, gara or mountain, etc.

Defective pronunciation, according to Shcherba, manifests itself in cases where the words boat, paw, goat are pronounced as utka, uapa, kazeu.

Shcherba comes to the conclusion that a norm does exist for the Russian literary language. Within this norm, there are variants, and the literary language should focus on literary variants, and not dialectal ones. Cutting off one of the pronunciation options can impoverish the language.

Shcherba writes: “... although in general it is completely true that writing is something external to the language, the choice of one or another pronunciation option for it is sometimes not at all indifferent and can in some cases be decisive for fate language. That is why this choice cannot be made within the framework of streamlining or reforming spelling to simplify or facilitate it: this is a matter of some broader discussion of the issues of orthoepy of a given language, i.e. the unity of its pronunciation" (p. 158).

Separately, Shcherba considers the issue of “ekanya” and “hicca” (diaper or sawn, takes or biryot, now or tiper, etc.). This pronunciation is alien to him, it is clearly a dialectal pronunciation. And again he comes to the idea that it is necessary to learn two styles of pronunciation. But at the same time, dialect pronunciation must be brought closer to literary pronunciation, and not vice versa.

Chapter 3. Analysis of works by L.V. Shcherby morphology

A prominent place in the theoretical works of L.V. Shcherba is interested in the study of parts of speech. From a general linguistic point of view, what is important in it is not exactly which parts of speech it identifies in the Russian language, but the interpretation of the essence of this linguistic category and the methods for identifying it. This is exactly how L.V. himself understood his task. Shcherba, when he wrote his article “On parts of speech in the Russian language,” in which we read: “In works on general linguistics, the question is usually approached from the point of view of the origin of the categories of “parts of speech” in general and only sometimes from the point of view of different ways of expressing them in different languages, and little is said about the fact that the categories themselves can vary significantly from language to language if each of them is approached as a completely autonomous phenomenon, rather than viewed through the prism of other languages" (34).

In his reasoning, Shcherba proceeds from the following basic principles:

1. If categories have several formal characteristics, then some of them may be absent in certain cases. At the same time, Shcherba writes, “if any category has found its full expression in the linguistic system, then the meaning alone forces us to subsume this or that word under this category: if we know that cockatoo is the name of a bird, we do not look for formal characteristics in order to recognize the noun in this word."

2. Formal features (“external indicators of categories”) are not limited to inflectional ones. In addition, these, according to Shcherba, include: “phrase stress, intonation, word order, special auxiliary words, syntactic connections, etc., etc.” .

3. Materially, one and the same word can appear in different categories (the word around can be an adverb in some uses, and a preposition in others), and on the other hand, “it may happen that the same word turns out to be simultaneously subsumed under different categories.” Shcherba includes participles, gerunds, interrogative words as such “contaminated” categories: who, what, which, whose, where, how, why, how much.

4. Some words may not be classified into parts of speech. Shcherba included words that “don’t fit anywhere,” in particular, introductory words, various “amplifying words” such as even “words,” yes, no.

Shcherba examines parts of speech in detail in his article.

Shcherba considers interjections to be a very unclear part of speech, since their meaning is only emotional, and the category of interjections, thus, turns out to be very vague. For example, the etymology of the expressions, my God, damn it, is clear, but this is only the etymology, you can’t understand the damn thing in the expression as a verb. And vice versa: in terms of expression, damn you all! we, according to Shcherba, are no longer dealing with an interjection, but with a verb, because It depends on you all, and there is no formal sign of interjection. He classifies addresses and some forms of the imperative mood as interjections (be silent!, silence!), but Shcherba does not classify the onomatopoeic meow-meow, wow-wow as interjections.

Next, Shcherba talks about the difference between two categories: the category of significant and auxiliary words. Significant ones have an independent meaning, are able to extend a given word or combination of words, and can bear phrasal stress, while auxiliary ones only express the relationship between objects of thought; they do not have phrasal stress.

For the noun, Shcherba examines in detail all the main meanings of this category. He classifies as nouns what are commonly called pronouns (I, we, you, you, he, she, it, they, themselves, who? what? nothing, etc.). He classifies such words as pronominal nouns, and formally this group can be defined by the impossibility of defining them with the preceding adjective (you cannot say: I am a good person, a nice person). In general, according to Shcherba, there is no clear system in this area in the Russian language: the old group of pronouns has disintegrated, and no new distinct oppositions of pronominal adjectives and nouns have been developed.

Shcherba identifies a number of categories that are expressive: proper and common nouns (proper names, as a rule, are used in the plural. Ivanov, Krestovsky, etc. - this is pluralia tantum), abstract and concrete names (abstract names are also not used in the plural, the joys of life are more specific than joy, learning, etc.), animate and inanimate names (for animate ones, the form of V.p. plural is similar to R.p., and for inanimate ones - with I.p.), real names (not used in the plural, and if used, denote different varieties: wines, oils, etc.), collective names (words such as flock, regiment, Shcherba does not include here, we can form collective names using the suffixes -j- or -(e)stv- in the middle words: soldier, officer), single names (beads/beads, pearl/pearl).

To adjectives he again includes the pronouns my, yours, ours, such, this, which, every, etc., all participles (if participles lose their verbal nature, they become ordinary adjectives), all “ordinal numbers”, forms comparative degrees of adjectives when they refer to nouns (your drawing is better than mine). Regarding the comparative degree, Shcherba writes: “... the comparative degree of adjectives differs from the adverb in its relevance to the noun, and from nouns, which can also relate to the noun, in its connection with the positive and superlative degrees” (34).

Shcherba talks about ordinal adjectives, giving an example: I graduated from the second Kyiv men's gymnasium. He calls the second word an ordinal adjective, because. here, in his opinion, the associative connection by contiguity is strong, it supports a semantic connection and the concept of “orderliness” appears very clearly.

Adverbs, according to Shcherba, are simply a formal category, since adverbs have the same meanings as adjectives. But I remember adverbs that do not change: very, too, by heart, immediately, around, etc. Therefore, we can talk about the following formal features of adverbs: relation to an adjective, to a verb or other adverbs, impossibility of defining by an adjective (if it is not an adverbial expression), immutability (although adverbs derived from adjectives can have degrees of comparison), for adverbs from adjectives endings -о or -е, and for verbal adverbs (gerunds) special endings.

How to distinguish an adverb from a noun in the cases: abroad and abroad? And, as always, here Shcherba conducts an experiment: he suggests trying to add an adjective: beyond our border, beyond the southern border, then we understand that this is impossible without changing the meaning, therefore, abroad, abroad are adverbs, not nouns.

Shcherba sharply distinguishes gerunds: “In essence, these are real verbal forms, in their function only partially similar to adverbs. Formally, they are united with these latter by their relevance to the verb and the supposed lack of agreement with it (in fact, they should have a common face in the Russian language, although this is not expressed outwardly)."

Shcherba also emphasizes quantitative words. “The meaning is the abstract idea of number, and the formal sign is a peculiar type of combination with the noun to which the word expressing quantity refers.” Then they are no longer included in the category of adjectives and nouns. An interesting word is thousand. From a common point of view, this word is not presented as a number, but rather as a kind of unity, as a noun (a thousand soldiers, with a thousand soldiers), but now this word is increasingly turning into a quantitative word.

In relation to the six classes of significant words, and even more so in relation to all ten parts of speech, it is difficult to talk about any classification that obeys strict logical rules. It is extremely difficult to create such a classification. Shcherba emphasizes the secondary importance of the classification point for parts of speech. He does not consider the classification of parts of speech to be strictly scientific, based on a certain classification feature. For parts of speech that reflect general categories of language, such rigor is both unattainable and excessive. Therefore, on the one hand, it is quite acceptable for the same word to be subsumed simultaneously under different categories (for example, participles that combine the characteristics of a verb and an adjective). On the other hand, “since again we are not dealing with classification, there is nothing to fear that some words will not fit anywhere - this means that they really do not fit into any category by us,” as exemplified by various types of introductory words and the words yes, No. Shcherba resolutely opposes perfectly logical formal classifications, in which something that is actually alien to the language is imposed. He gives one of these classifications: 1) gold, tongs, five;. 2) table, fish; 3) done, led. famous; 4) red; 5) walks. She receives the following assessment: “It is absolutely obvious that these categories have no meaning, and therefore do not exist in the language, although they were invented quite conscientiously from a logical point of view.”

As for specific decisions regarding the composition of parts of speech in the Russian language, the most famous among them was Shcherba’s proposal to identify a special category of state. According to Shcherba, it could include words that appear in the predicate in combination with a copula and at the same time are neither full adjectives nor the nominative case of a noun. In other words, he included in this category forms ending with -o in sentences like It’s getting cold, short adjectives (He’s angry), and words like married, tipsy, etc. Summing up the discussion of this category, Shcherba wrote: “... the means of its expression are too diverse, but what is undoubted for me is the attempts of the Russian language to have a special category of state, which is being developed in different ways, but has not yet received, and may never receive , general brand" .

In the category of verbs, Shcherba considers action, not state, to be the main meaning. The point is not in the meaning of the words that are included in this category, but in the meaning of the category under which certain words are subsumed (for example, a patient is lying on a bed - we imagine “lying down” not as a state, but as an action). It is the general meaning of the action that allows us, according to Shcherba, to recognize the infinitive, participle, gerund and personal forms as forms of one word.

...

L in Scherba works. Shcherba Lev Vladimirovich - Doctor of Philology, Russian and Soviet linguist

Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba short biography

Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba's contribution to linguistics and the development of the Russian language

Main works of L.V. Shcherby

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