The concept of alternation. Types of alternations: positional and non-positional alternations, phonetic and historical

Grammatical meanings can be expressed by changes in the sound composition of the root itself, or, in other words, by internal inflection, but not all sound changes of the root are internal inflection. To do this you need to be able to distinguish different types alternations of sounds.

Alternations of sounds (i.e., mutual replacement in the same places, in the same morphemes) can be:

I. Phonetic, when the change in sound is due to position and variations or variants of the same phoneme alternate, without changing the composition of phonemes in morphemes; These are the alternations of stressed and unstressed vowels in the Russian language: water [vody] – water [vΛda] – water carrier [vƏдΛvos], where [Λ] and [Ə] are variants of the phoneme [o]", or voiced and voiceless consonant sounds: friend [ druk] – friend [friendΛ], [k] – variant of the phoneme [g]2. To connect with further reasoning, let’s take another example: forehead [lop] – frontal [forehead-nƏi] – frontal [forehead], where [l] does not vary, [o] sometimes sounds in its basic form as [o] (under stress), sometimes in the form of [Ə] in the weak position of the second pre-stressed syllable [labΛvoi]; [b] sounds voiced (in its basic form) before a vowel [lƏbΛvoi] and before sonorant [bnƏi], and at the end of the word it is deafened [lop]. Such phonetic alternations are obligatory in this language (in Russian “all vowels in unstressed syllables are reduced”, “all voiced consonants at the end of the word are deafened” ) 3. These alternations have nothing to do with the expression of meanings - they are forced by position and are studied in phonetics.

II. Non-phonetic, when the change in sound does not depend on positions, but different phonemes alternate, due to which the morphemes receive different phonemic composition in their different variants (for example, [friend-] - [druz"-] - [friend-] in the Russian words friend - friends – friendly).

Among non-phonetic alternations one should distinguish:

a) Morphological (or historical, traditional) alternations, when this alternation is not determined by phonetic position, but is not in itself an expression of grammatical meaning (in a grammatical way), but only accompanies the formation of certain grammatical forms, being obligatory by tradition, but not for expressiveness.

In the examples, forehead - forehead, stump - stump in the roots, either there is a vowel, or there is none (“fluent vowels”); this does not depend on the position, since most words that have a root [o] (or [e]) do not lose them when forming grammatical forms (cf. table - table, bob - bob, pop - popa, cat - cat, etc. . p.)" and at the same time the grammatical meaning is expressed not by alternating a vowel and a zero sound, but by adding various inflections (affixation): lb-a - genitive case, lb-u - dative, etc. (the same without " fluent" vowel: lob-a, lob-u - a term for playing tennis, see above in Chapter II - "Lexicology")

1 In the example, garden [sat], gardens [sΛdy], gardener [sƏdovot] the same [Λ] and [Ə] are variants of the phoneme [a].

2 In the example hatch, hatch and hatch would [l "ugby] [g] is a variant of the phoneme [k].

3 Of course, in these cases there are individual exceptions (an unstressed conjunction but always with [o], in foreign proper names the voiced words at the end may not be devoiced: Ev, Mod, etc.), but these are precisely the “exceptions” that emphasize the mandatory nature of the “rule”.

The same type of alternations includes alternations of consonants [k - h], [g - zh], [x - w]: bake - bake, run - run, dry - drier, or combinations of consonants with one consonant [sk - sch], [st - sch], [zg - zh1], [zzh - zh]: crack - crack, let - let out, splash - splash, be late - later. Thus, with morphological alternations, the following alternate:

1) phoneme with zero (“fluent” vowels [o] or [e] - zero): sleep - sleep, day - day;

2) one phoneme with another: [k – h], [g – g], [x – w]: hand – pen, leg – leg, fly – fly;

3) two phonemes with one: [sk - sch], [st - sch], [zg - zh,], [zzh - zh]: plane - area, simple - simplification, grump - to grumble, be late - later, etc. P.

Such alternations are called historical because they are explained only historically, and not from modern language; Thus, “fluent” vowels are observed because in the Old Russian language there were not [o] and [e], but reduced [ъ] and [ь] (the so-called “voiceless”), which in a certain period became in a strong position, respectively [o] and [e], and in the weak they disappeared, from where: сън> sleep, а съна> sleep, etc.; alternations [k – h], [g – zh], [x – sh], [sk – shch], [st – shch], [zg – zh], [zh – zh] go back to the prehistoric era, when these consonants and combinations of consonants in weak positions (in one era before front vowels, in another before iota) turned into sibilant fricatives, respectively, and in strong positions they remained intact

1 Similar examples on [e] in Russian are difficult, since [e] after a soft consonant under stress has changed into [o]: copper [m"edъ] > honey [m"ot], etc.; this did not happen before soft consonants (therefore, the morphological alternation of [o] before hard and [e] before soft consonants was preserved: sela - rural, bees - beekeeper, birch - bereznik, Alekha - Alekhine; cf. rare cases like Lel, Lelya of later origin) .

2 Orthographically [zh] is transmitted when alternating as zzh, in other cases as zhzh (see Chapter V, § 71)

Morphological alternations can be regular when they are repeated in different forms and in different parts speech (for example, [g - zh]: run - you run, pull - puff, meadow - meadow, leg - foot, etc.), and irregular, occurring in a few cases (for example, [g - h]: bank - take care, I can – I can), and in inflection there are more often regular alternations, and in word formation – irregular ones. These phenomena are not included in phonetics and are not determined by grammar, but form a special area of ​​language - morphonology1 (see below, at the end of this paragraph).

1Term morphonology<морфофонология предложен Н. С. Трубецким, 1931 г.

They are called traditional1 because these alternations are not subject to both semantic necessity and phonetic compulsion, but are preserved by virtue of tradition; therefore, where traditions are not supported by writing, dictionaries, or do not exist at all, they can be abolished. This happens in dialects, vernacular and in children's speech: bake - bake, run - run, sleep - sleep, etc.

1 This definition was introduced by I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay, see: Baudouin de Courtenay I. A. Experience in the theory of phonetic alternations // Selected works on general linguistics. M.: Publishing house. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. T. 1. 1963.

This abolition of traditional, morphological alternation arises due to analogy1, carried out according to the proportion: a:b = a":x, where x = b", for example, I'm taking: you're taking = baking: x, and x = baking; house: home= sleep: x, and x= sleep; Thus, in the Old Russian declension of nouns with stems in [k, g, x] it was in the dative case roucђ, “nosђ, blusђ, and now hand, leg, flea by analogy with scythe - scythe, wall - wall, nora - hole, saw – saw, etc.

1 Analogy – from the Greek analogia – “correspondence”.

In such cases, no phonetic process occurs, but one type of morpheme, for example [ruts-], is replaced by another [ruk"-], and in this way the entire paradigm is “leveled out” or “unified”; therefore, such changes by analogy are called alignment or unification, but the form does not change.

In common speech, in dialect and children's speech, such alignments by analogy are most widespread, cf. for children: I’m crying, I’m looking, I’m selling (instead of crying, I’m looking, I’m selling), fighting (instead of fighting), zadadu (instead of zadam), piglets, calves (instead of piglets, calves), cat, fell in the meaning of “big cat”, “ big stick"), etc.

Alignment by analogy is more common in the field of inflection due to its greater regularity and obligatory nature and less common in the field of word formation due to its greater individuality and optionality of word formation.

b) Grammatical alternations are very similar to morphological ones, or rather, they are the same alternations, and they are often combined together, since both grammatical and morphological alternations do not depend on phonetic positions and thus do not relate to phonetics; In both cases, it is not allophones of one phoneme that alternate, but independent phonemes with each other, with zero, or one phoneme with two. However, a significant difference between grammatical alternations and morphological (traditional) ones is that grammatical alternations do not simply accompany various word forms formed and distinguished in other ways (for example, by affixation, as in vozh-u - voz-ish, etc.), but independently express grammatical meanings, and such alternation in itself may be sufficient to distinguish word forms, and therefore cannot be canceled by analogy by unifying the phonemic composition of the root. Thus, it is impossible to “replace” gol with gol, sushi with dry, name with name, avoid with avoid, because alternations of paired hard and soft consonants [l - l"], [n - n"], etc., as well as alternations [k - h], [x - w] can distinguish between a short masculine adjective and a noun of the collective category: gol - gol, torn - dud, dik - game, dry - dry; alternation [g - z] can distinguish between imperfect and perfect forms verbs: avoid, resort, run away, etc. and avoid, resort, run away, etc.; these same two aspect categories of the verb in some cases differ by alternating the root vowel [i] with zero: collect - collect, name - name, or the combination [im], [in] with zero: squeeze out - squeeze out (squeeze out), squeeze out - squeeze out (I'll squeeze it out).

In all these cases we are dealing with grammatical, meaningful alternation, that is, with a grammatical mode. This is internal reflection.

The phenomenon of internal inflection was discovered on the material of Indo-European languages, and specifically Germanic ones, when the German romantics declared it the embodiment of the ideal - unity in diversity and characterized it as magical changes in a wonderful root (Friedrich Schlegel, see Chapter VI, § 79).

The most ancient type of internal inflection was found in the so-called “strong verbs,” which is characteristic of all Germanic languages. Jacob Grimm (1785–1868) called this phenomenon Ablaut (prefix ab - "from" and Laut - "sound"); this term is used in all languages, including Russian, to denote the alternation of vowels in the system of the verb and verbal formations (abla2ut).

In English, for “strong verbs” there is ablaut in its pure form, for example1:

1 In English there are other schemes of verbal ablaut, for example, think [θiηk] – “to think” – thought – “thought”, thought [θƆ:t] – “thought”; do – “to do”, did – “did”, done – “done”.

The difference between the English and German examples comes down to the fact that the English language prefers word forms that differ only in internal inflection (sing, sang, sung, song), while German also uses affixation in the same cases, adding the prefix ge-: Ge-sang or “surrounding” the root with alternating confixation: ge-sung-en.

Another type of internal inflection in Germanic languages ​​is Umlaut (the prefix it- - “re-” and Laut - “sound”, the term was also proposed by Jacob Grimm), formed in the medieval period in various Germanic languages ​​independently and in different ways1, expresses the difference of the only numbers, where the roots are back vowels, and plurals, where front vowels are in their place.

1 See: Zhirmunsky V.M. Umlaut in German dialects from the point of view of historical phonology //Academician Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov. M., 1956; Steblin-Kamensky M.I. What is umlaut? // Materials of the 1st scientific session on issues of German linguistics, 1959.

In modern German this is a “shift” [i] in [y], [o] in [ø:] and [a:] in [ε:]: Bruder – “brother” – Brüder – “brothers”, Qfen [' o:fƏn] – “oven” – Оfen ['ø:fƏn] – “ovens”, Gast – “guest” – Gäste – “guests”, where only the sign of vowel localization changes: back – front while maintaining all other differential features ( elevation, labialization).

In modern English, where there are fewer such cases, only the sign of rising is retained, and the posterior localization changes to the anterior and labialization to delabialization, so [ν] –, diphthongs [a ν] and : foot – “leg” – feet – “legs” alternate ", tooth – “tooth” – teeth – “teeth”, mouse – “mouse” – mice – “mice”.

And in the case of umlaut, the English language prefers to limit itself to pure internal inflection, while German willingly combines internal inflection with affixation, for example: Gast - “guest” - Gäste - “guests”, Wolf - “wolf” - Wölfe - “wolves”, etc. P.

In English, cases such as child – “child” – children – “children”, where both internal inflection and affixation are used to express the plural of nouns (zero in child and -en in children) are a rare exception, in all usual cases distinguishing singular and plural by affixation (usually -z with its variants -s, -iz): father – “father” – father-s – “fathers”, book – “book” – book-s – “books”, ox [ Ɔks] – “bull” – oxen [ƆksƏn] – “bulls”, etc. internal inflection is not used (cf. in German Vater – “father” – Väter – “book” – Bucher – “books”, etc.) n. – with internal inflection), when in English the “method changes”, i.e. the difference between these grammatical categories is carried out by affixation, internal inflection is not applied, for example, the old distinction brother - “brother” - brethrin - “brothers” ", where there is both affixation and internal inflection, changes to brother - brother-s or: old cow - “cow” - kine - “cows” - to modern cow-s.

Alternating consonants as an internal inflection is sometimes used in English to distinguish between nouns (with a voiceless consonant at the end) and a verb from the same root (with a voiced consonant at the end), for example: house - “house” - house - “shelter” or mouse - “mouse” –mouse – “to catch mice.”

In French, along with a very large number of morphological alternations: boire – “to drink” – buvons – “drink”, dire – “to speak” – disons – “we speak”, faire – “to do” – fis – “did”, pouvoire – “can” – Reich and puis – “can” – peuvent – ​​“can”, valouar – “stand” – vaux – “stand” – valons – “we stand”, etc., pure internal inflection occurs irregularly and rarely, for example , in the form of alternating nasal vowels with a combination of vowels with nasal consonants, for generic differences, for example: brun - “brown” - brune - “brown”, fin - “thin” -fine - “thin”, etc. 1.

1 Such alternations, arising on the basis of phonetic formation - nasal vowels in closed syllables, which did not happen in open syllables (fin - fi-ne), are the opposite of cases of internal inflection in the Russian language based on the loss of nasal vowels such as: zhat, zhmu, squeeze; reap, reap, squeeze out (where in reap historically there was a nasal vowel a [e]).

In modern Russian, these alternations have ceased to play their former role due to the emergence of reduction of unstressed vowels [e] - [i] and [a] - [o] and due to the action of a unifying analogy; however, in such cases as congestion - ter [t"or] - rub - tru - wipe, zamor - froze - freeze - freeze, collection - collect - collect, fervor - pick up - pick up, it is impossible to unify the spellings with -e- and s -and-, since if phonetically after soft consonants in an unstressed case, neutralization occurs<э>And<и>: rub and erase, then after hard consonants the same neutralization in unstressed syllables of phonemes<о>And<и>= [s] does not happen: call - call - call, ditch - tear - tear out, and also: shelter - cut - cover, my - wash - mine - wash, etc. Here, as in cases of internal inflection, collect - collect, name – call, etc., the old Indo-European ablaut is still structurally valid.

The combination of internal inflection with affixation is found in the Russian language when forming multiple subtypes of imperfective verbs with [o] at the root, using the suffix -iv-; walks - walked, wears - sewed, mows - mowed, freezes - froze, etc., when [a] alternates with [o]; The alternation of consonants accompanying this internal inflection: [s – sh], [d – zh], [z – zh] is traditional, that is, it does not carry any grammatical “load”, but is used due to tradition. It should be noted that in verbs where the root [ov] in conjugation alternates with [y] (to draw - I draw, to poke - I shove), where before the root [o] there is a soft consonant or yot [j] (to shudder), as well as verbs formed from proper names, from foreign roots and from artificial words, the alternation [o] - [a] does not arise when forming forms on -ivate (draw, shove, spit, button up, shudder, obegorivat, spur, spandor, summarize and etc.).

Why should those grammatical phenomena that were discussed in the previous paragraph in connection with the concept of transfix in Semitic languages ​​and the phenomenon of internal inflection in Indo-European languages, which are in some ways very similar and usually combined together, be separated and distinguished? The point here is not only that the phenomena of internal inflection are irregular and optional for the model of Indo-European morphogenesis, and transfixation is a mandatory technique in the grammar of Semitic languages.

The point here is that “root + scheme”, i.e. a group of consonants and a layer of vowels between them, in Semitic languages ​​are two separate units, both in the method of design and in meaning. These are two morphemes, the arrangement of which is unusual from the point of view of Indo-European skills: they are combined not sequentially, but interstriated: one enters the other, as two combs can enter each other, and each of these morphemes breaks and breaks the other. Any word form like the Arabic KaTaLad is two-morpheme, and the connection of these morphemes, despite the interpenetration, should be recognized as a connection of the agglutinating type.

In Indo-European languages, it is impossible to recognize the alternating vowels [i], [æ], [Λ], [ò] in the English word forms sing, sang, sung, song as separate morphemes (obviously, like “infixes” inserted inside the root?). These word forms are fundamentally monomorphemic and are allomorphs of one common unit of a higher order, so to speak, “above-unit” - a hypermorpheme that unites all specific allomorphs into one whole, just as a hyperphoneme serves as a “above-unit” of different phonemes, for example in such cases as bo /aran, so/abaca, etc.

The entire structure of the language is built on such unifiers into one higher-ranking unit of different lower-ranking units. And the smallest unit of language - the phoneme is also a unit that unites all allophones (variations and variants) in which it can appear, for example, the allophones [a, æ, Λ, Ə], united in the Russian literary language into one phoneme<А>. One of the confirmations of the monomorphemic interpretation of Indo-European roots, which have the possibility of internal inflection, is that, for example, in the German language in the speech of children, in common parlance many “strong verbs” cease to be conjugated as “strong” and turn into “weak”, i.e. ., without undergoing internal inflection, begin to form word forms through “normal” (i.e., productive for the modern German language) postfixation and confixation, then instead of springen, sprang, gesprun-gen the forms are obtained: spring-en, spring-te, ge -spring-t. In addition, if we do not recognize such cases as gol and gol, torn and dun in the Russian language as internal inflection, then what can be considered an affix in such word forms: hardness in -l, -n and softness in -l, -ny? But, as is known, differential features themselves cannot be morphemes, but only through phonemic units, indivisible from the point of view of division (segmentation) of the speech chain1.

1Using in every possible way the valuable article by I. A. Melchuk “On “internal inflection” in Indo-European and Semitic languages” (Questions of Linguistics, 1963. No. 4), where the author perfectly proved the affixation of Semitic “schemes”, one cannot agree that this affixation is internal inflection . This term should be attributed specifically to the formation of Indo-European languages, and “similar” phenomena of Semitic languages ​​should be called transfixation. All phenomena of non-phonetic alternations are studied by morphonology (see above), but the study of their function, the expression of certain grammatical meanings belongs to grammar. A very important task for morphonology is the study of the phonemic composition of morphemes, their possible combinations in morphemes, the number of phonemes in morphemes of different types, which can be very different in different languages.

Sometimes the phonemic composition of roots is sharply different from the phonemic composition of affixes, for example in Semitic languages, where the root usually consists of three consonants, and the affixes consist of vowels or a combination of consonants and vowels (see above, § 46); in agglutinating languages, where there is synharmonism, the composition of vowel roots and affixes is different, and the study of the phenomena of synharmonism is a direct task of morphonology. In the Russian language, the phoneme [zh,] is found only in a few roots, and never in affixes, while its paired phoneme [ ь] is also present in word-forming affixes, for example in the suffix -schik- (sawyer, varnisher, debater), and in the participial suffixes -ush-, -ash-, but is not found either in prefixes or in inflections. The alternation of vowels in Russian in nouns is limited to cases [o] - zero and [e] - zero (sleep - sleep, day - day, muzhichok - muzhichka), while in the Russian verb there are different types of alternations: [o] - [and ]: sper - spiral, swarm - dig; [e] - [a]: sit down - sit down; [o] – [a]: lay down – lie down; [and] – zero: collect – collect, etc.

Since in all these cases there are no phonetic positions and no phonetic conditions in general, they do not belong to phonetics, but morphonology is called upon to deal with them.

Every grammatical phenomenon always has two sides: internal, grammatical meaning (what is expressed) and external, grammatical method (what is expressed). Grammatical way- This material expression of grammatical meanings, both relational and derivational. Ultimately, all grammatical differences between morphemes that show changes in case, number, person, tense, etc. are expressed by phonemic differences. The role of a grammatical method is also played by special function words, which are needed both to express the relationships between members of sentences and between sentences. Thus, grammatical meanings are expressed not directly by phonemes, but by known technical combinations of phonetic material.

There are a limited number of grammatical methods used in languages, these are: affixation, internal inflection, repetition, addition, function words, word order, stress, intonation and suppletivism. Some languages ​​(like Russian, English) use all possible grammatical methods, others (like Chinese, French) use only a few.

The method of affixation consists of attaching affixes to the roots (or bases). Affixes are morphemes with grammatical meaning. Affixes do not exist in languages ​​outside of words; they accompany the root, serving for word formation and inflection.

Based on their position relative to the root, affixes can be divided into prefixes, which come before the root, and postfixes, which come after the root. There are languages ​​that do not use prefixes, and express all grammar with postfixes (Kyrgyz); other languages ​​prefer prefixes and do not use postfixes (Swahili). Indo-European languages ​​use both, with a clear preference for postfixes. The group of postfixes can be divided into suffixes and inflections. Suffixes are postfixes with a derivational meaning, and inflections are postfixes with a relational meaning. In relation to Indo-European languages, prefixes cannot be subdivided in this way, because the same prefix, even in combination with the same root, can express both a derivational or relational meaning, or both at once. According to their grammatical role, suffixes are word-forming affixes, and inflections are inflectional; prefixes can play both roles.

In addition to prefixes and suffixes, there are other affixes. These include interfixes - service morphemes that do not have their own meaning, but serve to connect roots in complex words. Trubetskoy called them “communication morphemes.” They are used exclusively in word-formation function. These are, for example, Russian connecting vowels or the German connecting consonant -s-.

Confixes are combinations of two affixes: a prefix and a postfix, which, although they represent two morphemes, act together (for example, the Russian word “podorozhnik” - there is no word “dorozhnik”). There are also phenomena when morphemes are broken and allow incorporation into other morphemes.

Infixes are affixes inserted into the middle of a root. Similar phenomena are found in Indonesian languages, such as Tagalog. As for Indo-European languages, examples of inserted nasal consonants like [n], [m] in Latin and Greek examples (vinco – vici) do not present a clear picture, because values ​​cannot be determined for these infixes.

Transfixes are affixes that, breaking a root consisting of only consonants, themselves break and serve as a “layer” of vowels among consonants, defining the word form and formalizing it grammatically, i.e. have a certain grammatical meaning. This phenomenon is characteristic of Semitic languages ​​(Hebrew, Akkadian, Phoenician, Arabic). Thus, in Arabic, the root KTB expresses the idea of ​​“writing,” and the intermittent affix forms the word form KaTaBa - “wrote.”

In many languages, the zero affix plays an important role - this is the absence of an affix in one form of a paradigm in the presence of affixes in other forms of the same paradigm.

Grammatical meanings can be expressed by changes in sound composition himself root, or internal inflection. However, there are different types of alternations: first of all they are divided into phonetic (positional) and non-phonetic (alternation of different phonemes). The latter, in turn, are divided into morphological (historical) and grammatical (independently express grammatical meanings). It is grammatical alternations that are internal inflection.

The phenomenon of internal inflection was discovered on the material of the Indo-European languages ​​of the Germanic group. The most ancient type of internal inflection is found in so-called strong verbs (such as English drink – drank – drunk). Jacob Grimm called this phenomenon ablaut– alternation of vowels in the system of verbs and verbal formations. A similar situation is observed in French (pouvoir – je peux – je puis – ils peuvent). In the Russian language, such alternations have ceased to play the important role characteristic of Old Church Slavonic, thanks to the emergence of reduction of unstressed vowels. However, the combination of internal inflection with affixation is possible when forming multiple subtypes of imperfective verbs (walks - walked).

Emphasis only then it can be an expressive means in grammar, When it changeable. Therefore, tone stress can always be a grammatical method, due to its polytonicity. Monotonic stress can be used as a grammatical method only if it is flexible. So, in Russian, stress can be distinguished:

1) different words in all their forms;

2) different words in some forms;

3) different forms of the same word.

In languages ​​with fixed stress, such cases are rare.

Reduplication – complete or partial repetition of the root, stem or whole word without changing the sound composition or with a partial change in it. Very often repetition is used to express the plural (for example, in the Malay or dead Sumerian languages). For many languages, repetitions are used in speech as a means of reinforcing a given message (yes, barely, long, long ago). Onomatopoeic repetitions such as quack-quack, oink-oink, are widely known. In adjectives, repetition can be used to express the superlative degree in its pure form or with prefixation (kind-kind, big-big). Incomplete repetitions of the root were typical for the formation of the perfect in Latin, ancient Greek and ancient Indian languages ​​(cado - cecidi “fall - fell”).

Suppletivism - joining into one grammatical a couple multi-rooted or words of different bases, when, despite the difference in roots or stems, the lexical meaning does not change, and the difference in words serves only as a grammatical way of distinguishing grammatical meanings. Thus, in the Russian language, the aspectual difference of a verb can be expressed not only by affixation, but also by the difference in roots (put - put, sit down - sit down). In Indo-European languages, the use of suppletivism of roots to form degrees of comparison of adjectives “good” and “bad” is typical. (good-better). Root suppletivism also includes such cases in the Russian language as the formation of number forms in nouns from different roots ( person people, children). But sometimes suppletive pairs also arise purely phonetically (for example, in French un - une). Suppletivism is not characteristic of all languages.

Alternation of sounds (allophones) and phonemes - their mutual replacement in the same morpheme in different cases of use, acting as a main or additional morphological indicator ( nose-it/carry; can-y / can-eat), that is, it can be determined not only by phonetic, but also by word-formation or morphological reasons. Such alternations accompany the formation of words and their forms.

Alternants can differ quantitatively (longitude of sound) or qualitatively (method of formation, place of formation).

Based on the nature of the alternation conditions, two types are distinguished:

• phonetic (also called automatic alternations);
• non-phonetic - traditional, historical.

Phonetic alternations

Changes in sounds in the flow of speech that are caused by modern phonetic processes. Such alternations are determined by the phonetic patterns operating in the language; the change in sound is associated with the position of the sound, but does not change the composition of phonemes in the morpheme:

1) alternation of stressed and unstressed vowels: n(o)s - n(^)-hundredth - n(ъ) owl;

2) alternation of voiced and voiceless consonants: moro(s), (moroz) - moro(z)ny.

Phonetic alternations are always positional; they serve as material for determining the phonemic composition of the language.

Phonetic alternations are divided into positional and combinatorial.

1. Positional - alternations determined by place relative to stress or word boundary. This type of phonetic alternation includes deafening and reduction.

2. Combinatorial - alternations caused by the presence of other specific sounds in the environment of a given sound ( accommodation, assimilation, dissimilation).

Non-phonetic (historical) alternations

Alternants of historical alternations are independent phonemes; such alternations can be either positional or non-positional:

Positional (morphological) alternations take place with regular formation (in certain grammatical forms, for example, drive - drive, look - look) and word formation through certain morphemes. They are the object of study of morphonology. The alternations vary:

• by the nature of alternating phonemes (alternating vowels and consonants);
• by position in the morpheme (on the morpheme seam and inside the morpheme);
• on the basis of productivity - unproductivity.

Non-positional (grammatical) alternations are not determined by position relative to a specific morpheme, but are usually themselves a means of word formation (for example, dry - dry) or shaping. They act as internal inflections and belong to the sphere of grammar.

Historical alternations of sounds, not determined by the phonetic position of the sound, which are a reflection of phonetic processes that operated in earlier periods of the development of the Russian language. They are also called morphological alternations, since they accompany the formation of certain grammatical forms, although they themselves are not exponents of grammatical meanings, and traditional alternations, since they are preserved by virtue of tradition, not being determined by either semantic necessity or the requirements of modern phonetic language systems.

Vowel alternation (in many cases these alternations became letter ones):

e/o: carry - carries, carry - carries;

e/o/zero sound/i: dial - dial - dial - dial;

e/zero sound: day - day, faithful - faithful;

o/a: cook - prepare;

o/zero sound: sleep - sleep, lie - lie, strong - strong;

o/zero sound/s: ambassador – send – send;

a(i) / m / im: reap - I press - shake, take - I'll take - collect;

a(i) / n / im: reap - reap - reap, crush - crush - crush;

y/ov: forge - to forge, I please - to please;

y/ev: spend the night - spend the night, doctor - heal;

u/ev: I spit - I don’t care, I grieve - to grieve;

y/o/s: dry – dry up – dry up;

and / oh: beat - fight, drink - binge;

e/oh: sing - sing.

Consonant alternation:

g/f: shore - you protect, pearl - pearl, strict - stricter;

k/h: bake - bake, flour - flour;

w/w: hearing - listen, pea - pea, dry - drier;

g/z/f: friend - friends - friendly;

k/c/h: face - face - personal;

s/w: to carry - I drive, to smear - I smear, low - below;

zg / zzh (f): squeal – squeal;

zh / zzh (f): furrow - furrow;

s/w: wear - wear, dance - dance;

d/w: walk - walk, young - younger;

t/h: want - want, bother - bother;

sk / st / sch: let - let out - let in, thick - thicker;

b/bl: love - love, hesitate - hesitate;

p/pl: buy - buy, drip - drop;

v/vl: press - press, catch - catch;

f/fl: graph - graph;

m/ml: break - break, doze - doze;

d, t/s: lead - lead, weave - weave;

k, g/h: attract - attract, help - help.

ALTERNATING(alternation), the phenomenon of replacing some units of the expression plane (phonemes, morphonemes or their sequences, less often - suprasegmental units) with others within the same morpheme, occurring according to certain rules. Units that are in an alternation relationship with each other are called alternation levels. The section of grammar that deals with the phenomenon of alternation is called morphonology.

Depending on various parameters, alternations can be divided into:

– actual alternation (exchange), truncation, extension, metathesis, gluing and unfolding;

– directed and undirected;

– significant and insignificant (the latter, in turn, are divided into phonetic-phonological, or automatic, and morphonological);

– productive and unproductive;

– regular and irregular.

Actually, alternations (menas) are alternations of the form X ~ Y, where X and Y are elementary segmental or suprasegmental units. This type of alternation is the most common and is widely represented in a wide variety of languages, cf. d ~ T in Russian beard – beards[barot], victory – victories[pabet], To ~ h in Russian hand – manual, juice – juicy, a ~ ee in Latin capio"I take" - cepi"I took", facio"I do" - feci"I did", a ~ ä in German Apfel"apple" - Äpfel"apples", Garten"garden" - Garten“gardens”, etc.; An example of suprasegmental change is the alternation of the third (descending-rising) and second (rising) tones before the subsequent third in the Chinese language, cf. "you", "you are", but ní ye"and you".

Truncation and growth are alternations of the form X ~ Ж and Ж ~ X, respectively (where Ж denotes the zero of sound). They are symmetrical to each other; the interpretation of one or another alternation with zero as truncation or growth depends on the choice of the direction of alternation (see below). Examples of truncation include alternations T~ F, d~ Ж in Russian: weaving – weaved, stealing – stole etc., an example of an increase is the alternation of F ~ h, which occurs in the Vepsian language when the diminutive suffix is ​​added - ut to the basics with the outcome on a vowel, cf. hir""mouse" - hir"ut"mouse", but lu"bone" - luhut"bone".

Metathesis - alternation of the form XY ~ YX - is relatively rare (for example, it is not represented in the Russian language); Wed metathesis kn~ after consonants in Tocharian A verb forms with the present suffix - na-: putk“to separate” - “he separates” (instead of, cf. kärs“to know” – “he knows”), paltsk“to think” – “he thinks” (instead of ).

Gluing and unfolding (the terms are conditional; there are no generally accepted names) - alternations of the form XY ~ Z and X ~ YZ - are presented in many languages, cf. in Russian ov ~ at V paint – I'm drawing, forge – I forge,poke - stick etc. (gluing); in Sanskrit e~ay,o~av V jetum"to win" - Jayati"wins" stotum"praise" - stavana"praise" etc. (sweep), this phenomenon is often considered not as an elementary alternation, but as a superposition of the alternations X ~ Z + Y ~ Zh and X ~ Y + Zh ~ Z, respectively. These two types of alternations are also symmetrical.

Alternation is directed if one of its stages should be considered as initial, not determined by the peculiarities of the context, and undirected if such a stage cannot be specified. Directed (context-asymmetrical) alternations are much more common; in Russian and most other Indo-European languages, almost all alternations are directional. To determine the direction of alternation, there are a number of rules, the main ones of which are the following:

1) If the language has alternations A | X ~ B | Y, A | X ~ C | Y, A | X ~ D | Y, etc. (i.e. the sound A in the context X corresponds to the sound B in the context Y, the sound A in the context X corresponds to the sound C in the context Y, the sound A in the context X corresponds to the sound D in the context Y, etc.), then the direction of the alternations installed from B, C, D, etc. to A.

This principle, usually called “from diversity to uniformity,” is often considered the most important. Its rationale is as follows: by establishing the direction of alternation in this way, we thereby assert that segments B, C, D, etc. coincide in A in the context of X, whereas otherwise we would have to explain why, in the same context Y, A passes now into B, now into C, now into D. The cases of neutralization of two or more units in a certain context are extremely numerous, cf., for example, transition T, d And b V With before the end of the infinitive ( plait-u - plait-ti,bred-u – brest-ti,rowing - rowing etc.).

2) If the language has the alternation A | X ~ B | Y, and the context Y has a more complex description than the context X, the direction of alternation is set from B to A.

This principle has both a technical justification—with this approach, the formulation of the rule is simpler and shorter—and a substantive one: it is natural to assume that of two alternating segments, the initial one should have the freer distribution, since its appearance is not determined by the influence of the context.

The effect of principle (2) is most clearly manifested for those alternations for which the context Y can be satisfactorily specified only as “non-X”, cf. loss of consonants before the suffix - n(at)- (move - move,splash - splash etc.): positions in which the same consonants do not drop out are very numerous and cannot be described compactly.

3) If the language has the alternation A | X ~ B | Y, and segment A can occur in context Y, but segment B cannot occur in context X, the direction of alternation is set from B to A.

The essence of principle (3) is that by establishing the direction of alternation from B to A, we reflect some fairly general pattern characteristic of a given language, and thereby significantly simplify the formulation of the rule. So, in Russian the suffixes are chick,-schits(A)/-chic(A) And - shchin(A)/-rank(A) are subject to alternation h(after dental noisy ones) ~ sch(in other cases), cf. raider,peddler,cutter,adjuster,loader,unmarked, But collector,hewer,beaconman,reseller,mannequin,corvee,Orlovshchina. At the same time, at the border of the stem and suffix, the sequence “labial or sonorant + h"(cf. examples with the suffix -chiv(th): smiling,pensive,evasive,confiding etc. and with a diminutive suffix -chick: gimlet,sheepskin coat,suitcase,fence etc.), while the sequence “dental noisy + sch" is impossible. This observation allows us not only to establish the direction of the transition, but also to significantly simplify the formulation of the corresponding rule (there is no need to indicate which morphemes are characterized by the transition sch ® h).

Non-directional alternations include, first of all, the variation of suffixal vowels under the influence of root vowels, which is widely represented in various languages ​​(the so-called synharmonism), cf. Turkish at"horse" - pl. h. atlar, But ev"house" - plural h. evler. Both allomorphs of the plural suffix. h. – - lar And - ler– are equally determined by the vocalism of the root and none of them can be represented as original. Perhaps the most adequate way to represent alternations of this type is to postulate abstract symbols in their place (for example, the suffix - lar/-ler can be represented as (lVr), where the symbol V denotes some variable vowel). It is important to note that non-directional alternations are possible in service morphemes, but apparently not possible in root morphemes.

An alternation is called meaningful if it is not determined by the context and serves as the only means of expressing some grammatical meaning (cf. above German forms like Apfel – Äpfel, Garten – Garten, opposed to each other in number). Meaningful alternations perform the same function as affixal morphemes and belong to the sphere of morphology. Alternations of this type are characteristic of Germanic, Celtic, Paleo-Asian (Ket, Burushaski), Nilotic, Western Atlantic and other languages; In many African languages, significant alternations of tones are common, with tone differences most often acting as markers of tenses and moods of the verb, as well as the syntactic role of noun phrases.

All other alternations that do not express any grammatical meanings and only accompany various kinds of word-formation and inflectional morphological processes are insignificant. It is the action of insignificant alternations that causes the phenomenon of allomorphy. Minor alternations are found much more often than significant ones and are represented in the vast majority of languages; sometimes the term “alternation” is applied to them (meaningful alternations in this case are called “apophonies”).

Phonetic-phonological (automatic) is an insignificant alternation, the implementation of which does not depend either on the morphemic composition of the word or on its grammatical characteristics and is determined only by the phonetic-phonological context (the properties of surrounding sounds, the presence of a pause, the place of stress, etc.); cf., for example, deafening of voiced consonants before voiceless consonants in Russian: fish – ry[P] ka, hem – By[T] to nag etc. Failure to implement automatic alternation leads to the emergence of a sound chain that is impossible in a given language.

Any non-automatic insignificant alternation is morphonological. Factors that cause morphonological alternations can be very diverse: from the presence of a morphemic boundary to the presence of a certain morpheme or a special semantic-grammatical class of morphemes in the word form. Along with morphological and grammatical factors, phonological factors often play an important role in the rules of morphological alternations (for example, the disappearance of the final vowel in the indicator - Xia in Russian, firstly, it is an individual property of a given morpheme, and secondly, it is possible only after a vowel, cf. stayed, But remained).

Alternation is called productive if the forms subject to it form an open list, and unproductive in the opposite case. Automatic alternations are productive by definition; even a partial loss of productivity by automatic alternation, as a rule, means its transition to the morphonological level. Morphonological and significant alternations allow any degree of productivity - from one hundred percent, such as alternation O(accented) ~ s(without stress) at the end of Russian adjectives - Ouch ~ -th(cf. young – old, mounted – sheer etc.) or lengthening of the final vowel, marking the presence of a dependent noun, in the Aleutian language (cf. Mikaashi"toy", sabaaka"dog", but anikdu-m mikaasii"child's toy" anikdu-m sabaakaa"baby dog" etc.) to zero, such as prolapse V after the prefix about- in such Russian verb forms as return - wrap,own – possess or meaningful alternation of vowels in singular forms. and many more h. in English ( mouse"mouse" - mice, foot"leg" - feet), presented in just 6–7 words: the emergence of new Russian and English forms subject to these alternations seems completely incredible.

Alternation is called regular if the rule by which it is described does not allow exceptions or allows a very small number of them compared to the number of regular forms, and irregular in the opposite case. An example of a 100% regular alternation is the alternation mentioned above Ouch ~ th at the end of Russian adjectives, an example of completely irregular alternation is alternation al~aux(phonetically ~ [o]) when forming the plural. in French, cf. cheval"horse" – pl. h. chevaux,journal"newspaper" – pl. h. journaux, But carnaval"carnival" - pl. h. carnavals,chacal"jackal" – pl. h. chacals etc. Productivity and regularity of alternations are closely related, but there is still no complete interdependence between them: productive alternation can be irregular. So, transition n > w, undoubtedly maintains productivity, as evidenced by such colloquial formations as perch - perch,port - port wine, but allows many exceptions like guy - boy,herd - herd); on the other hand, absolutely regular alternation can be productive only potentially - such as, for example, loss - l in cases like graze – pass(if there is a form grazed), go blind – blind(at went blind); this rule has no exceptions; it’s just that new verbs of the corresponding classes are practically not formed in the Russian language.

The concept of "alternation" is applicable only to the synchronous description of language. In the history of language, its meaningful analogue is a positionally determined change in sounds. The term “historical alternations”, sometimes used in relation to unproductive morphonological alternations, is extremely unfortunate, because Almost all synchronously observed alternations are the result of certain historical changes.

Morphemes in different positions can have different sound options, for example: /But w/ - /But and yk/, /G A ra/- /G O ry/, /thing/ - /thing/. Variants of morphemes that partially differ in phoneme composition are called allomorphs (But w- And But and- , ha R- And G O R-, pieces To- And pieces h- ). When comparing the phonemic composition of allomorphs, the fact of alternation is revealed. Phoneme alternation is the phonemic difference between allomorphs of the same morpheme. (This definition goes back to the formulation of L.V. Shcherba.) Instead of the term “alternation”, the corresponding Latin term “alternation” is also used. Phonemes that alternate within the same morpheme are called alternants (for example, /sh/ And /and/ V But and And But and IR). Just as a phoneme exists in its allophones, a morpheme exists in its allomorphs (or, in other terminology, morphs) with the difference, however, that allomorphs of any morpheme are few in number.

The alternation of phonemes is superficially comparable to the formation of obligatory allophones of the same phoneme, but these phenomena have a number of differences. First of all, alternation is always alternation different phonemes; phonemic identity is fundamentally excluded here. When allophones are formed phoneme identity Necessarily. Secondly, the alternation of phonemes is due to the coexistence of allomorphs of the same morpheme; therefore, alternation takes place with mandatory morphemic identity. Yes, alternation /and//w/ occurs in words with the same root ( /But and yk/ - /But w/ ). But the same phonemes as part of different morphemes (for example, /and ar/ - /w ar/) are not connected by the alternation relation. Formation of allophones /T/, for example, can be observed in allomorphs of one morpheme (for example, the prefix from-: from now on- faucal [ T]; postpone - [T] with a side explosion; have dinner- labialized [ T]), however, the same allophones appear in completely different morphemes: turbid, boilers, cloud. Thus, the condition of morphemic identity for the formation of allophones is not of fundamental importance. Thirdly, the difference between alternation and the formation of obligatory allophones is that the formation of each allophone is strictly determined by specific conditions, the phonetic context, since the allophones of one phoneme are connected by additional distribution relations. When alternating, only that alternant that is represented by the phoneme only in a strong position (for consonants) or only in a stressed position (essentially also strong) for vowels, appears in bound position. Thus, a voiced [zh] cannot stand at the end of a word and alternates with [ w] (/on and A/- /But w/ ), stressed vowel [ O] cannot stand in an unstressed syllable and therefore alternates with [ A] (/sun/ - /V A PS/), while [ w] can also be in a strong position ( /w mind/), and in weak ( /But w/ ). Also [ A] may be stressed ( /m A l/) and in an unstressed position ( /m A la/).

We will consider a phoneme appearing in a strong position to be a “left” alternant and place it to the left of the alternation symbol; the phoneme in the weak position is the “right” alternant and place it to the right of the alternation icon: /cru G A/ - /cru To/ (/g//k/). This, in essence, means a kind of “directionality” of alternations - from a strong position to a weak one.

Positional and historical alternations

Everything that has been said so far about alternations concerns alternations of only one type - positional. There is another type of alternation in Russian - historical. There are a number of differences between these two types.

• 1. B positional alternations are entered by alternants located in a strong and weak position. When historical alternations to alternants the concept of positions is not applicable. For example, in alternation /t"//h/ (joke T b - shu h at) alternants are not connected by correlative relations; in alternation /b"//bl"/ (lju b it - lju bl Yu) an unequal number of phonemes alternates; when will break - breaks drums alternate /O/ And /A/. The choice of the left and right alternation of historical alternation is dictated by considerations of etymological primacy, and not by the logic of phonetic relations.
• 2. Positional alternations are determined by patterns of combination of phonemes and patterns in general positional(V in a broad sense) phoneme distributions. Thus, voiced noisy ones cannot stand at the end of a word and before deaf ones; /O/ practically does not occur in unstressed syllables, and /e/ after soft consonants in unstressed syllables in many cases it alternates with /And/. Restrictions for some phonemes to appear in certain positions determine their positional alternation in these cases with other phonemes.

For alternates historical There are no alternations of strong and weak positions; they are determined mainly morphological reasons. The appearance of historical alternations is explained in the facts of the history of the language. Yes, alternation /O/ with phonemic zero ( /dream/ - /sleep/) is caused by the history of the reduced - their loss in weak positions and clarification in strong ones. In addition, if with positional alternations the alternants are always single-phonemic, then with historical alternations one or even both alternants can be combinations of phonemes, for example: /m"//ml"/ (/core m"it"/ - /car ml"ú/). All alternations, when they occur, are positional, determined by the phonetic laws of the state of the language of a particular period. However, later the reasons that caused the alternations were lost, and the results of the alternation in the form of the ratio of phonemes were preserved as historical alternations.

• 3. Alternations take place within the main morphological unit - the morpheme; Thus, they are associated with morphology, performing certain morphological functions. Morphological role positional alternations are outwardly insignificant due to the fact that they reflect the pronunciation norms of the language. Thus, their most universal manifestation lies in the designation of the zero ending in the nominal declension system: voiced noisy ones alternate with voiceless ones at the end of a word: Oak trees - oak/du b y - du P/ , cow - cows/karo V A - karo f/. As for prefixes, positional alternations in them do not perform any morphological function: wash off - knock down /s//z/. Morphological role historical alternations in the sphere of word formation and morphology are much more diverse for both names and verbs. So, when forming adjectives before the suffix -n(from -н) posterior lingual /k, G, X/ alternate accordingly with /h, and, w/: hand - manual, book - book, fun - amusing; the same alternation occurs in nouns before the suffix -OK: heel To - heel h OK, take G A - take and OK, pet X - pet w OK; a wide variety of alternations occur in the formation of verb forms: core m it - core ml Yu, grab T it - grab h at, su d it - su and at, R s t - R O Yu, sn I t - sn them at, l e whose - l I gu - l e G, P And t - P e th - P Ouch lo etc. The morphological role of historical alternations is not obscured by the written form of the language. Hence the fourth difference between the two types of alternations.
• 4. Positional alternations, as a rule, are not reflected in writing due to the morphological principle of Russian orthography. This significantly obscures their morphological role. Morphological description the Russian language is traditionally based on its written form; therefore, when comparing forms like in the house - in houses grammarians do not see the alternations presented there /o//a/ (in d O me - in d O swing) And /mm"/ (in to m Oh - in to m e). As for historical alternations, as already mentioned, they are always reflected in writing.

In some cases, positional and historical alternations may seem to be combined. So, in /b"ir"i and OK/ - /b"ir"i w ka/ (coast - berezhka) there is positional alternation /f//sh/; V /b"ir"i G A/ - /b"ir"i and OK/ (shores - coast) - historical alternation /g//f/; V /b"ir"i G A/ - /b"ir"i w ka/ alternation /g//w/ is derived from the first two and, as a result, does not fit the concept of either positional or historical. It should also be noted that the same ratio of phonemes, depending on the conditions, can act as a positional alternation ( /pl"i T A/ - /pl"i T"e/ - /t//t"/) and as historical ( /race T u/ - /ras" T"osh/ - /t//t"/): alternating phonemes are both in a strong hard-soft position before non-front vowels.

With all their differences, positional and historical alternations are varieties of one phenomenon - the alternation of phonemes, caused by the coexistence of allomorphs in which morphemes are realized. Both types fall under the definition of alternation given in § 1. However, since historical alternations are not determined by the phonetic structure of the modern Russian language, only the most important cases of positional alternations will be described in the following.