Antinomies of Russian Morphology: Communicative vs. Cognitive; Syntagmatic vs. Nominative

Abstract

The article presents the results of metamodeling of the morphological system of the Russian language. This communicative approach to morphology means distancing it from the reflective (cognitive, nominative) function of a linguistic sign or any sign system to give way to the syntagmatic side, at least as far as synthetic languages are concerned. As a synthetic language, Russian demonstrates a certain rigidity of the text construction algorithms. The synthetic nature of Russian morphology is based on such syntagmatic categories as government and agreement, while the adjunction, i.e., connection of words and word forms in meaning, strengthens the trend towards analyticism. This trend belongs to the content while the separate formation of grammatical and lexical meanings are its external side. Against this synchronous and functional background, the article discusses some diachronic and inherent manifestations of the morphological system. These manifestations are associated with the morphologization of phenomena that are external to morphology, i.e., units, relationships, and categories, and the demorphologization of internal morphological phenomena. The author focuses mostly on the correlation between morphology and syntax.

Keywords

• morphological system of the russian language
• language of synthetic structure
• analysis
• morphologization
• demorphologization