PECULIARITIES OF INFLECTION OF FOREIGN-LANGUAGE VOCABULARY (AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LITHUANIAN-RUSSIAN LANGUAGE CONTACTING)


2019. № 2 (20), 11-21

Vytautas Magnus University

Abstract:

 The activating of the use of foreign-language vocabulary in the contemporary Russian language is one of the most significant linguistic processes. In connection with this, acquisition of foreign language words from some certain source language attracts interest in diverse situations of a foreign-speaking environment. This article presents observations concerning the peculiarities of the grammatical adaptation of foreign-language words in the Russian speech in the situation of the Lithuanian-Russian linguistic interaction. The process of grammatical acquisition of Lithuanian nouns is primarily related to the specifics of their declension, which is due to a variety of factors, for example, the morphological structure, prevalence, function in a certain sphere of language and in some form, as well as the tradition of using and writing of foreign words in some particular rinted sources. The peculiarities of the generic and numerical adaptation of the Lithuanian words are related to their grammatical transformation in the Russian language. The situation of foreign-speaking environment reveals both such features of the process of adaptation of foreign-language words that are general for the modern Russian language and the specific ones. On the one hand, intensifying regional uses become a new source of intensive replenishment of the class of indeclinable, demonstrating at the same time the contradictory tendency of manifestation of analyticism, growth of variability of language units. On the other hand, the grammatical features of a particular source language, direct language contacts and the peculiarities of functioning of the Russian language in this socio-cultural space determine the specificity of the process of adaptation. The process of grammatical adaptation of regional uses causes problems of the culture of speech; the communicative significance of the foreign-language vocabulary becomes important for normative evaluations.