ORTHOGRAPHIC AND ORTHOEPIC VARIATION: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

This paper deals with the influence of normative assessments of phonetic variation on orthographic codification. The starting point for the discussion is the principle stating that the spelling rules should be oriented towards the standard use of language and should not take into account deviations from the standard. The paper examines situations when the variation of pronunciation corresponds to the variation of spelling as well as situations when a single spelling is provided for all phonetic variants. It also takes into account situations when a possible variation of spelling does not affect pronunciation (words written together or apart or with a hyphen, or the use of capital letters). The article accounts for the asymmetry of pronunciation and orthographic variation. It makes special reference to situations when a constant spelling of a word corresponds to a variable pronunciation. The paper discusses the role of phonetic variation in the formulation of spelling rules, identifies the lacunae in reference books on the Russian orthography as well as the unfortunate and misleading statements in them. A separate discussion is devoted to the situations when the standard pronunciation (or one of the alternative standard pronunciations) of a word does not correspond to its written appearance.