THE PLURAL FORMS WITHIN THE LEXICAL-SEMANTIC GROUP OF “KINSHIP TERMS”: FORMATION PATT ERNS AND SEMANTICS (A CASE STUDY OF ARKHANGELSK DIALECTS)

The article describes plurality formation patterns of nouns denoting male individuals within the lexical-semantic group “terms of kinship”: relatives by blood (brother, son, uncle, grandson) and relatives by marriage (husband, son-in-law, brother-in-law). It is these terms that are characterised by the greatest variability in plural forms not only in the Nominative Case but also in all the other cases. The plural forms of these lexemes are formed by means of adding the inflection to the stem (vnuk ~ vnuk-i) as well as by adding the suffix -j- (muzh ~ muzh-j-a, brat ~ brat-j-a), or the suffix -ovj- (syn ~ syn-ovj-a). Each of these patterns turns out to be quite productive in Arkhangelsk dialects.

A singular form lexeme may show considerable variability in plural forms. On the other hand, a plural form may correspond to several lexemes in the singular (ded, dedo, deda ~ dedy). A lot of lexems in the plural lose their gender signs (vnuk, vnuka, vnuchka ~ vnuki).

The article also deals with terms of kinship with the meaning of plurality denoted by collective nouns (bratnja, bratija, bratjo, synovjo, djadjo, vnuchjo, muzhjo, deverjo, zjatjo, kumota, and others). Some nouns in the plural have the semantics of a specific character (dedy, pradedy, otsy-materi — ‘ancestors’).

The article contains the tables which present the inventory of the fixed case-forms of the plural for the lexems denoting kinship by blood and by marriage.

The material is drawn from the Arkhangelsk Region Dictionary, both from the published dictionary volumes and the author’s own notes based on field work.