REFLEXIVE POSTFIX: BETWEEN SOFTNESS AND HARDNESS

The article deals with the origin, history, and current state of variation [с’]/[с] in reflexive postfi x -ся/-сь in Russian. The pronominal enclitic, having changed its grammatical status and syntagmatic behavior, became the fi nal affi x of the verb. Several nonstandard processes developed here: 1) the loss of a wide vowel phoneme in the postvocalic position; 2) the dependence of the vowel on the post-vocalic or post-consonantal position; 3) regressive-progressive assimilation [т(’)с’  ц’:/ц:] in 3rd person form and in the infi nitive; 4) progressive assimilation: [ш(’)с’ ш’:/ш:] in 2nd person sing. form; 5) progressive assimilation in hardness. The main factor is velarized [л] in the past tense, masculine, as well as other hard consonants in various verb forms. The transformed word forms served as a basis for the generalization of the postfi xal [с] in dialects, on which Moscow orthoepic norm is grounded. In the 20th–21st centuries this hardness decreases.
Analysis of the materials from phonoscopic studies between 2004 and 2019 (111 speakers) revealed that in the forms of past tense sing. in masc. predominates [c] (56.3 %), while in fem. and neut. lower frequency of [с] (31.1 %, gradually decreasing) is observed. The main factor that keeps hardness is the infl uence of the preceding [л] (less often [с]: отнё[с:ъ] (2), пронё[с:ъ] — спáс[с’ъ]). In fem. and neut. the hardness is also supported by the infl uence of [л], which is distant and therefore weaker. But the phonetic factor is supplemented by grammatical attraction to the forms of masc. Only in 10 speakers does the variation go beyond sing. past, of which 6 have after hard [ш], [м] (2nd person sing., 1st person plur.). This is not enough to form a full-fl edged progressive assimilation. Variation [с’]/[с] is characterized by positional attachment, and the process of displacement of [с] is far from complete. The refl exive postfi x is a complex of allomorphs с’а/са/с’/с.