“THE FIRST READER FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS” BY A. KRUSHELNYTSKYI, O. POPOVYCH, B. LEPKYI (1918): SPELLING AND GRAMMATICAL CHARACTERISTIC

Abstract

The article is devoted to the linguistic characteristics of the educational and methodological work of A. Krushelnytskyi, O. Popovych, and B. Lepkyi “The First Reader for Public Schools”, published in Vienna in 1918. The purpose of the study is to characterize the orthographic and grammatical features of “The First Reader”, to reveal the degree of their compliance with the current language norms and those of that time (beginning of the 20th century). The following main methods of linguistic research were used: continuous sampling method, comparative-descriptive, analytical, synthetic, and statistical. Results. The article clarifies the historical, social and linguistic context of the appearance of “The First Reader”. The work took place in a difficult period of Ukrainian history: in 1915, Galicia survived the Russian occupation, as a result, national liberation movements intensified, so Ukrainian school education needed special attention. “The First Reader for Public Schools” was compiled in accordance with the norms of phonetic spelling – zhelekhivka, which was in force in Galicia for public schools and document flow since the end of the 19th century. The article analyzes the orthographic and phonetic features of the text “The First Reader”, in particular, the differences in the use of the letters ї/і to soften dental consonants according to etymology are clarified; the positions of the softening sign and apostrophe are described. Morphological phenomena were revealed. The inflections of nouns and verbs were also studied and the degree of their compliance with the morphological norms of that time and the present ones was determined. In general, the grammatical corpus of “The First Reader” coincides with the norms of the “Grammar of the Rus’kyi Language” by S. Smal’-Stotskyi and F. Gartner (1914), which was a codification work for the public schools of Galicia in Austria-Hungary at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century, as well as with the norms of modern literary language. Peculiarities in the noun paradigm of each declension and in the gender and number categories of nouns were revealed. Models of the future tense of the verb were traced: the preposition of the auxiliary element му, меш, мемо, etc. were revealed. The reasons for the separate writing of the postfix ся in reflexive verbs have been clarified. Conclusions. Thus, the article traces the dynamics of the formation of modern norms of the Ukrainian literary language. Ways of practical application of the obtained results are also defined.