The Category of Case in Vakh Khanty: A Study of Recent LingvoDoc-Based Field Data

Introduction. In Khanty dialects, the category of grammatical case shows its largely heterogeneous character and varies in terms of quantity and quality. As for Eastern Khanty, linguists hold different views on the composition of this category and its representatives, which results from a discrepancy in interpreting statuses of some case indicators. Goals. The article seeks to systematize available data on case indicators identified in Vakh Khanty and presented in scholarly studies of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries, compare them to field data obtained in the twenty first century and digitized on the LingvoDoc platform for independent research. Methods. The analysis of published data on Vakh Khanty has been carried out via the descriptive/comparative and structural research methods. Field data collection techniques for Vakh Khanty included direct observations of native speakers’ speech, a survey, interviews on various topics, audio recordings, and transcriptions of the latter. Results. Our review of the scholarly literature from the past centuries on the Vakh Khanty dialect shows a variety of opinions about the number of attested case markers and their functional specifics, an inconsistency of approaches to terming some of them, and a variance of the morphemic form designations. Analysis of the contemporary field data with the LingvoDoc platform’s functional tools and comparison of the results against some previously described data do confirm a stability of the Vakh Khanty dialect case system, identify the source of terminological synonymy in the nominal paradigm, and develop a classification of case markers based on their functional features. The functional parameter makes it possible to distinguish between a case marker with a predominantly grammatical orientation and a group of case markers whose profile is associated with the expression of semantic relations. In the group of semantic cases, further division into subgroups is also possible, due to the type of semantic specialization of individual case markers. Conclusions. Semantic cases fall into a subgroup of cases with spatial semantics, a subgroup with the semantics of compatibility, and a subgroup that combines cases with oblique (indirect) semantics. The distribution of case formants into subgroups is complicated by certain syncretism of semantics in a large number of case morphemes, which ultimately leads to some blurring of the subgroups’ boundaries and a variance in the terminological nomination of case morphemes

Handi keele Vahhi-Vasjugani murderühma uurimise ajaloost ja tänapäevasest seisust

The aim of this study is to survey language materials and scientific works on the Vach-Vasjugan group of Eastern Khanty with a view to their systematic presentation. This overview draws on a vast body of language data and scientific works written by linguists from Russia, Hungary, Finland and Germany among others. These materials include both published and unpublished works, for example, the archive data kept in the Laboratory of Siberian Indigenous Languages named after A. P. Dulson at Tomsk State Pedagogical University, the Research Library at Tomsk State University and fieldwork data of one of the authors. An extensive body of research on the Vach-Vasjugan group of Eastern Khanty covers a continuous and more-than-a-century long period. Numerous studies conducted by an international cohort of researchers over this timespan have all contributed to gaining new insights into distinctive features of the varieties in question. The focus in this article is on the history of research on Eastern Khanty, covering the period between the beginning of the nineteenth century and the present. It enables us to survey the Khanty materials produced in the course of research and to develop common strategies in presenting findings

"The world of Shakespeare" in the Stroganovs' book collection: literary and graphic works

The Stroganovs’ personal library as an organic whole unit is housed in the Scientific Library at Tomsk State University and contains some Shakespeare’s literary works in English which are accompanied by numerous graphic illustrations to his tragedies, comedies and historical chronicles. This part of the personal multilingual book collection is analyzed in the present article in terms of the intermedia studies approach which allows to reveal how “the cult of Shakespeare” was being constructed in the British literature of the XVIII-XIX centuries. This task entails considering the role that Shakespeare’s works played in the development of the national self-awareness and national identity concept in the British society at that time as well as the construction of the Imperial myth in the British literature. Besides, a case study of the English editions of Shakespeare’s works kept in the Scientific library enables one to trace the evolution of Shakespeare studies in Europe. It can also give an insight into the reception of the Briton’s works in the Russian society in the XIX century. The article addresses the issue of the impact that the library owner’s personality has on the composition of the book collection and the ensuing interpretation of how the Western European and Russian literatures interact within the Stroganovs’ library