Worth, Dean S.

Juznoslovenski filolog

English

Serbian Academy of Science and Arts Digital Archive (DAIS)

rYU ISSN 0350-185x, LVI, (2000), p. (227-233)UDK 091 : 808.2-316.3 = 86 : 882.077.32000.DEAN S. WORTH(Bellino Drive, USA)AVVAKUM AS A3 AND JA*o. The fate of South Slavic borrowings into RusianlRussian has gen-erated a substantial literature,1 without however tracing in any detail theprocesses by which South Slavisms were incorporated into, or eliminatedfrom, the various genres of written Russian as these developed acrosstime. As a minor contribution to our knowledge of this process, this pre-liminary study will examine the distribution of South Slavic az and EastSlavic ja in the autobiography of the seventeenth-century archpriestAvvakum.?Across the entire Life of Avvakum, East Slavic ja is three times asfrequent as South Slavic az (az 69 = 24.6% :ja 212 = 75.4%). This is whatone would expect, since the overall history of az across time was a deteri-oration from its predominant position in the religious literature of KievanRus' to the vestigial, citation-only relic of today. To move toward a usefullocalized view of az andja in Avvakum's Life, however, we have to exam-ine the distribution of these two forms. Two kinds of distribution seemto be relevant: (1) the distribution of az and ja in various phono-syntacticenvironments, and (2) the distribution of the results of (1) across the textof the Life.1. Phono-syntactic environments. Syntactic structures carry pho-nological and rhythmic strictures along with them, conditioning the choiceof phonetically variable tokens in different syntactic positions. In the caseof az andja (and, marginally, of the hybridjaz), an earlier study showed* This study is dedicated to the late Academician Pavle Ivic, in honor of his schol-arship and in fond memory of those gentler days when we and our families and friendscould walk and talk in the California mountains and desert, tour the splendid Serbian mon-asteries, and enjoy an informal meal in a Skadarlija restaurant.1 Hiittl-Folter 1983, Poroxova 1988; more recently, Worth 1999a, 1999b, 2000.2 Pustozerskij sbornik 1975.3 Specifical1y: ja andjaz occur overwhelmingly (95.7%) on clitic, conjunction, orword boundaries and only 4.3% on clause or sentence boundaries, while az occurs moreequal1y, 49.3% on clitic, conjunction, or word boundaries and 50.7% on clause or sentenceboundaries; in other words, az is at this stage the unmarked and ja(z) the marked (=distributional1y more restricted) form. Cf. p. 3 below for the situation in Avvakum's Life.4 Verso is marked by the usual v, recto by the absence of any mark, as in 87.11 = fo-lio 87 recto, line 11. Al1 word-final back jers have been eliminated here and formssuperscripted or under titlo resolved. .481146353.8;aJY)l(HOCJlO~eHCKH qmJloJlor LVI (2000)1a sentence-initial 461b clause-initial 51c question-initial 3Total 54% of total 46.2228that the choice between the South and East Slavic forms in the LaurentianChronicle was conditioned not by the speech of educated city-dwellers vs.that of illiterate rustics, as per Kandaurova 1968, but by phonetic hiatusdeletion on minor junctures vs. the optional preservation of hiatus on ma-jor boundaries (Worth 1985: 239-40).3 In Avvakum's Life we find whatlooks like a similar but further evolved system, with both az and ja occur-ring on major junctures like sentence-initial position but with few excep-tions only ja appearing on minor junctures such as following unstressedconjunctions and particles.1.1 Initial position. This class includes what in the published edi-tion are three typographically distinguished environments (Avvakum him-self made no such distinctions):(1) sentence-initial, e.g. Az ie ot izgnanija preselixsja 13v124, Az iepaki emu dal svjatuju vodu 87.11 and Ja uie i v tjurmu prosilsja 29.04, Jaevo otvel k doceri svoej 61.07;(2) clause-initial, e.g. J dondeie stroenie boiie byst', az na vostokklanjalsja bogu 58v06, i priexal k nei otec duxovnoj; az ie iz dvora posel97v11 and Mysej mnogo u menja bylo, ja ix skuf'eju bit 37.06, nepravoxodim po istinne, -- ja knigu promenjal, otcovu zapoved' prestupil84.07;(3) quotation-initial, e.g. Jja otvescal: "Az esm Avvakum, protopop"33v05 and J ja .., govoril: "Ja, reku, pljuju na evo kormlju" 78vl0.The statistics of the az : ja distinction in these initial environments,shown in Table 1, show no significant difference between the two pro-nominal variants:Table 1: az and ja in initial positionspositions azAvvakum as as and ja* 229In 45/54 (83.3%) of the occurrences of az in initial position, az isfollowed by the clitic ie, while not a single occurrence of ja has this ap-pendage. Whether the ie of az ie is a specific marker of topic-shifting isan interesting question but one that cannot be taken up here.>1.2 Non-initial positions are of two types. In the first, ja or, muchless often, az occurs after unstressed conjunctions (typically but not only aand i), or after a variety of weakly-stressed adverbs, conjunctions, andparticles such as da, gde, kak, cto, egda, esce, and once after a presumablyfully-stressed zavtra. Exx.: a ja emu govorju 17.07, I ja paki pozavelsja18.11, gde ja duxovnye dela delal 20v08, A se i sam ja ubojalsja 52v03,Byl-de ja na Rezani 67.09, tak i ja krescusja 70v04, a zav "tra ja tak ieumru 90.05 and I az molix ego 16.08, I az emu otvescall03.09, Egda az vpopex byl 14.08.6The second type of non-initial position, less common than the first,finds ja or, rarely, az in VS word order, or positioned after a prepositionalphrase, e.g. Sidel ja tut cetyre nedeli 26.09, Vzjal ja kadilo 86.03, vo tmenacal ja pravilo poklonnoe 95.137 and xoscu glagolati az 4.05, I nacax azdejstvovat' 85v03 and Potom i na Rus' ja vyvez eja 97.09.The statistics of az : ja distribution in these two types of non-initialposition, adduced in Table 2 below, differ radically from those in Table 1;in initial position, az and ja patterned more or less identically, but here, jais overwhelmingly the anaphor of choice:Table 2:' az and ja in non-initial positionpositions az ja2a after 9, i et al. 10 1282b in VS order 5 21Total 15 149% of total 9.1 90.9Tables 1 and 2 show that, for Avvakum, az and ja form a typicalJakobsonian asymmetric opposition, in which the unmarked member jaoccurs equally freely in both initial and non-initial environments, while5 Song 1997 finds that ie marks both topic shifts and register.6 az occurs, if rarely, after i, but never after a, which can be explained - if such asmall number of exx.deserves explanation at all- by the high front articulation of i, veryclose to hiatus-deleting j. -7 In a few exx. the verb is followed by an unstressed particle, e.g. "Znaju su japustosvjatov tex!" 27.0z, .Protopop, vedaju-de ja tvoe cistoe ... zitie" 74v15; such exx.overlap with those in the first type of non-initial position just above, e.g. Byl-de ja naRezani 67.09.the marked member az is restricted essentially to initial position. The se-mantic correlates of this asymmetrical relation are of course equally asym-metric: az appears in a stylistically narrow range (solemn, incipital,topic-shifting), while ja shows no such restrictions. Compared to the Lau-rentian Chronicle (see f.n. 3), the markedness relations have here been re-versed.2. Distribution of the az : ja opposition across the Life. The rela-tive frequency of the az : ja opposition in both initial and non-initial posi-tions differs from one part of Avvakum's Life to another, and in wayswhich are not always easy to explain. This differing relative frequency it-self suggests that the Life consists of three sections, which we shall nonetoo inventively term the Beginning (folia 4-34), the Middle (folia 35-74),and the End (folia 75-115).8 Roughly speaking, the Beginning and Endshow a substantial number of az occurrences, while the slightly longerMiddle section is almost devoid of them. These distributionally deter-mined sections do not correlate, at least in any obvious way, with the con-tent of the Life, but they do correlate quite closely with the quire structureof the manuscript: the border between the Beginning and the Middle sec-tions falls at the beginning of quire 5 (folio 35), and that between the Mid-dle and the End, at the beginning of quire 10 (folio 75). The distribution ofaz andja in initial and non-initial positions is most easily examined graph-ically, as in Chart 1 below:230 Jy)KHOCJIOBeHCKH <pHJIOJIOr LVI (2000)Chart 1: types across textEJ initial az • initial ja 0 non-initial az 0 non-initial ja80Xlo 60e~ 40e 20g 0 +-JEllillEil_c::::L--.JL,-__==beginning niddleportion of textendThe same data can be presented in tabular form, as in Table 3 below,from which one can derive a number of8 Except for a late isolated occurrence ofnon-initialja at 115.07, the opposition az: ja is not manifested after F109.Avvakum as as andja* 231Table 3: Distribution of types across LifeBeginningMiddleEndinitial az15 = 23.4%4 = 4.0%35 = 29.9%initial ia7 = 10.9%34 = 34.0%22 = 18.8%non-initial az8 = 12.5%2 = 2.0%5 = 4.3%non-initial ia34=53.1%60 = 60.0%55 = 47.0%not uninteresting generalizations about the Beginning, Middle and End ofthe Life, namely:(a) In their overall proportions of az : ja, the Beginning and End arenearly alike (Beginning az :ja = 23 : 41 = 35.9% : 64.1%, End az :ja = 40: 77 = 34.2% : 65.8%), and contrast strongly with the Middle, in whichEast Slavic ja predominates (az : ja = 6 : 94 = 6.0% : 94.0%);(b) In initial position, the Beginning and the End again contrast with theMiddle, this time because ofB's and E's preference for South Slavic az, whileM shows a strong predominance ofja (B az :ja = 15 : 7 = 68.2% : 31.8%, Eaz :ja = 35 : 22 = 61.4% : 38.6%, M az :ja = 4: 34 = 10.5% : 89.5%);(c) In non-initial position, all on the other hand, all three text por-tions prefer ja over az, rather more strongly in M than in Band E, al-though the differences are not great (B az :ja = 8 : 34 = 19.0% : 81.0%, Maz : ja = 2 : 60 = 3.2% : 96.8%, E az : ja = 5 : 55 = 8.3% : 91.7%).(d) Although, as shown in (a), Band E are nearly alike in their over-all proportions of az and ja, (b) and (c) show that they differ in the roleplayed by initial vs. non-initial position, which strongly determines thechoice of az in Band E, while the role of these positions is much attenu-ated in M's preference for ja. As we are about to see, Band E differ inother ways as well.3. Textological speculation. (a) and (b) above have shown that theBeginning and End of the Life show almost equal overall preference forSouth Slavic az over East Slavic ja. However, if we look at the distribu-tion of initial az and ja internally to Band E, we notice both similaritiesand a striking difference, shown graphically in Charts 2a and 2b below:Chart 2a: Initial az and ja in BeginningI - initialaz - initialjainitialaz: ·initialjai~L~~J\,A4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34folia232 JY)f(HOCJIOBeHCKll <pllJIOJIOr LVI (2000)Chart 2b: initial az and ja in End1- initial az -- initial ja t~ii75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91 93 95 97 99 101 103 105 107 109 111 113 115foliaComparison of Charts 2a and 2b reveals that:(e) In both Band E az and ja are unequally distributed across thetext portions;(f) Band E are to an extent mirror images of each other, B havingnearly all its az occurrences toward the end of its first half (i.e., in its sec-ond quarter), while E has, but less clearly, most of its az occurrences in thebeginning of its second half (i.e., in its third quarter);(g) Band E differ in that the former shows hardly any textual over-lap between initial az and ja, whereas E shows substantial overlap in itssecond quarter.The mirror image distribution shown in (1) suggests that the textualfunction of the marked member az is primarily delimitative; specifically, itis incipital in Band closural in E. Since, however, there are no obviouscontentual correlates to the distribution of initial az and ja, we can onlyspeculate that the sections favoring az were written later than those favor-ingja, perhaps when Avvakum was in northern exile, not too long beforehis death. The facts noted in (g) would then be explained by the assump-tion that B's first half (FF4-20) was written entirely as an added introduc-tion, while the overlap of az andja in the second quarter ofE suggests thatAvvakum was copying from an earlier text during this second quarter(FF85-95) and began his new, final section only at F95. This is, of course,pure speculation, and only a more detailed philological examination of thetext will show whether or not it is in fact a reasonable view of the compo-sition of Akkakum's Life.Avvakum as 03 andja*REFERENCES233Htittl-Folter, Gerta 1983: Die trat/torot Lexeme in den altrussischen Chroniken: einBeitrag zur Vorgeschichte der russischen Literatursprache, Vienna.Kandaurova, T.N. 1968: .Polnoglasnaja i nepolnoglasnaja leksika v prjamoj reciletopisi," Pamjatniki drevnerusskoj pis'mennosti. Jazyk i tekstologija, Mos-cow: 72-94.Poroxova, O.G. 1988: Polnoglasie i nepolnoglasie v russkom literaturnom jazyke inarodnyx govorax, Leningrad.Pustozerskij sbornik 1975: Pustozerskij sbornik. Avtografy socinenij Avvakuma iEpifanija. Izdanie podgotovili N.S. Demkova, N.F. Droblenkova, L.I.Sazonova, Leningrad.Song, Eun-ji 1997: Discourse and Style in Old Believer Lives: Referential Strategiesand Topic Marking in the Lives ofAvvakum, Epifanij, and Bojarynja Morozova(UCLA dissertation).Timberlake, Alan1995: "Avvakum's aorists," Russian Linguistics 19: 25--43.Worth, Dean S. 1985: "Vernacular and Slavonic in Kievan Rus'," Gerald Stone andDean Worth, eds., The Formation ofthe Slavonic Literary Languages. Proceed-ings ofa Conference Held in Memory ofRobert Auty and Anne Pennington atOxford 6-11 July 1981 (= UCLA Slavic Studies, 11),Columbus, Ohio: 233--41.1999a: "Slavonisms and slavonisms," Poetika. Istorija literatury. Lingvistika.Sbornik k 70-letiju Vjaceslava Vsevolodovica Ivanova, Moscow: 600-613.----- 1999b: "Slavonisms in textology," Roman Jakobson. Teksty, dokumenty,issledovanija, Moskva: 761-770.----- 2000 (in press): "Microphilology and textology," to appear in a volume in honor ofJurij D. Apresjan, Moscow.

Avvakum as az and ja*

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Avvakum as az and ja*

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