ANCIENT CHRONICLES AS A SOURCE FOR STUDYING THE HISTORY OF THE REDUCED VOWELS IN THE WORK OF P. LAVROVSKYI «ON THE LANGUAGE OF NOTHERN RUSSIAN CHRONICLES»

Abstract

In the 50’s of the XIX century Peter Lavrovskyi (1827–1886), a prominent Slavic philologist and educator, published a number of works on the ancient Russian (Proto-East Slavic) language and its dialects. Among these studies, which have retained their scientific significance to our time, the book «On the language of northern Russian chronicles» (1852) should be mentioned, in which P. Lavrovskyi, basing on ancient East Slavic manuscripts, studied in detail the nature, origin and history of reduced vowels [ъ], [ь] on the East Slavic territory. Ancient manuscripts were a priority source for the study of the reduced for P. Lavrovskyi: chronicles, deeds, treaties, acts. At the same time, the scientist used the material of his contemporary Slavic languages, primarily East Slavic, as an auxiliary source Key words: P. Lavrovskyi, ancient manuscripts, chronicles, reduced vowels, decline of the reduced vowels, the Common Slavonic language, the Old Russian language, the Eastern Slavonic languages.