Zero suffixation on synchrony and diachrony

Abstract

The appearance of zero suffixation formations in the language system was the reflection of laws and regularities that formed the basis for the development of the Indo-European wordbuilding system and which allow zero suffixation to remain one of the productive ways for vocabulary increase at the present stage of language development. The study contributes to the development of the doctrine about the so-called "zero categories" in the language, determines the specificity of zero suffixation words as a special case for the provision of word building and grammatical meanings without a material expression. The main methods of research: the method of linguistic description, word-formation and grammatical analysis, linguistic forecasting, the theoretical analysis of literature and the compilation of best practices, empirical methods: observation, ascertaining experiment conversation. The methodological basis of the study were the works by I.A. Boduen de Courtenay, F.F. Fortunatov, V.M. Markov, G.A. Nikolaev and the works of foreign scientists. The main results of the study: the correspondence of the zero - suffixation formations of the ancient word-building model of the Indo-European languages was revealed, the material expressed prototypes of zero morphemes were shown, the expansion of zero suffixation as the way of word development into other types of word formation was considered, the specific features of the zerosuffixation formations, their difference from derivatives with materially expressed formants were emphasized, confixed and transfixed forms were considered, including a zero "suffix" element. According to the results of the conducted research, the authors concluded that zero suffixation is one of the productive ways of word development throughout the history of the Russian language from the period of the Slavonic unity to its present state. The main layer of zero-suffixation formations was formed in Russian language by XVII-XVIII centuries, however, zero suffixation continues to be an active way of word development in colloquial speech and social dialects, spreading its influence on the truncation. Russian language formations with intermittent morphemes, including the zero suffix element, - confixes and transfixes are developed productively. The study of an essence, a place and a role of zero-suffixation in the word-formation system of both synthetic and analytical languages emphasizes the relevance and the importance of this word-formation phenomenon study in the diachronic and synchronic aspects for all Indo-European languages.