Русский язык: проективный подход

This article outlines the projective approach to the Russian language in its distinction from “objective” and “normative” approaches (as formulated by A.A. Peshkovskii). The contemporary state of the Russian language is characterized by the abundance of borrowings (predominantly from English) and lack of verbal creativity on the basis of vernacular roots. Is it possible to revive the potential of the language and to enact new formative processes that expand the lexical and conceptual power of Russian? Referring to Velimir Khlebnikovʼs example, the author shows that neologisms are not deviations but most authentic manifestations of the language system. To produce new words means to systematize the process of word-formation, to make it more regular. As Grigory Vinokur has shown, Russian language is deficient in regular models of word derivation and has not yet employed its potential for systematicity on both lexical and morphological levels. Thus the innovative approach to language that was initiated by Russian futurists and formalists needs continuation today, not only in poetry or fiction, but on the scale of language as such. V. Khlebnikov called it “iazykovodstvo” (linguistry, cf. “forestry”), whereas G. Vinokur stressed the need for “linguistic engineering”. The article introduces the concept of “super-rows”, or “hyper-paradigms”, the lexical clusters that include both actual and potential words and thus demonstrate the creative potential of the language. The famous Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian Language by Vladimir Dalʼ in fact combines the features of a descriptive and projective dictionary as it includes in its entries both existing lexical units and those that illustrate the formative power of the morphological system. The impact of Dalʼs Dictionary on A. Belyi, V. Khlebnikov and other avant-garde writers can be explained by its constructive and imaginative approach to language which is rather unusual for lexicography. Projective linguistics is meant to become an application of linguistic theory to practical transformation of language aimed at the increasing implementation of its creative potentials.