Elista: ZAOr "NPP Dzhangar", 2014. 160 p.

The reviewed monograph by P. Ts. Bitkeev is devoted to the problems of historical development of the Mongolian languages that are relevant for Mongolistics and Altaistics. These problems were initially raised in the first half of the 19th century by the Kazan school of Mongolists led by O. M. Kovalevsky. Later, the process of accumulating knowledge on Mongolian linguistics was going on, and only at the beginning of the XX century the Finnish orientalist G. I. Ramstedt started talking about the comparative historical study of Mongolian languages, devoting a number of monographs to it, and became the founder of comparative historical Mongolian studies in Europe. Adherents of comparative Mongolistics in the XX century were G. I. Ramstedt, B. Ya. Vladimirtsov, V. L. Kotvich, N. N. Poppe (Nikolac Rorre), G. D. Sanzheev, T. A. Bertagaev, B. Kh. Todaeva, Ts. B. Tsydendambaev, V. I. Rassadin, A. A. Darbeeva, G. TS. Pyurbeev and other Russian scientists Mongolian linguists: Yu. B. Rinchen, Sh. Luvsanvandan, A. Luvsandandev, D. Tomortogo, European linguists: P. Pelho, E. Heinisch, A. Mostaert, L. Ligeti, M. Weyers, J. Street, F. Buck, etc.

The book consists of an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion, and a list of references. The Introduction deals with the origin of comparative Mongolistics in the 19th century. The author notes the achievements in this area of A. A. Bobrovnikov's "Grammar of the Mongolian-Kalmyk language "(1849), which has now become a classic of linguistics. The special role of G. I. Ramstedt, who systematized all aspects of the study of Mongolian languages and dialects, analyzed the phonetic system and transcription of these languages, which then meant a new stage of Mongolistics, is emphasized. The author considered in detail the scientific approaches of G. I. Ramstedt to the object under study, found out a number of inconsistencies, errors and aberrations in the scientist's interpretation of dialects and dialects of living languages and colloquial speech.

P. TS Bitkeev explains the changes in the speech culture of the Mongols by the territorial disunity of the Mongolian ethnic groups and foreign-language contacts. The author argues that what is happening in the Mongolian language in synchrony should be investigated using "a justified method of using the data of SPMN (modern written Mongolian) as a reference language and applying systematic and new methodological approaches" (p .

In the first chapter, "The theory of longitude and reduction in Mongolistics", the state of study of Mongolistics is considered in the context of the above-mentioned issues of theoretical relevance for Mongolia (pp. 13-66). The author analyzed the points of view of the leading figures of Mongolistics.

A. A. Bobrovnikov also tried to substantiate the general provisions of Mongolian phonosemantics. He wrote: "Does the Mongolian script use these two-syllable signs to represent the ancient pronunciation of new long letters ,or were these signs a representation of the same long signs that are now found in the living language? It is difficult to give a decisive answer to this question, but it seems to me that the second assumption is more likely" [Bobrovnikov, 1849, p. 16]. Some provisions of his hypotheses are not outdated to this day.

Mongolian academician Sh. Luvsanvandan created his own school on the longitude complex, its adherents were D. Tomertogoo, V. I. Rassadin and others. Thanks to the latest linguistic research of B. Kh. Todayeva, Mongolian linguistics in the second half of the XX century in general and comparative historical study of Mongolian languages in particular received a certain impetus.

Assessing the contribution of his predecessors to Mongolian linguistics, the author does not avoid criticizing them. He made a number of significant conclusions: 1) "(...) the reasons for the reduction and disappearance of the intervocalic vowel as a spontaneous vowel lengthening have not been established. The formation of long vowels in Mongolian languages should be sought in a different plane of language development; 2) the position of scientists on "exclusion" due to the backwardness of phonetic evolution is not consistent", etc. (pp. 65-66).

In the second chapter, "Versions of long vowel formation in Mongolian languages and their theoretical foundations", the following versions are considered: version of "consonant reduction", "complete reduction of intervocalic consonant", version of "exclusion", version of "minor stress as a reason for the formation of long vowels", version of "stressed vowel V2 in the complex V1+C+V2".

The longitude sign "udan" in the "clear letter", diphthongs, and "proto-Mongolian longitude" are considered (pp. 103-108). The author's conclusions on these issues and the arguments presented by him seem to me quite convincing and thorough. The point about "proto-Mongolian longitude" is revealed by the author in the light of studying the Mongolian proto-language. He comes to the conclusion that there was an initial longitude, although the question of the proto-language in Mongolian studies is still debatable.

In the third chapter, "Reduction Theory in Mongolian studies", general issues of the problem of reduction in science, the reduction of short and long vowels in various forms, as well as the reduction of consonants, up to the reduction of words, morphemes, and syllables are considered. The author discusses the functionality of reduced vowels and consonants, using knowledge of them in other languages as a comparative material. P. TS Bitkeev avoids polemics with his predecessors, although he considers their points of view out of context. His conclusions in this chapter are that reductions are a result of the socialization process, and therefore they are non-linguistic in nature. Reductions are divided into complete and incomplete ones in vowels and consonants according to the form of their positions. Vowel reduction affects the word structure according to the three synharmonic series. Functional aspects of obscure vowel phonemes in word formation, syllabification, and the connection of lexical morphological structures are noted.

In the fourth chapter, "Laws of correlation modification in Mongolian languages", the author considered the functional entities of sounds of Mongolian languages. P. TS Bitkeev in this issue moves from the study of general laws to particular, specific cases. The types of implementation of correlation modification are studied, including the lengthening of short vowels in the corresponding phoneme substances and the law of correlation modification, which manifests itself in the neutralization of long vowels and their transition to short vowels. The "general conclusion" turned out to be too concise for such a fundamental study as a peer-reviewed monograph seems to be.

I consider it necessary to pay attention to the following main points of the study.

The key propositions of the theory of longitude and the theory of reduction in mongolistics are reduced to the following propositions:

Models of the formation of long vowels, which are called longitude complexes, are established.

The main reasons for the formation of long vowels are:

- Reduction of a consonant in a VC-type complex.

- The influence of secondary word stress, which, apparently, did not fall on the first syllables of the word.

- "Lengthening" of short vowels in the position of the non-first syllable of a word, which is sometimes characterized as "spontaneous" longitude.

- The original longitude ("proto-Mongolian longitude") is obviously the field of research of historical phonetics of Mongolian languages.

- Monophthongization of diphthongs.

Reduction of short vowels is the result of their unstressed position.

However, the existing provisions on the theory of longitude and reduction theory in Mongolistics are based on the idea that longitude complexes firmly established by the founders of comparative historical Mongolistics are the causes of the formation of long vowels. In fact, they are only models that reflect the mechanisms of long vowel formation. Therefore, the existing theoretical propositions are not entirely accurate. These include, in particular, the following provisions::

- Cases when longitude complexes did not produce long vowels. They are classified as "exceptions".

- The formation of long vowels from one short vowel, from a "semi-long" short vowel in Mongolistics is explained by the result of the influence of some verbal stress, which allegedly fell on the non-first syllables of the word.

- In other words, the reasons for the formation of long and unclear vowels are considered in Mongolistics, as well as in comparative historical linguistics, within the framework of distributive relations between adjacent phonemes located in a linear row, as well as the influence of suprasegmental phenomena, most often verbal stress.

The reasons for the formation of long and unclear vowels should be sought not only in the interaction and mutual influence of sound units (most often adjacent) of the language, but mainly in morphology and lexicology. This is indicated by the following facts:

- The processes of lengthening and reduction that occurred in the Mongolian languages were caused by phonomorphological mutations, the essence of which is that words in the Mongolian languages began to lengthen as a result of various types of fusion due to the transition of many particles (affirmative, negative, interrogative, expansive, restrictive), personal pronouns, service pronouns, as well as significant ones words, etc.). In many cases, they have evolved into affix morphemes.

- As a result of the increase in the number of new affixes attached to the word, the length of the word lengthened, which violates the language norm of Mongolian languages in terms of the total length of the word. In addition, this could lead to a violation of the synharmonic structure of the word. For these reasons, the connections of the signal systems of the beginning and end of the word also began to weaken.

- It is well known that reduced (unclear) vowels are characterized in Mongolistics as a result of their unstressed position in the word. However, research shows that the emergence and development of long vowel phonemes and the formation of obscure vowels are due to the same reasons. Thus, words began to "shrink", to shrink, because the integrity of the word was threatened-the connection between morphological units, the connection between the final frames of the word structure that signal its beginning and end began to weaken. Consequently, not only the links between the morphological units that make up the word and the pronouncing normative standards of words established for these languages were violated, which negatively affected the semantic and categorical-grammatical meanings of the word.

The book under review presents new solutions to the current and controversial problems of longitude and reduction in Mongolistics, which methodologically represent innovative approaches in comparative historical linguistics and conceptual solutions to establish the causes and mechanisms of the historical development of languages. The principles of correlation modification should not be limited only to the sound structure of the language, but should cover almost the entire language system at the same time. Therefore, the methods and methodologies described in this book are applicable to the study of any language, i.e. they are universal.

P. TS Bitkeev's monograph is by no means without its drawbacks. It would be useful to use the works of scientists, specialists in the reconstruction of proto-languages, in particular the generalizing work of V. V. Ponaryadov (2011). His phonetic reconstruction of the proto-language of the Mongolian ethnic groups can be directly related to the question of proto-Mongolian longitudes, etc. The book says a lot about the transcription of B. Y. Vladimirtsov, but the works of P. Pelho, with whom the future academician studied for some time, are not mentioned. The same can be said about the fundamental works of L. Ligeti, in particular "Monuments of the preclassical Mongolian language-since the XIX century, published by L. Ligeti", in the series "Mongolian Collection of Written monuments".

In general, P. TS Bitkeev's monograph is undoubtedly a new word not only in Kalmyk studies, but also in world Mongolian studies. This is the most comprehensive work of the author in his entire scientific career. It would be highly desirable for P. TS Bitkeev to compile a multilingual terminology dictionary on the phonology of Mongolian languages, for which he has all the data.

list of literature

Bobrovnikov A. A. Grammatika mongol'sko-kalmykskogo yazyka [Grammar of the Mongolian-Kalmyk language]. Kazan: Tip. Univ., 1849. 340 p., tab.

Darbeeva A. A. Historical and comparative studies on the grammar of Mongolian languages. Phonetics, Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1996.

Ligeti L. Review: Sanzheev G. D. Comparative grammar of Mongolian languages, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1953, 240 p. / / Voprosy yazykoznaniya. 1955, N 5.

Ponaryadov V. V. Experience reconstruction Ural-Mongolian proto-language. Syktyvkar, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2011.

Ramstedt G. I. Comparative phonetics written Mongolian language and Khalkha-Urginian dialect. St. Petersburg, 1908.

Sanzheev G. D. Comparative Grammar Mongolian Languages, vol. 1, Moscow, 1953.

Ligeti, 1972 - Monuments preclassiones XIII^e siecles par L. Ligeti. Budapesht, 1972 (Monumenta linguae mongolica collecta, II).

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