The current set of "Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation" was created more than half a century ago (published in 1956) and represents the first experience of the code, which summarized and legitimized many scattered recommendations in this area, accumulated over more than two hundred years of development of the theory and practice of Russian spelling, starting with the reforms of Peter I. However, the publication of this code did not solve and could not solve all the problems of Russian spelling, they accumulated quite a lot. In addition, over the past half-century, significant changes have taken place in the social life of the country, in the mentality of our people, and hence in the language. In particular, the authors of the new code rightly note that " in the modern language, units that stand on the border between a word and a part of a word have become more active; among them, such as mini, maxi, video, audio, media, retro, etc. appear. In the Rules of 1956, it is impossible to find an answer to the question whether to write such units together with the next part of the word or separated by a hyphen. Many recommendations for using uppercase letters are outdated. Certain punctuation rules need to be clarified and supplemented in connection with updating the syntactic structure of texts, especially in the mass media, reflecting the stylistic diversity and dynamism of modern speech" (p.9).

At the same time, new material and language facts were being accumulated and studied, and the corresponding spelling and punctuation rules were being improved, but they were not reflected in the current code, which, for various reasons, has not been reprinted since its publication. It was only with the beginning of perestroika that the Vinogradov Academic Institute of the Russian Language (Moscow) was assigned a special spelling direction, which was transformed in 1992 into the Spelling and Punctuation Sector. Three years earlier, the Academy of Sciences approved a new Spelling Commission.

By the end of the XX century, a lot of developments in the field of spelling had accumulated, which allowed the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences to create, and in 2000 publish, the draft " Code of Rules of Russian Spelling. Spelling and punctuation". This project is for you-

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he called for a variety of responses from specialists and in wide circles of the public. In April 2000, St. Petersburg State University hosted a "round table" on the topic "Language policy in modern Russia", where many leading specialists in Russian studies, employees of educational institutions, and deputies of the State Duma were invited. The path of reform proposed by the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences was considered "untimely", since numerous changes in the rules of Russian spelling would lead to huge financial costs for republishing textbooks, textbooks and dictionaries, fiction, installing new computer editors, etc., for which our society is not ready either psychologically or economically. The Spelling Commission was given time to finalize the Project.

The rules proposed in the Draft Spelling Commission can be divided into three groups: 1) leading to a breakdown of the current rules and undesirable consequences in teaching and publishing activities; 2) clarifying or deepening the current rules, but not canceling them, but facilitating their use; 3) drawing attention to those phenomena in spelling and punctuation that did not come to the attention of specialists, were not yet the subject of their description such rules expand the scope of existing rules; their introduction is welcome. At the same time, it was suggested that if we exclude from the Draft 2000 that part of the rules that is currently categorically and reasonably rejected by the public for one reason or another, then most of them should be carefully considered. These rules, possibly combined with others, may form the basis for a new (corrected, supplemented, or revised) version of the current Russian spelling rules.

At the end of 2003, a revised draft of the "Code of Russian Spelling Rules" was published, which is the subject of analysis in this case.

Immediately, we note that the authors of the Draft took into account most of the comments made. An appendix with a list (23 items) of expected spelling changes has been removed from it. The planned changes were not made to the main text of the Draft either. More specifically, in principle, the previous spellings are preserved:

- the letter y before e in common nouns with the-ep(conveyor, stayer, fireworks, not conveyor, stayer, fireworks, as suggested earlier);

- nouns pamphlet, parachute through y, not y,

- without the separator b in compound words like voenjurist, gosjazyk, detyasli, inyaz, Minjust, and not with the sign b after the initial parts in these words, as expected (voenjust, etc.);

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- ending-i in the prepositional case of masculine and neuter nouns na-iy i-ie(-under Pope Pius), as well as in the dative and prepositional singular cases of feminine nouns na (Biya-po or on the Biya River), and not with the ending-e (o Piye, on Bie).

- one n in the adjective windy , etc.

However, some of the spelling rules from this "group of 23" were also reformulated in the Draft-2003 not in the best way. Let me remind you, for example, that the use of h or nn in participles and participial adjectives in the code-1956 was primarily due to the presence or absence of a prefix in them. More precisely, the relevant rules were formulated as follows: in section 62 - "A double h is written in passive past participles, for example, reports read at a solemn meeting"; in section 63- " A double h is written in all adjectives formed from passive past participles (or by their type), if these adjectives they have prefixes or end in-ovannyy, - evannyy (except chewed and forged), for example: the patient is assigned enhanced nutrition."

The authors of subsequent manuals recommended that the presence or absence of explanatory words should also be taken into account in order to distinguish between participles written with nn and non - participial adjectives written with h: in the first case, the word is a participle, in the second-an adjective. Thus, writers can now rely on two formal attributes: the presence or absence of a prefix and an explanatory word. However, even with this approach, a considerable number of exceptions are planned that "spoil" the relevant rules. In the manual of D. E. Rosenthal and I. B. Golub " Russian language. Spelling. Punctuation" these exceptions are 9 points.

In Project 2000, it was proposed to switch to the morphological principle of writing-taking into account the type of verb: in such formations , it was recommended to write h from non - representative verbs of the imperfect form, and nn from perfect verbs. However, these recommendations were accompanied by seven exceptions. Therefore, there was no particular reason to switch to the new rule. Apparently, realizing this, the compilers of Svoda-2003 tried to combine different approaches to writing participles and participial turns. In section 99 they write: "1. Forms formed from perfect verbs (the vast majority of which are prefixed) are written with nn... 2. Forms formed from imperfect verbs (they are all non-prefixed) are written with one h, if they do not have dependent words, and with nn, if they have dependent words". As if everything is simple and clear. At the same time, this rule is accompanied by an even greater number of exceptions than in the Project-2000, which is open to the declarer-

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or served in hidden form (see pages 123-127). An example of the first kind of exceptions: "Exceptions to § 99, clause 2 and § 100, clauses 1 and 2. Write with nn instead of h: participles seen, heard, adjectives unseen, unexpected, desired, unwanted, expected, unexpected, long-awaited, put on, not put on, unexpected, unheard, unintentional and (as part of stable combinations) nedremannoe oko, razlivannoe morya, vidannoe delo?, in the proper name of Andrew the First-Called" (p. 123).

An example of a hidden exception: "Forms formed from a few two-type verbs, i.e. from verbs that have both perfect and imperfect meanings, are written with nn: crowned, bequeathed, promised, official, contused, born. However, the forms formed from the verbs to wound and baptize are written with a single n or with nn according to rule No. 2: cf., for example, a wounded soldier and a soldier seriously wounded in the head; baptized people and a newly baptized baby " (p. 122). Here, on the one hand, the provision on the use of nn in formations from two-type verbs is presented, and on the other hand, an exception to this provision is actually indicated, which lies behind the wording with the conjunction however. In addition, it should be added that the entire section on the use of h and nn in participles and verbal adjectives is written quite difficult, although, of course, the material itself is not easy.

In Project 2003, the position of supporters of the Moscow phonological school clearly prevails, although there should be no preferences in the manual designed for all-Russian use. Thus, on page 14, it is stated that "for the transmission of five [?! - V. M.] vowels use ten letters forming five letter pairs: a-I, u-u, o-e, e-e, s-i ." By the way, it is not agreed here whether we are talking about sounds or phonemes. At the same time, the phonetists who profess the postulates-following L. V. Shcherba - of the "Leningrad-Petersburg" school, consistently note 6 vowel phonemes: a, o, u, s, e, and I. As a result, only linguists (R. I. Avanesov, A. A. Reformatsky, M. V. Panov, L. L. Kasatkin Others (L. R. Zinder, M. I. Matusevich, A. N. Gvozdev, L. V. Bondarenko, L. L. Bulanin) do not consider [s] an independent phoneme, while others (L. R. Zinder, M. I. Matusevich, A. N. Gvozdev, L. V. Bondarenko, L. L. Bulanin) recognize [s] as a phoneme. It seems that the rules for using letters may well do without including scientific disputes about the number of phonemes. It should also be remembered that for people who are familiar with phonetics only in school (and they make up the vast majority of the population), there are 6 phonemes in Russian, including s .

At the same time, the graphic transmission of phonemes, sounds (allophones), and letters is not ordered. For example, in the draft Code, we read: "The sounds in the word structure are in unequal conditions. All sounds (vowels and consonants) differ in the same positions (phonetic positions).-

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these are independent, strong positions. The vowels a, o, i, u, e differ under stress: mal, mol, mil, mul, mel... In other positions, not all sounds differ; these are dependent, weak positions. So, the sounds a and o under stress (sam and som ) in the unstressed position correspond to one sound a: c[a] ma. After soft consonants in this position, four vowels that differ under the stress of - o, a, i, e coincide in one sound, for example: [t'i]whip, [t'i] nut, [p'i] la, [d'i] la, cf. under the stress of [t'o] plyj, [t'a]no, [p'i]t, [d'e]lo" (pp. 16-17). Wouldn't it be better, in such an authoritative work as the present Codex, to consistently denote: phonemes with parallel brackets - //, sounds (allophones) - square brackets - [ ], letters - without additional graphemes (in italics or bold). It would also be good to stick to the same transcription signs in the Code.

Let's return to the orthoepic recommendations. One of them concerns pronunciation (Moscow?!) words that include h and w before n and t . On page 115, it says: "In some of these words, the letter h corresponds to the sound w in pronunciation. The list of basic words: bakery, bakery (nouns), baker (from bun); viper (viper); mustard, mustard (mustard); bachelorette party (maiden); kusochnik (piece); lotochny, hawker (tray); milkman, milkmaid (milk)", etc. The pronunciation of many of these words using [w] instead of [h] is clearly outdated. This is evidenced not only by the everyday speech of native speakers, but also by the data of modern orthoepical dictionaries (see, for example: K. S. Gorbachevich Dictionary of Pronunciation and Stress difficulties in modern Russian. St. Petersburg, 2000).

It seems that all these phonetic subtleties are generally the subject of consideration not in spelling publications, but in orthoepic ones.

Thus, in the revised draft of the spelling and punctuation rules, there is a fundamental rejection of those innovations that would lead to the need to retrain not only schoolchildren and students, but also the bulk of the population, as well as teachers, editors, and proofreaders themselves. At the same time, this draft preserves, expands and deepens many of the existing rules, even compared to the 2000 Draft. This is especially evident in the description of non-paired roots with alternating vowels, in particular a-O. Let's compare: in the current rules (1956), words with only five roots are considered: gor-gor, zar-zor, plav-plov, ravn-roen, ras(t) - ros(t). In Project 2000, these rules are repeated, but with important additions. The range of described roots is also doubled, which includes clan-clone, lag-loj, mak-mok, skak-skok-skach, kas-kos. In the Project-2003, this circle is even more expanded, with the inclusion of krap-crop, pai-poi, various retail items. For example: "crane-kron. Without stress, write o in the words sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle-

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leia and a in the words interspersed, speckled. Under stress - only a: krapat, krapina, krapinka, nakrapyvat, vkrapit, vkraplenny, krap" (p. 50).

Attention is drawn to the consistent implementation of the morphological principle of writing unstressed vowels in endings. Thus, the general rule of spelling unstressed vowels is formulated as follows: "The spelling of letters in place of unstressed vowels is established by checking with other words and forms where in the same significant part of the word (in the same root, in the same prefix, suffix, ending) the vowel being checked is stressed, for example: gora (cf. mountains, grain), take (grain to take), land (oatmeal to take), house to(table to take)" (§ 34). This general rule is then specified when formulating rules for writing unstressed endings in different parts of speech. For example, when explaining the rules for writing case endings of names, the authors write: "In accordance with the general rule (see section 34), the spelling of letters in place of unstressed vowels in endings is established by checking the forms of words with the same ending (the same type of declension) in which the vowel being checked is stressed" (Section 68), for example: book, about book (hande, about ruke ); red (young), eleven (five).

A number of other positive aspects can be noted in the Project-2003 of the spelling rules code, which may be less significant than those already mentioned, but still successful in the didactic plan:

- if necessary, support the proposed rules not with individual examples, but with a list of "main words", which saves the user from accessing spelling dictionaries;

- matching words that are similar in meaning but differ in spelling (such as align-align lines; burn - burn, weaken - weaken).

- the presence of comments on orthograms that require clarification of the non-standard spelling of certain words; this applies, for example, to words like magnandt, magnandtny and magne, magnetick; debet and debandtor (p. 56), to a warning about the impossibility of checking vowels in the roots of verbs such as bully, burn, die, rest (p. 59), to the common confusion of the Russian prefix re - and foreign - language peri - - periphrasize (p.60), to the dubious allocation of prefixes pre - and pri-in words like despise, bizarre, the spelling of which is determined in dictionary order.

Comments about spellings that are stylistically colored attract attention due to their novelty. This applies, for example, to the possibility of using in artistic, especially poetic, speech forms of the prepositional case of neuter nouns on-y with the ending-i (In silenceand you went alone with N. A. Pushkin's thought).

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In the latest version of the Project, fundamentally new sections and topics outlined in the previous version were preserved and even slightly changed and expanded. These include, for example, the topic "Use of non-alphabetic characters". Here you will find a comprehensive description of the use of the hyphen, which is often mixed with a dash in writing. We are talking about the written transmission of words with components that are not only letters, but also numbers (such as 2-percent, y-shaped, 5-y, 255-m), about writing homogeneous terms that have a common final component (such as ball and roller bearings), etc., as well as about using an apostrophe, an accent mark, and an oblique line.

This also includes "Corrective rules (coordination rules)", the purpose of which is to prevent changes that seem to follow from the basic rules, but violate the established patterns in written speech or complicate the semantic relations between words or their parts. So, " it is not allowed to merge writing with the first component if the second component contains a hyphen. 1. If the first part is a prefix (except not) or a component of a compound word, the combined spelling should be replaced with a hyphen, resulting in spellings with two hyphens " (p. 189-190): ex-deputy prime Minister, TV-press conference, TV-show business, anti-socialism, etc.democratic.

Here you can also specify such topics as "End of sentence marks inside a sentence", "Sentence division with a dot", "Punctuation marks for nominative topics" , etc.

The use of the Code is facilitated by the presence of subject and dictionary indexes in it.

In general, the Project-2003 " Code of Russian Spelling rules. Spelling. Punctuation " makes a favorable impression as the work of a team of highly qualified specialists. To prevent possible annoying inaccuracies in the text, it would be advisable to get feedback from as many specialists as possible (academic and university employees, school teachers, editors and proofreaders), take into account their comments and suggestions, and finally publish them after careful editing.

Saint-Petersburg

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