RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COMMON SLAVIC THESAURUS OF EPIC POETIC FORMULAS: THE CORPUS APPROACH

Abstract

In the present article, a new approach to historical-comparative studies of Indo- European poetic is suggested. It combines traditional etymological methods with corpus approach. Thus, to reconstruct the core thesaurus of Common Slavic epic poetic cliches, five independent corpora of Slavic epics were studied (Russian byliny, Ukrainian dumy, Bulgrian, Serbian and Croatian, as well as Slovenian herois songs). Each of the traditions have a certain range of core formulas which share the common clausula (line’s ending). The clausula words are the most important part of folklore vocabulary as they tend to be the most stable. Their stability over time is enforced by the recurrent metric patterns of the singing that accumulate at the line’s end. Previously, it has been proved that clausule words constitute the core of formulaic expressions inside one tradition (B. Lord), eventually, Levinton showed that such comparison may be made between several cognate traditions, like Serbian, Croation and Eastern Slavic. Nevertheless, the overall comparison of several epic traditions of the Slavs has not yet been accomplished. The present article tends to offer such comparison which can have important outcomes for the study of Common Slavic and, moreover, common Indo-European poetics. Quantitative analysis has shown that each of separate Slavic traditions have a lot of common core formulas. This set of formulaic nests (about 40) can be regarded as a core of Common Slavic epic tradition, preserved in daughter-traditions. The list comprises not only kinship terms, body parts, and natural element, but cultural artefact and tems as well (such as *gordъ, *slovo, *vino, *dvorъ, *vorto). Further etymological comparison with formulas of other Inod-European traditions would show the range of innovations and retentions in Common Slavic poetical thesaurus.