OBSERVATION ON THE FEATURES OF THE CONSONANTISM SYSTEM IN THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE AT THE END OF 18 ST. AT THE EXAMPLE OF THE POCHAIV INCUNABULUM “KNYZHYTSYA DLYA HOSPODARSTVA” (1788)

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of researching the formation of the consonants system of literary Ukrainian on the example of Pochaiv incunabulum of XVIII century “Knyzhytsya dlya hspodarstva”. Considerable attention is paid to the methods of reflection of phonetic principles of the Ukrainian spelling by means of Cyrillic alphabet graphics of that time. The sequence of fixing the Ukrainian pronunciation of that time in writing is testified in the second part of the incumabulum, given by Polish Latin alphabet. The separate dialectal phenomena witnessed in the language of the incunabulum researched are supported by Polish, those can be found in south-western dialects of modern Ukrainian until present. The majority of the phonetic phenomena in the language of the incunabulum testify that the system of consonants was fully formed in Ukrainian at the end of the XVIII century. The written ad printed sources of Ukrainian language of the XVIII century give a vast material for the research of Ukrainian phonetics reflected by the graphic system of that time. Despite some phonetical phenomena might be hidden from the research by the traditional orthography, the main part of the spelling used in “Knyzhytsya” allows to assume that the phonetical system of Ukrainian language was formed by the end of the XVIII century as it exists in modern standard Ukrainian.