Experimental research of numerals declining

The standards of declining numerals in the contemporary Russian language (colloquial and written)are being destroyed. This fact is constantly observed in the informal language; however, there are some difficulties to assess the degreeof it in the written text due to the fact that numerals are usually replaced by numbers there. For the effective solution of this problemexperimental method, which allows formulating a particular task for written numerals declining, seemed very productive.The current article shows the qualitative and quantitative description of the experiment where the number 123 456 789 was declined.The analysis of the results revealed the following regularities:1. Declining of the numeral сто (a hundred) as a separate word and as a root of compound numerals shows a significant quantity ofsubstandard forms which reflects the tendency to unify semantically equal elements on different language levels.Substandard forms of declining the word стостам (Dative case)стами (Instrumental case)стах (Prepositional case)14101013,5%9,6%9,6%Substandard forms of the words containing the morpheme -стоЧетырёхста (four hundred)четырёмста (four hundred)семиста (seven hundred)Genitive caseInstrumental casePrepositional caseDative caseGenitive caseDative caseInstrumental casePrepositional case10418418158159,6%3,8%17,3%3,8%17,3%14,4%7,7%14,4%Substandard form четыресто (four hundred)Nominative caseGenitive caseDative caseInstrumental casePrepositional caseall cases1615133115,4%14,4%0,97%2,9%2,9%0,97%2. The tendency of destroying standard instrumental case forms is observed for this form is the sole form preventing from unification ofall oblique cases.Substandard forms of declining in Instrumental caseSubstandard form стами10 1,1%Substandard forms of the words contained the morpheme -ста (четырёхста, семиста)12 1,3%Substandard form четыресто3 0,3%Substabdard form with the invariable first part (пятидесятью, семистами, воьмидесятью)137 14,6%Different substandard forms (девятьста, шестьми, пятьюдесятими и т.п.)192%Using Nominative case instead of Instrumental828,7%Using Genitive case instead of Instrumental828,7%total34536,7%instead of Genitive caseinstead of Dative caseinstead of Instrumental caseinstead of Prepositional case558282615,9%8,7%8,7%6,5%instead of Dative caseinstead of Instrumental caseinstead of Prepositional case2782412,9%8,7%4,4%All processes mentioned above reflect a particular level of abstract thinking development where Russian numerals are losing the links between their semantics and their form of expression of a concrete numeric meaning. Thus, expansion of substandard forms is not only the result of degradation of the general language culture, but also active and objective processes happening in the language system for more than a decade.

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