Verbal Inflection in Hrihorij Kvitka-Osnovjanenko's Dramas Svatannja na Honcharivci and Boj-zhinka

Abstract

Hrihorij Kvitka-Osnovjanenko (1778-1843) entered history of Ukrainian literature as the one who established Ukrainian artistic prose, and in history of the Ukrainian language he is a follower of Ivan Kotljarevs'kij after whose example, through his own works he introduced the living popular language into literature and consolidated its position.

The language system of Hrihorij Kvitka-Osnovjanenko's dramatic works Svatannja na Honcharivci and Boj-zhinka was based on the language system of slobozhanshchyna dialects that along with other dialects of the south-east group of Ukrainian dialects served as the basis of contemporary Ukrainian literary language.

The article is an attempt at outlining the characteristic features from the field of verbal inflection in order to present the language variety of works of that time. The variety is first of all connected with the process of making the language typical and individual, where each character's language corresponds to both his social status and his nature. In Osnovjanenko's works country people use Ukrainian, that is the colloquial language, whereas clerks and soldiers use the 'book' language.