COMPLEX SENTENCES IN THE MARI LANGUAGE

Galina L. Sokolova¹, Anna L. Kolyago²*
¹Assos. Prof., Mari State University, Russia, askgalinasokol@mail.ru
²Assos. Prof., Mari State University, Russia, kolyago@yandex.ru
*Corresponding author

Abstract

The analysis of a status of study of complex sentences in the Mari language is given in the article. The Mari language belongs to the Finno-Ugric languages. Until the 19th century due to the lack of written language the Mari language was not a subject of studying of linguists. In the Finno-Ugric parent language, according to linguists, there were only simple sentences. Simple sentences were used to express complex ideas. They followed one after another. There were no conjunctions at that time. The presence in the language of the elements for creation of a complex sentence and the existence of conjunctionless sentences was the reason that today complex sentences are widespread in the Mari language. The phenomenon when conjunctions connect components of a complex sentence was borrowed, mostly, from the Russian language.

As a result of the analysis and the synchronous description of collected material we came to the conclusion that, complex sentences in the Mari language were studied from the point of view of their structure and semantics and we can find them mainly in the book speech. However, it is an indisputable fact that many means of syntax are characterized by strong emotionality and expressiveness and, therefore, stylistic significance. The stylistic potential of a complex sentence was the poorly studied area in the Mari linguistics so far and it must be meticulously studied.

Keywords: syntax, complex sentence, stylistic potential