«What Dakha Gives – Vzyakha Vzyast»: Verbal Substantives in Russian Subdialects and Modern Poetry

The article focuses on the dialect words vzyaha, vzyah, vzyahar and daha, dakh, dahar. Thematically, the article isdivided into two parts.

The first part deals with the history of these words and their representation in lexicographic sources. The article draws attention to the problem of defining the words vzyaha, vzyah, vzyahar, which are explained in the regional dictionary through a literary parallel ‘bribe-taker’, which contradicts the original meaning of the words and the meaning of proverbs. At the same time, we have to admit that for modern native speakers of the Russian language, these words in the composition of paremies are comprehended as ‘mutual cover-up, ‘mutual illegal enrichment’ or ‘bribery’.

The article discusses various approaches to solving the problem of the word-formation history of these words. According to the main versions presented in etymological dictionaries and in separate studies, the element -h- in the words dahar, vzyahar (and similar formations) is considered as an intervocalic insert. In accordance with another word-building reconstruction, two suffixes -h- and -ar- with a homonymous meaning of the character (the subject of a speech) are distinguished in these words.

The second part of the article examines the expressive possibilities of the words daha, vzyaha, vzyahar in poetic texts and uses fragments from the work «Zangezi» by Velimir Khlebnikov and a poem from the collection «Guidances and sophistications» by Viktor Koval as examples.