Slavic 810

Time: Tuesday and Thursday 12:30-2:18

Place: Cunz 445

Instructor: Charles E. Gribble

This course will teach you to read Old Church Slavonic. As a reading course it will be equally useful for literature students who need to read medieval texts and for linguistics students who may be as interested in the language itself as in the texts. It is not a linguistics course, although a considerable amount of linguistics will come up in the process of learning the language. It is assumed that you have a reading knowledge of modern Russian or another Slavic language. If this is not the case, please see me as soon as possible. You can manage the course without Russian, but some extra work will be needed. The course does not assume any knowledge of linguistics or any Slavic language other than Russian.

Since the students are normally all graduate students and the number of students is small (usually about ten to twelve), grades will not be on a curve: you can all get A or all get E, depending above all upon how well and how much you work. There will be two hour exams and a final exam; there will not be a research paper. Copies of past exams will be handed out for you to use in preparing for the exams in this course. If the class wishes, a project can done instead of the final exam. The project would consist of choosing a section of a medieval Slavic text (subject to my approval), translating it, and doing an analysis of the language (orthography, phonology, morphology, notes on syntax) of the text, similar to what we do in class.

Grading will be approximately as follows: each hour exam: 20%; final exam or project: 30%; class work: 30%. I reserve the right to make appropriate adjustments to this schedule, rather than just mechanically averaging the scores. If, for example, you start out badly and finish very strongly, your final grade will reflect how strongly you finished. If you have two good exams and good class work, but one bad exam (hour exams or final), I will assume that there were special circumstances which produced the single bad grade, so I will give very little weight to it. Class work will be taken seriously: intelligent and well-thought-out questions will get you credit; questions asked just to exercise your vocal chords of course will not. Original observations and questions which stump me will be regarded as especially valuable. You are expected to participate in the class, not just sit back.

(please turn over)

The textbook is H. G. Lunt, Old Church Slavonic Grammar, 7th edition, Mouton de Gruyter, 2001 (should be at SBX for about $35; be sure you get the 7 th edition). You do not have to purchase the book, but you may want to do so.

My office (Cunz 339) hours are Tuesday and Thursday 8:15-9:00 a.m., after our class, and by appointment. If you have an urgent question or problem that cannot conveniently wait until the next class or office hour, please call me at home (766-9412) between 10:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. seven days a week.

The course will begin with a very brief survey of the historical and cultural background of the language, the writing systems, and will then start phonology and morphology. Reading of texts will begin during the first class period, and a significant amount of texts will be read. The reading will begin slowly and pick up speed.

Assignments for the first part of the course:

for Tuesday 9/14: Lunt 0.0-0.31; 1.0-1.102; 4.00-4.021; review material read in class.

for Thursday 9/16: Lunt 0.32-0.34; 4.03, tables on p. 58-59, 69, 73.

The basic bibliography for OCS is listed in Lunt 2001. Important additions :

1. Дьяченко, Григорий. Полный церковно-славянский словарь. Moskva: 1899. Reprinted in two volumes at least twice in the 1990s.

2. Дуриданов, Иван, ред. Граматика на старобългарския език. Sofia : 1991.

3. Schenker, Alexander M. The Dawn of Slavic An Introduction to Slavic Philology. New Haven , CT : 1995.

4. Иванова-Мирчева, Дора, ред. Старобългарски речник. Встъпителен том. 1984; Том І, А-Н. 1999. София: Изд. на БАН.

5. Иванова-Мирчева, Дора и Ангел Давидов, ред. Малък речник на старобългарския език. Велико Търново: Слово, 2001.

See also my handout listing dictionaries.

A copy of Lunt's OCS Glossary will be available for about $6.00. Copies of Tseitlin's Staroslavianskii slovar' will be available for about $25 by mail. I strongly suggest that you buy the Lunt Glossary. If you intend to do serious work with medieval texts, I suggest buying Tseitlin's book as well, while it is still available.