Functioning of the Reflexive Pronouns in the Contemporary Russian Language

Analyzed the functioning of reflexive pronouns in the modern Russian language based on a broad textual base. In particular, analysis was performed on the basis of works of Russian writers of XIX-XX centuries, newspaper and magazine articles, passages from spoken language. Identified problems of grammatical rules, their variability, which is particularly interesting in modern linguistics. Also give a more precise definition of the "norm" in linguistics, the "culture change", "culture of speech."


Introduction
The problems of the grammatical norm, its variability and usage are of interest for studying and are included into the circle of the actual problems of the contemporary linguistics.The term "norm" has double interpretation.Understanding the norm as a result of purposeful codification of language (narrow understanding of the norm) is connected with the literary language.Moreover, the norm is interpreted as "traditionally and spontaneously formed way of speech that differs given language idioms from other language idioms" (wide understanding of the norm).In such understanding "the norm is close to the notion of usage, i.e. generally accepted, established ways of usage of the given language" (Krysin, 2007, p. 5).The scientists specify that the norm is implementations, understood as the right and desired, while the usage is all generally accepted implementations.Thus, it is validly to consider that the usage is the language category while the norm includes psychological and social moment, connected with the perceptions of the code carriers about the right and prestige speech (Erofeeva, 2003).
The usage reflects the speech traditions of the certain language community in different situations of communication, at that the usage of the usual variants of speech promotes to the communication success that doesn't mean the indispensable observance of the prescriptions of the dictionaries and grammars.The norm is based on the usage, and tradition of the usage; it can officially legalize usage or in certain conditions reject it (Zemskaya, 2010).
The difference of the language system, norm and usage allows determination of the correlation in this triad."The system of language is understood as an aggregate of the possible means and ways of expression, which are owned by each national language" (Krysin, 2007, p. 7).The peculiarities of the language system are considerably wider than the norm accepted in the language that limits and prohibits, while the system promotes to satisfaction of the big demands of communication.Thus, the norm opposes to the language possibilities and doesn't realize everything that the system owns.The usage (speech practice) can realize a) that is allowed by the norm; b) that is not allowed by the norm, but is allowed by the language system; c) that is not allowed by the norm and is not allowed by the language system.It is generally known that the changes of a norm and in future a system arise from the usage.As V. V. Kolesov states "the norm is a choice of the invariant from many variants, worked out by the system in its development (Kolesov, 1989, p. 3).In the opinion of V. A. Itskovich "the norm is the language units existing in the particular time in the certain language community and obligatory for all members of the community, and peculiarities of their usage at that these obligatory units can be the only possible, or be in the form of existing variants within the literary language" (Itskovych, 2012, p. 8).
"The norm as an aggregate of traditionally used language means and rules of their combination is opposed to the system of language (as a complex of possibilities, from which the norm realizes only some ones), and the norm as a result of purposeful codification can enter into the opposition with speech practice, in which the conformity to coded prescription, and their violation is observed (Krysin, 2003, p. 156).
The availability of the variant units is accompanied, as a rule, by the semantic, stylistic and functional differentiation.The problems of norm and usage are directly connected with the problem of the language culture, at that it is necessary to follow the differentiation of the notions "culture of language" and "culture of speech".We speak about the culture of language when we mean "the properties of the exemplary texts fixed in the literary texts, as well as the expressive and notional possibilities of the language system"; we understand under the culture of speech "the concrete realization of the language properties and possibilities in the conditions of daily and massverbal and written -communication" (Yartseva, 1990, p. 247).The language culture means the whole spectre of the phenomena relating both to the language system and to its functioning in the speech (usage).
The wide material for the research of the norm and usage is represented by the linguistic frames.The peculiarity of the national frames is that they are represented by the aggregate of the language material in all its stylistic and genre variety.The national frames include, except for the codified form of language, the territorial and social variants of language, the language for special purposes and etc.This specificity of the national frames allows considering them as a certain cut of the state of the public language during the certain period of time.There can be also created the frames, which fix not only the norm, however they are constructed artificially for certain purposes.The national frames certainly reflect the usage, and language practice that is connected with the representativeness of the frame.
The national frame of the Russian language (NFRL) includes the works of the fiction literature, newspapers and magazine articles on different themes, special texts, advertisements, memoirs, and notes of the spoken language etc. "… the term "literary" language (actually denoting rather not literary language in the direct sense, but simply the nationwide normative, i.e. standard language) partly supposes that the most prestigious and "the most regular" part of the texts created in this language, -are the texts of the fictional prose (Plungyan, 2005).The writers' language and the nationwide language, undoubtedly, are not equivalent particularly in the second half of the XX century, that's why in NFRL the fiction texts do not dominate.
In the main subframe of the National frame of the Russian language (NFRL) the usual practices are reflected, and the educational subframe reflects only a codified form of the language.The metalinguistic marking gives possibility to use the language material in the dynamics and execute the procedure of comparison for fixing the usual manifestations, in particular, for correcting the norm.
As the creators of NFRL state one of the most interesting tasks that can be solved by the Frame is the observations over the dynamics of the language development.The dated texts allow following for occurrence or gradual disappearing of the words, constructions or grammatical forms".The changes, first of all, are dealt with the lexical and phonetic systems.Although "the grammar still survives", "sooner or later it should have impact on the weak zones of the Russian grammar system" (Plungayn, 2005).

Functioning of the Reflexive Pronoun себя (from Norm to Usage)
At the modern stage in the range of the Slavonic languages there is a tendency to the change of the historically formed norm of usage of the reflexive pronouns.
In accordance with the language norms reflected in the grammars of the contemporary Russian language, the reflexive pronoun себя is used for denoting the identity of the subject and object of the action: "себя points out the subject (the person or non-person), that is the object of the own action" (Shvedova, 1982).At that as it follows from the definitions of the explanatory dictionaries of the contemporary Russian language, the reflexive pronoun becomes the alternative to the personal pronoun: себя "indicates on the turn of the action towards the very producer of the action, changing the personal pronouns by implication" (Ozhegov, 1992).Compare recommendations, given in the work "Variant forms in the Russian language": "The reflexive pronoun себя is used when the subject of action simultaneously is its object, addressee or localizer.If such coincidence of the semantic actants is absent in the sentence, than instead of себя the personal pronouns is used respectively (Koprov, 2006, p. 42).
It should be noted that the characteristics of the reflexive pronoun as a replacement of the personal pronouns causes the fair criticism of the scientists, as there is a lack of all cases of the usage of the pronoun себя (about imperfection of the transformational approach in studying the reflexive pronouns see works of E. V. Paducheva (Paducheva, 1985, p. 181)).Nevertheless the above-mentioned formulation is of interest for us, as it evidences about limitations, imposed by the grammar norm on the opportunities of the language system: potentially the meaning of the identity of the subject and object can transfer the personal pronoun of the same person that the subject of action is.At that if the similar non-use of the pronouns of the third person leads to ambiguity of the context, then the usage of the pronouns of the first and second person does not cause such problems.
The described situation puts us before the question: how does the norm of usage of the reflexive pronouns fixed by the grammarians and dictionaries reflect the real speech practice?What is the correlation of the system, norm and usage in this case?The question doesn't seem to be inactive, especially if take into account the linguists' observations for functioning of the reflexive pronoun in the contemporary Polish literary language: for the usage exclusion of the reflexive pronoun «siebie» by the respective forms of the personal pronouns increasingly becomes typical that, in the specialists' opinion, reflect the process of the active interaction of the Polish with German and Roman languages (Glovinskaya, 2000, pp. 300-301;Glovinskaya, 2011Glovinskaya, , 2013)).
At the beginning of XX century A. M. Peshkovskii wrote that the replacement of the reflexive pronoun себя by the indirect forms of the personal pronouns was not typical for the Russian language.Formulating the norm, the linguist stated that the pronoun себя "as opposed to non-Slavic languages must relate to all three persons" (Peshkovskii, 1956, p. 162).Appeal to the wide material of the basic subframe of NFRL allows following the realization of this principle in the usage during the long period and evaluating the degree of stability of the grammar norm.
The data of NFRL demonstrate that in the literary language of XIX and XX centuries there are absent the cases of exclusion of the reflexive pronoun used in the role of direct object by the personal pronouns.Nevertheless, we mark separate cases of using the personal pronoun of the first person in the singular я in the place of traditional себя: this refers to usage with prepositions у, вокруг, около, подле, рядом с in the function of adverbial modifier and uncoordinated attribute.We meet 5 similar usages, which relate to the mid of XIX century, 4 -to the first half of the XX century and 4 -to the second half of XX century.

(NFRL).
Generally, the similar samples in spite of their extremely limited quantity are informative.On the one part, they confirm our idea that the capacities of the personal pronouns laid down in the grammatical system are wider than those defined by the norm, on the other part, they point out that the usage almost doesn't use these capacities, not only without coming into collision with the norm in this aspect, but vice versa, supporting it.Thus during two centuries, the norm is characterized by the stability.
Certainly, the single cases of contradiction of the usage to norm still do not give possibility to make any generalizations but allow supposing that in future at absence of the proper control and further democratization of the newspaper language, the number of such contexts can considerably grow up.

Functioning of себя (from Usage to Norm)
The direction of the earlier said remarks relating to the usage of the reflexive and personal pronouns can be designated as "from norm to usage", however at studying the reflexive pronoun the productive approach is an approach that is connected, first of all, with imperfection of the last one.On the one part, as it was already shown, the norm limits the system possibilities of the personal pronouns but they do not receive realization in the speech practice, from the other part, the norm limits the possibilities of functioning of the reflexive pronouns, which, on the contrary, are widely applied in the usage.The rule of identity of the subject and object contained in the grammars and dictionaries of the Russian language has too common character (even compare the formulations from the Russian grammar stated above and works of Y.V. Koprov: in the last one, except for the function of the object of action the functions of addressee and localizer are fixed behind the pronoun себя).It is undoubtedly, today the most complete data about diversity of the contexts of functioning of the reflexive pronoun are contained in the research of E. V. Paducheva.In the scientist's opinion, "it is necessary to acknowledge the existence of several reflexive constructions a little similar to each other, but not brought together without loss of the description richness of content".E. V. Paducheva describes seven reflexive constructions (co-predicate capacity of the reflexive pronoun with the subject, semantic subject and further co-predicate capacity etc.) pointing out to which the reflexive pronoun in each of them is co-referential, as well as which limitations for the usage of the pronouns exist and what caused them (Paducheva, 1985, pp. 186-203).In our opinion, the context of the nominal-adjective chain (in the terms of E. V. Paducheva) requires proper consideration.
We understand the nominal-adjective chain as the attributive construction with the determinate word consisting of the adjective, preposition для and pronoun (важный для него документ).At that we are interested in the cases, when the determinate word depends on the predicate, and the pronoun is co-referential to the subject of action, as in the usage in this contexts we observe the competition of the forms of reflexive and personal pronouns, while the existing norm is incapable to explain its reasons and establish its relevancy/irrelevancy.
If orient on the rule of identity of the subject and object of action, then the statement of the reflexive pronoun in this context should be considered to be impossible.On the other part, the usage of the pronoun себя for indication to co-reference with the subject of action is considered to be logical, especially if the unambiguity of context is reached by that.
Appealing to the database of NFRL allows evaluating the prevalence of competition of the reflexive and personal pronouns in the context of substantive-adjective chain, as well as to outline some tendencies of functioning of the pronoun себя.We used for analysis the subframe of the fiction texts for the period of 1860-1900, subframe of the fiction texts for the period of 2000-2010 and subframe of the newspaper texts for 2010 that includes the materials of such newspapers as "Izvestiya", "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Novyi Region 2", "RBK Daily", "RIA Novosti", "Sovetskii Sport", "Trud-7".These subframes have approximately equal vocabulary volume (15 200 243 words, 15 400 616 words, 15 541 660 words respectively) and allow covering both the works of classical Russian literature of XIX century, and literary and newspaper texts of the new time.
As our study shows, the contexts of substantive-adjective chain with the pronoun, co-referential to the subject of action are met in all three subframes, at that in this construction both personal and reflexive pronouns are used.Among the first ones forms of the third person prevails (для него, для нее, для них); there are less forms of the first person in singular (для меня); the forms of the first and second person in plural (для нас, для вас) and the second person in singular (для тебя) are single.The reflexive pronoun in such word-combinations also predominantly indicates on the subject of action of the third person that confirms the idea about importance of usage of the pronoun себя as a means of removal of ambiguity.
Let's consider the quantitative data.In the works of the Russian literature of the second half of XIX century we found 192 contexts, which interest us, from which the personal pronouns are used in 143 and the reflexive pronouns in 49.It is important that the contexts of substantive-adjective chain both with personal and reflexive pronouns are present in the works of recognized masters of word: L. N. Tolstoi, I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevskii, and A. I. Kuprin etc.In the literary works of 2000 we meet 113 relative usages, from which 70 contain personal pronouns and 43 contain reflexive pronouns.Finally, in the texts of the specified periodicals for 2010 we mark 164 cases of usage of the considered model, at the same time 116 contexts include the reflexive pronouns and 48 -the personal ones.
As we can see the existence of competition of the forms of reflexive and personal pronouns in the context of substantive-adjective chain is doubtless.Obviously, until now the big quantity of empirical material was accumulated that is not covered by the norm and requires codification.Particularly, as the statistical data show, the serious differences are outlined in the usage of the substantive-adjective chain in the different functional styles of the Russian language: predominance of the personal pronouns in the language of fiction literature and, vice versa, considerable reflexive pronouns in the newspaper language.
In our opinion, we should acknowledge the variability of the statement of reflexive and personal pronouns in the context of substantive-adjective chain in the case of their co-reference to the subject of action.Let's try to define some reasons of existence of forms of reflexive and personal pronouns opposed in the norm in these contexts.
First of all, let's consider the possibility of the semantic nature of specified variability.Thus, according to E. V. Paducheva, the statement of reflexive or personal pronoun of the third person at the adjective with preposition для is defined by the different empathy of a speaker.We mean that choice of the pronoun depends on the fact if a speaker gives evaluation (personal pronoun is used) or denotation of the subject (reflexive pronoun is used).Accordingly, as E. V. Paducheva points out, the majority of adjectives, which allow entering into reflexive construction of this type, belongs to the number of "substantive", i.e. supposing subject of evaluation as an important component of the sense (Paducheva, 1985, p. 207).
In this case a reader becomes a witness of quarrel of a married couple, when a heroine (Dolly) for the first time clothes her feelings in words, and pronouncing them and hearing her on their own, realizes the force and meaning of these words -determination «ужасное» belongs to her.
As it is evident in both cases the usage of the reflexive or personal pronoun can be substantiated based upon semantic opposition.Nevertheless, it is necessary to note that although the distribution of this explanation on all cases of functioning of pronouns in substantive-adjective chain looks like tempting, but it doesn't always turn out to be productive.Particularly, it is inapplicable to the choice between reflexive pronoun and personal pronoun of the first person, which example of opposition also can be stated: (6) А тогда, получив эти шесть, узнал я вдруг заведомо по одному письму от приятеля про одну любопытнейшую вещь для себя (Dostoevskii, F. M. The Brothers Karamazov, 1880).

M. The Devils 1871-1872) (NFRL).
It is hardly possible to speak about empathy of a speaker to himself.Consequently, it is necessary to reveal the other circumstances, which influence on the choice of that or other form.
The usage of the reflexive or personal pronouns in substantive-adjective chain can depend on the range of syntactic conditions.At that the choice in favour of the reflexive pronoun can be supported by several factors.
Secondly, the possibility of execution of substantive-adjective chain of adverbial function also peculiar to adverb, in combination with which only reflexive pronoun is used (at its coincidence with the subject of action): Moreover, it should be noted that the statement of the reflexive pronoun in the considered word-combinations sometimes helps to avoid ambiguity, as the personal pronoun of the third person can correlate not only with the subject of action, but with its object, as well as refer to the previous part of the complex phrase.For example, the usage of для него instead of для себя in the following context could generate some ambiguity, as it could be related to the object of the first part (Алеше): (12) Да и вовсе не для радости Грушенькиной он влек к ней Алешу; был он человек серьезный и без выгодной для себя цели ничего не предпринимал (Dostoevskii, F. M. The Brothers Karamazov, 1880) (NFRL).
The usage of apposition at the personal pronoun of the third person by I.S. Turgenev in similar contexts evidences that the existence of ambiguity is understood by the author: (14) Он ел мало, больше катал шарики из хлеба -и лишь изредка вскидывал глазами на Каломейцева, который только что вернулся из города, где видел губернатора -по не совсем приятному для него, Калломейцева, делу (Turgenev, I. S. Nov', 1877) Along with the factors supporting the usage of the reflexive pronouns, we'll try to outline those ones, which oppose it.First of all, it is the complicated structure of the sentence that determines "detachment" of the pronoun from the subject and predicate of the sentence: the farther the pronoun is placed, the more difficult it is to restore its connection with the subject.In particular, this entering of substantive-adjective chain in the range of coordinated attributes: (15) Аратов имел вид человека, который узнал великую, для него очень приятную тайну … (Turgenev, I. S. Klara Milych, 1882)
The example stated above is instructive also because in the detached construction the personal pronoun of the first person neighbours with the possessive pronoun of the first person.
In the last example, the meaning for statement of the personal pronoun can also have position of the elaborated construction, namely its position before the subject.It should be noted that among all considered cases the reflexive pronoun is met in this position only once in the work of L.N. Tolstoi (see above).
Thus, the analysis of works of the Russian literature of the second half of XIX century shows that opposition of the reflexive and personal pronouns in the construction of substantive-adjective chain in addition to semantic basis is determined by the syntactic conditions, at that the usage of personal pronouns is more free, and the usage of reflexive pronoun impedes syntactic complication of the sentence.Consequently, we can speak about semantically and stylistically conditioned variants.At that the considerable predominance of the contexts with personal pronouns evidences both about view of the outside observer peculiar to the literary narration, and about general complexity of the syntactic constructions.
The literary texts of 2000 hold orientation at the predominant usage in the context of substantive-adjective chain of personal pronouns; however, in the recent newspaper texts the directly opposed tendency to exclusion of the personal pronouns by the reflexive one in the same context is observed.What can be it conditioned by?
In the newspaper texts it is much more difficult, and in most cases simply impossible, to speak about semantic opposition of the pronouns.Particularly, the usage of the reflexive pronoun себя in numerous contexts must not be connected with rendering the view of denotation of the subject and author's empathy.For example, in this context the evaluation of the film as traditional one, most obviously belongs to a speaker, rather than to his creator, however the reflexive pronoun is used: Атом Эгоян снял традиционный для себя фильм с напряженным сюжетом (RBK Daily, 23.03.2010) (NFRL).
The point is about opportunity of each of the pupils of children's home to choose the work that would be interesting to him namely, i.e. the great number of interesting professions is approved, while the usage of the personal pronoun in this case could point out on the existence of one work interesting for everyone at once.The same could be said about the following example, in which we imply that for each of 6 persons the life would be unusual in its own way: Сейчас за ними закроется дверь -и 500 суток изо дня в день шесть человек будут вести непривычную для себя жизнь в замкнутом маленьком пространстве (Trudб 7, 24.06.2010) Conversely, uniformity of the evaluated phenomenon can be approved with assistance of the personal pronoun as it happens at indication on the way of life of the animals: Так, если лабораторных животных поместить в естественную среду, они вернутся к естественному для них образу жизни (RBK Daily, 24.03.2010); or one and the same equally unprofitable for all participants of the price: … акционеры «Тройки Диалог» не были готовы к тому, чтобы уступить контроль над компанией по далеко не самой выгодной для них цене.(RBK Daily, 2010.04.08) (NFRL).
Nevertheless, the semantics of distributive property is realized not in all cases and cannot be considered universal basis of variability.
Mitigation of the semantic opposition inevitably must lead to that the choice of one or other variant of the pronoun in the context of substantive-adjective chain should be determined by the syntactic conditions.In this relation the bigger quantity of usages of the reflexive pronoun in this construction corresponds to the bigger distributive property of the simple syntactic structures in the language of newspapers in comparison with the language of the fiction literature.
Cliché capacity of similar combinations in many respects is supported by "the universality" of the reflexive pronoun, namely its indifference to the category of person, gender and number.
The considerable expansion of the adjectives used in the substantive-adjective chain is confirmed by the idea of formation of the contexts with the reflexive pronoun себя, at that in favour of those ones, which do not suppose the subject of evaluation as the important component of the sense, and on the contrary includes the sufficient objectivity based upon commonness of the opinion of some society (экзотический, культовый, традиционный).

Functioning of the Reflexive-Possessive Pronoun свой (Norm and Usage).
The grammatical norm determining functioning of the reflexive-possessive pronoun as opposed to the above-mentioned norm of usage of the reflexive pronoun себя allows variability: the synonymy of the pronouns свой and мой, твой, наш, ваш is spoken about in the reference books (Rosental, 2012), in the textbooks on the contemporary Russian language morphology of the higher educational establishments (Balalykina, 2003).The variability of the reflexive-possessive and personal-possessive pronouns of the first and second persons reflects their system possibilities and is supported by the usage at that the variants continue to compete with each other, aspiring to occupy the first place in the speech practice.As the range of researches evidences, the reflexive-possessive pronoun experienced the serious fluctuations in the aspect of "being in demand" in the usage, then being subjected to limitation in using it, on the contrary, expands the area of influence on the different historical stages.
Thus, analyzing the Old Russian monuments, M. V. Fedorova determines the consecutive reduction of the usage of the pronoun свой as a synonym to твой and мой in the different lists of one work (Fedorova, 1965, pp. 121-122).F. I. Buslaev appealing to the works of "the newest writers" (i.e.writers of the end of XVIII-ХIХ centuries) states that they prefer "the other possessive" pronoun свой under influence of the foreign languages.The same process is stated by them for the spoken language (Buslaev, 1959, p. 395). A. M. Peshkovskii (Peshkovskii, 2013, pp. 161-162) says about serious competition that was experienced by the reflexive-possessive pronoun from the part of personal-possessive pronouns in the literature of XIX century.E.V. Paducheva also draws attention to the limited usage of the reflexive-possessive pronoun in relation to the first and second person in literature of the first half of XIХ century, while up to XX century she considers the reverse process to be active, namely enhancement of the strict observance of the reflexive capacity (Paducheva, 1985, p. 204).
What results did the competition of the forms on the modern stage lead to?How consecutively is the reflective capacity in the contemporary Russian literary language executed?Is the tendency to exclusion of the reflexive-possessive pronoun by the personal-possessive pronouns of the first and second person fixed by the researches of Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian languages typical, for example, for the Russian language?
In order to evaluate the distribution of this or that variant in the usage, we again appeal to NFRL at that firstly we are interested in the newspaper texts, and the notes of the verbal and non-verbal speech as the most operatively reflecting the changes of the language reality.The subframes of the texts of newspapers "Izvestiya", "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Novyi Region 2", "RBK Daily", "RIA Novosti", "Soviet Sport", "Trud" for four first months of 2011 (the last renewal of the newspaper frame) containing 9 274 667 words of verbal and non-verbal speech for 2005-2010 in the extent of 1 667 821 words were subjected to the analysis.
In spite of the difference in the volume of subframes and fixation time of the contexts both newspaper texts and spontaneous speech reflect one and the same phenomena.
The consideration of the constructions, in which the personal pronoun is the subject and at the distance from one to three word-forms the reflexive-possessive or personal-possessive pronoun, correlated with it, is used, shows that the tendency of reflective capacity in the contemporary Russian language is kept: the pronoun свой confidently keeps "the first place" in the specified position.
The advantage of the reflexive-possessive pronoun in the competition with possessive pronouns of the first and second person in singular is the most obvious.In the newspaper subframe 15 forms of pronoun мой fall at 328 forms of the pronoun свой in the context that is of interest for us, in the verbal subframe this correlation is equal as 280 to 10.In the considered notes of verbal speech we also meet 79 usages of the pronoun свой, correlated with the pronoun ты and only 2 pronouns твой in the same case.In the newspaper subframe the last type of contexts is not met at all, but the usages of the pronoun свой opposing to them amount only 29 that is naturally determined by the general stylistics of the newspaper discourse not intending the usage of the appeal "you".
The quantity of contexts with forms of the pronoun ваш at the subject, expressed by the pronoun вы is limited: in the newspaper subframe there are 11 such contexts at 155 contexts with the usage of the pronoun свой, while in the verbal subframe this correlation looks like 4 to 62 respectively.
Nevertheless we should note that in the construction with imperative the usage of the personal-possessive pronoun of the second person in plural is more wide-spread: 28 cases of using the form of the pronoun ваш at imperative and 162 corresponding usages of the pronoun свой in the newspaper texts and 11 to 19 in the verbal speech.Forms of the pronoun наш are the most competitive.The statistic data speak for themselves: in the newspaper subframe 150 contexts with the pronoun наш corresponds to 215 contexts with the reflexive-possessive pronoun, while in the notes of the verbal speech 40 usages of the pronoun наш oppose to 55 usages of the pronoun свой.
The above-mentioned cases of functioning of the pronoun свой respond to the norm of the contemporary Russian literary language.However, recently the tendency to expansion of the possibilities of the reflexive-possessive pronoun in the usage at the expense of contexts violating the norm is seen more precisely.Particularly, it is evidenced by the research "Russian language of the end of the XX century", which dealt with the cases of non-normative exclusion of the personal-possessive pronouns (firstly, of the third person) by the pronoun свой, as well as the samples of the distribution of the pronoun свой at the position, where any possessive pronoun is inappropriate (Glovinskayaб, 2000).
In 2000 we note conservation of the specified tendency that is confirmed by the frequent mistakes observed in the verbal speech, at which свой does not correspond to the subject of action and is used in the place of the corresponding possessive pronouns.Let's state some examples of the usages of similar type fixed by us: Я хочу/ чтобы у меня все сложилось в своей жизни// (Modnyi Prigovor. The First Channel, 16.02.2010)"The achievements" of the pronoun наш in the area of competition with reflexive-possessive pronoun свой are especially evident on the background of the "modest successes" of the pronouns мой, твой, ваш and can't be occasional.The similar asymmetry is capable to indicate on the different degree of substantiation of the existing variability of the reflexive-possessive and personal-possessive pronouns.In our opinion, at present the pronouns свой and наш function as the semantically conditioned variants in the usage, while the variability of мой/свой, твой/свой and ваш/свой doesn't have the evident semantic basis, at least in the considered type of contexts.Compare, for example, the following usages: Я очень благодарен моей семье, жене Марине, которые меня поддержали: мы вместе решили, что буду тренироваться дальше.(Soviet Sport, 24.03.2011);Решение тяжелое, и я очень благодарен своей семье, жене, что мы здесь (Trud, 7, 16.09.2009)(NFRL).
The usage of the pronoun наш, opposed to the pronoun свой, on the contrary, offers the interesting cases of semantic differentiation that requires special consideration.Compare the following example, in which наш unites all possible guests of the action, while свой would indicate on more outlined circle of the persons, connected with this museum: Италия ассоциируется с теплом, солнцем, любовью, классическим искусством <…> Все это мы подарим нашим гостям (Komsomolskaya Pravda, 13. 05.2011) (NFRL).
The research shows that the system keeps its stability, in spite of the activity of processes, which take place in the contemporary Russian language in the area of the reflexive and personal pronouns.The changes, first of all, relate to the usage, speech practice and many of them evidence about the renewal of the norm and deviation from it.