The endings of accusative case of nouns in history of Ukrainian orthography
Authors:   Institute of the Ukrainian Language of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kolibaba Larysa 
Published: December 2020

The second form of accusative is the ancient original grammatical feature of the Ukrainian language, based on the tradition of folklore. It penetrated to the literary language from the living national language, so it was most consistently preserved verbal colloquial speech and language of fiction. Folk origin of the second form of accusative is reflected by the semantics of nouns used with the ending -a (-я) – these are primarily the names of сoncrete household objects. Instead, nouns – names of abstract concepts of masculine, that it is difficult to personify, in a folk language not so much. Because of this, the functioning of abstract nouns in the form of accusative with the ending -a (-я) is limited. The main criterion that allows the second form of accusative case is semantic. It is based on the rules, presented in all editions of the academic «Ukrainian Spelling», but the register of nouns it was «let» to have this form was uneven, it was constantly narrowed, that predefined by socio-political conditions of functioning of the Ukrainian language at different time periods. Analysis of scientific and lexicographic sources from the beginning of the XX century and to this day it gives grounds to attribute the form of accusative case on -a (-я) to «repressed», artificially restricted in use. The difficult and regressive way of its normalization, besides lexicographic sources, is also attested by Ukrainian spellings of different years of publication. The most complete list of nouns – the names of uncreatures of masculine of the second declension and the most fundamental rule for their endings in accusative of singular, based on a well-defined semantic criterion, is given in the «Ukrainian spelling» of 1928. Only in this edition for nouns – names of uncreatures of masculine of the second declension that is the names of concrete objects, as only correct and only the possible ending is -a (-я). Also in it, among the nouns of masculine of the second declension, in particular and the names of uncreatures, the prepositional constructs of the second accusative case are presented. From the «Ukrainian Spelling» of 1933 to its most recent edition in 2019, the prescription for the use of accusative case with the ending -a (-я) has a form of a note (or rather – an exception) and fixes as normative two parallel morphological forms of accusative case of singular– on -a (-я) and with zero ending. Researches of modern scientists, based on theoretical and lexicographic work 20–30th of ХХ of century and the language practice of the Ukrainian people from ancient times to the present, formed an objective basis for the revival of this multi-hundred-year tradition of the Ukrainian language in all functional and stylistic spheres of everyday life of the Ukrainian language, taking into account that text of note in relation to the second form of accusative, offered in the new release of the «Ukrainian Spelling» in 2019, it is needed to correct and extend, in particular to give more detailed list of lexico-semantic groups of nouns, for that the second form of accusative is an organic morphological feature, substantially to complement the register of nouns-illustrations, change placed the sequence of disposition of wordforms with a zero ending and ending -а (-я) and the note itself transformed into a rule. Keywords: accusative case, the second form of accusative case, the second accusative, genitive case, nominative case, nouns – the names of uncreatures of masculine of the second declension, ending -а (-я), zero ending.