Yaroslavl microtoponym ZAVOLGA: grammatical status, semantics

The article analyses semantic and grammatical features of the Yaroslavl microtoponym Zavolga. It is noted that the sphere of modern unofficial microtoponymy (urbanonymy) is heterogeneous in its stylistic status: speech communication of city dwellers includes both expressive colloquial and vernacular names from urban jargons and emotionally coloured neutral micro-toponyms. The urban name Zavolga belongs to the latter group: the appearance of this word on Yaroslavl's minibus taxi signs as well as in the local press, indicates that it is widespread in the city's usage and has gone beyond the limits of verbal vernacular. Replacing the word combination Zavolzhsky district and the single-word name Zavolzhye, the urbanonym Zavolga is actively acquiring the full declension paradigm in the singular, is used with adjectives and combines with prepositions of space. The article considers both normative prepositional phrases and non-normative constructions. It is shown that the prepositional case form «v Zavolge» is used very rarely and its place is taken by the adverbialized form «Zavolgoi»; the form «Zavolgu» is used instead of the form *v Zavolgu. The author suggests that not distinguishing these forms from the normative Za Volgoi and Za Volgu reveals the irrelevance of distinguishing their semantics: both spellings denote the same thing – the city district, not the river beyond which something takes place. The study also points out that such variability in the spelling of urban toponyms is not unique to the speech of Yaroslavl residents: the coexistence of spatial names merged with prepositions and prepositional case combinations is found in the toponymy of different Russian regions, and the convergence with nominal nouns like zagranitsa and adverbial phrases za granitsei, za granitsu, underlines the transitional status of such units.