Variability of the Kalmyk Folk Riddles

Abstract

The article is devoted to researching the peculiarities of comparative and typological variability of the structural and semantic components of the Kalmyk folk riddles, i.e. to study of their flexibility and transformation directly connected with reduction and expansion of their components. The primary importance for the theory of variability has the dichotomy ‘invariant - variant’. The up-to-date research proves the thesis that all possible types of variable transformations of riddles can be divided into two parts: with distraction of the invariable structure and with its preservation. At the same time both the “answer” which is mostly an object and the “question” which has a predicative character are investigated. The author comes to the conclusion that the variants of the Kalmyk riddles preserve their stable form on their logical-semantic level and are characterized by the text stability subjected to meaningful correlation at the various levels of abstraction. The variable differences are determined by the logical associations in the main and secondary criteria of objects and notions asked about. Therefore, it is obvious that the riddles in the Kalmyk tradition undergoing changes on the lexical, morphological and syntactic levels preserve associational and meaningful relations with their initial usual form. They also preserve relatively sustained form on their logical-semantic levels and are characterized by meaningful stability of texts. Modified riddles with transformed invariable structure are not numerous. Thus, transformations maintaining the invariable structure of a riddle and its parts are implemented according to the following algorithms: reduction - that is when the beginning or the end of a riddle are reproduced in speech; actualization - when certain words are substituted, added or omitted; addition - when some parallel elements of judgment are added to the most sustained variant and the secondary cliché is created on the basis of a traditional riddle.