Case endings of nouns in literary Ukrainian of the 21st century: Norms of orthography vs. language practice

Abstract

In this article the author investigates the main codified (prescriptive) and non-codified (descriptive) changes in the use of case endings of nouns that occurred in the Ukrainian literary language during the first two decades of the 21st century. The tendencies in the observance of morphological norms, witnessed in different functional and stylistic spheres of modern Ukrainian language practice of the professional community, are singled out and analyzed. They are compared with norms codified in the Ukrainian Orthography of 2019. The correlation of tendencies of modern professional language practice and codified orthography changes in the use of case endings of nouns is traced: some tendencies are proved in language practice before their codification in the new Ukrainian Orthography, others are currently not supported by the philologically prepared part of Ukrainian society, and others still are represented in the language practice of Ukrainians more widely than those reflected in the main orthography code of Ukraine.