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Prehistory of the Origin of the Generic Relations in the Indo-European Languages // Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2005. Issue 4 (48). P. 21-27

We might conclude that consonantal markers are characteristic of nouns of all three genders, therefore they didn’t relate to the grammatical category of gender, which was formed later. As the markers are rather old, the original meaning of them was connected with an earlier category – category of animateness/inanimateness, i.e. they were markers of animateness. Generation of the grammatical gender was connected with vowel markers.

The Main Groups of the Gothic Nouns with Compound Stem-Building Markers and their Parallels in Indo-European Languages. // Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2006. Issue 4 (55). P. 17-25

We have investigated ja-, jM-stems and found that they are characterized by the semantic unity. On the whole they denote animate objects of the real world or objects played the relevant role in economic life of the Germanic people. There are nouns marked by these stem-building markers, which express possession. Such nouns have the meaning of pertaining to something or somebody. We might conclude that the consonantal marker -j- is the characteristic of nouns of all three genders, therefore it didn’t relate to the grammatical category of gender, which was formed later. As the marker is rather old (Corbett), the original meaning of -j- was connected with an earlier category – category of animateness/inanimateness, i.e. it was the marker of animateness. This is determined by the semantic and etymological analyses of the Gothic ja-, jM-stems. It is possible to subdivide the Gothic nouns of ja-, jM-stems denoting animate things in perception of ancient people into six groups: 1) nouns denoting people and their occupation; 2) nouns of relationship; 3) nouns denoting animals and plants; 4) nouns denoting realities bound up with a person or animal; 5) nouns in any case pertaining to a person and his activity; 6) nouns denoting natural phenomena.

Comparative Analysis of Gothic Nouns with Consonantal Stem-Building Markers // Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2006. Issue 9 (60). P. 25-30

Stem-building markers became the formal factors of the declensions only in the course of time. Originally, they were not indifferent to the semantics of the nouns and joined to certain names only. The comparative analysis of nouns with consonantal elements -j-, -w-, -n- in Gothic convinces us of the ancient origin of the markers -j-, -w- as the morphological structure of the word allows to reveal earlier elements. Every stem-building marker with a consonantal element possesses its specific feature and expresses more concrete lexical meaning. The original meaning of the consonantal markers -j-, -w- was connected with an earlier category – category of animateness/inanimateness, i.e. they were markers of animateness but they lost this meaning. Only the marker -n- has kept the meaning of animateness, and vowel markers show the grammatical gender.

The Existence of Different Functions of Consonantal Stem-Building Markers in Indo-European Languages // Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2007. Issue 4 (67). P. 51-57

In this paper consonantal stem-building marker in Indo-European languages which could perform many functions are considered. They were markers of animateness, ancient active case, possessiveness and definiteness. Consonantal stem-building markers could possess so many functions because of their pronominal origin, deictic elements.