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Abstract: This article examines a grammar inventory of a linguistic personality through the lens of A. A. Potebnya’s concept of language as “a world-forming activity.” The study suggests implementing this idea through synthesizing Yu. N. Karaulov’s theory of the associative-verbal network and the concept of the personal grammar inventory with modern corpus methods. The personal grammar inventory is considered to be the key diagnostic tool. It registers the frequency distribution of its forms in discourse, which reflects the speaker’s specific cognitive and communicative needs. The study carries out a comparative analysis of the grammar profiles of five key lexemes of children’s personal grammar inventory khotet’ (want), smotret’ (look), lyubit’ (love), mama (mom), and mashina (car) on the material of three balanced corpora representing children’s speech, adult oral speech, and digital discourse. The article has revealed systemic differences in the functioning of grammatical forms in the personal grammar inventories of the three different linguistic personality types. Children’s speech is characterized by underdeveloped abstract categories, functional syncretism, and egocentric orientation, which finds its expression in the predominant use of verb forms. And the activity-centered nature of language acquisition is manifested through the active construction of grammatical forms. Adult oral speech demonstrates a differentiation of grammatical tools: distribution of forms becomes more balanced, and the verbal paradigm expands through the increased use of past tense forms, infinitives, and plural forms, providing opportunities for reflection and expression of group identity. Conversely, the digital grammar inventory demonstrates functional specialization: reduction of certain forms with the dominance of communicatively relevant constructions and use of innovations. Grammatical lacunae serve as a significant indicator of this transformation: in children’s speech, they mark unacquired grammatical categories, while in digital discourse, they reflect a shift of communicative norms. The findings can be used in ontolinguistics, discourse theory, and linguodidactics. Exploration of the grammar profile opens up new vistas for the diagnostics of speech development and investigation of transformations of the linguistic personality. The study demonstrates that grammar profile can be used as an effective tool for investigating the personal grammar inventory, which is a dynamic system that adapts to the cognitive and communicative needs of the linguistic personality.

About the author(s) :

Evgeniya S. Krasnoperova

Ural State Pedagogical University (Ekaterinburg, Russian Federation)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9675-1367

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 18.11.2025; date of publication: 31.03.2026

References:

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