Abstract
<jats:p>The article is devoted to the study of one of the complex problems of modern orthography, which is relevant not only for Turkic languages, but also for other languages that use the Russian alphabet – the spelling of compound words, which can be written separately, together, or with a hyphen. The purpose of the study is to examine the cases of different spellings of lexemes with the same structure and to identify the criteria for writing compound words together, separately, or with a hyphen. The author of the article attempts to codify this issue using the example of the Bashkir language, and the actual material consists of word forms recorded in Bashkir lexicographic works. This problem is known to almost all languages that use the Russian alphabet, so the analysis and results can be applied to the study of the spelling of complex words in these languages as well. The article provides examples of successful regulation of this issue in the Tatar and Chuvash languages. To achieve the goal, the researcher used successful forms and techniques of well-known methods in linguistics, such as the method of observing linguistic phenomena, the descriptive method with the use of techniques for studying factual material, interpretation and classification, generalization and systematization in the analysis of existing spelling rules. By means of structural and word-formation analysis, the models of formation of complex and compound words and word forms were identified. When studying cases of misspelling of morphologically identical words and word forms, lexical and semantic analysis was applied. Based on the comparative-historical method, the modern form of some borrowed words is interpreted. In certain cases, the statistical method is quite effective, for example, in calculating the prevalence of spelling rules. Thus, using a large number of materials from the modern Bashkir language, the criteria for separate, combined, and hyphenated spelling of complex words are identified.</jats:p>