GRAMMATICAL VARIATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF LATE 16TH CENTURY NOVGOROD BUSINESS WRITING

 The article describes cases of morphological and syntactic variability as reflected in the Book of Old and New Serfdoms in Novgorod Presented to the Clerk Dmitry Alyabyevof 1597–1598 (RGADA, Fund 1144, Register 1, No. 1 and 4). It should be noted that only those phenomena which were outside the norms of the business language are considered. The Book of Old and New Serfdoms» effortlessly reflects the phonetic features of the Novgorod dialect of the late 16th century; spellings reliably reflect grammatical features. The cases of variation are as follows:

1. In the Instr. Sg. Fem., the endings -oju/-eju and -oj / -ej coexisted, albeit with con- siderable dominance of -oju /-eju.

2. In the Loc. of the numeral triye, the original form trekh varied with an unusual formtrey which came from Gen.

3. The construction “two / three / four / one and a half, etc. + form on -y/-i” coexisted with the construction “two / three / four / one and a half, etc. + form on -a” with predomi- nance of the former.

4. Variability of the ancient type of quantitative constructions (numeral in Nom. / Acc. and the noun + coordinated words in the feminine form) and sporadic use of a new type (words coordinated in the plural) were observed.

5. Nominal and pronoun inflexions in the Dat. and Loc. Fem. of possessive adjectives coexisted.

6. In the possessive constructions there was variability amongst the forms knyazya, knyaz’, knyazhii, knyazh’, knyazhe, knyaze.

7. Uncoordinated forms of short participles coexisted with coordinated forms.

This variance of forms and structures was caused by processes of transition between states in the grammatical system of the Novgorod dialect of the late 16th century.