SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE OF THE WORDS два, оба, двои, обои, двое, обое IN THE SOURCES FOR THE COMPREHENSIVE DICTIONARY OF MODERN CHURCH SLAVONIC

According to a range of parameters, in modern Church Slavonic texts the words два, оба, двои, обои, двое, обое preserved a number of ancient functional-semantic relations. Some significant changes occurred as well. A wide range of forms has been lost, inflectional paradigms have become shorter and merged in some cases. The Nom.-Acc. pl. дв0и expanded its use by reducing the use of двое. The latter has, meanwhile, lost the forms of indirect cases, while the use of both двои and двое became very limited in contrast to a freer and more frequent use of обои, обое. The ancient distribution of обои и обое (обое for two single objects and обои for two pluralities) demonstrates deviations. In indirect cases the deviations even prevail due to the use of обои for two single objects. Оба and обоу are used to denote a totality of two single objects, in general оба shows a connection to countable words, and обое to uncountable ones. A narrowing of the use of обое is due to the expansion of оба and обои, and there is a functional convergence of the latter two. Just as in antiquity, the independent use of оба — обое — обои is much more common than the use of два — двои — двое. However, the specific correlations of cases demonstrating an independent use and a use establishing a connection with nouns fluctuate according to different forms and different texts.