DEFINING TEXTOLOGICAL BOUNDARIES IN THE KIEVAN CHRONICLE: SOME GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL DATA


2021. № 1 (27), 305-331

Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences 

Abstract:

 The article is concerned with relatively frequent grammatical and lexical synonyms. Their distribution allows to detect several textual seams in the Kievan chronicle of the 12th century. As an input we used imperfect forms with and without augment, inchoative verbs NACHATI and POCHATI in preterite periphrastic constructions, aorist or imperfect forms in plusquamperfect, constructions meaning ‘in the same year’, ‘at the same time’ in annual entries (VЪ SE ZHE LĔTO, TOMЬ ZHE LĔTĔ, SEGO ZHE LĔTA, VЪ TO (ZHE) V(E)REMYA etc.), conditional conjunctions OZHE, AZHE, ASHCHE and ACHE, particles ATЬ and DA in constructions with debitive meaning, the first person singular pronouns AZЪ, YAZЪ and YA, synonymous verbs meaning ‘to agree’ -DUMATI and -GADATI, etc. These parameters are distributed in the text so that the change of strategy for their use occurs approximately at the same places. There are six such places. According to grammatical and lexical data, it is proposed to reveal textual seams in the Kievan chronicle in entries of 1144 (revers side of the 116th sheet of the Ipatian manuscript), 1150 (reverse side of the 146th sheet), 1152 (the 163rd sheet), 1171 (the 195th sheet) and 1183/1184 (the 222nd sheet). The textual seams proposed on the basis of the analysis of grammatical and lexical synonyms, can serve as a material for studying the history of composing the text of the Kievan chronicle.