POD’EZZHAYA K STANTSII, U MENYA SLETELA SHLYAPA: ON THE GENESIS OF THE ERRONEOUS CONSTRUCTIONS WITH GERUNDS

The article analyzes contexts with gerunds in the Russian language of the XVIIIth c., which do not correspond to the modern norm. It is the material of the XVIIIth c. that demon strates contexts which indicate that gerunds got the meaning of the adverbial modi fi er and lost the ability to function as a predicate in the independent predication, as it was earlier. It seems, that diff erent types of these contexts allow us to trace the gram maticalization process of the gerund. 

The non-normative constructions with diff erent subjects of the gerund and the main predicate, which are quite common today, are, apparently not Gallicisms, as is commonly believed, but a consequence of the evolution of the grammatical meaning of gerund.