LONG LIFE OF THE PRONOUN ETER IN RUSSIAN WRITING

The paper discusses the pronoun eter used in the 11th–17th century Russian writing. Although it was considered archaic even in Old Church Slavonic texts, it was still used in Russian Church Slavonic tradition until the middle of the 17th century. In Old Russian writing, the pronoun eter had three uses: as a modifier with the meaning ‘one of the two’, a modifier with the meaning ‘another, other’, and as an indefinite marker, the former at tested only in the Old Russian translation of George Amartol’s chronical and Čudov New Testament. Probably, the latter two types of use developed from the original meaning ‘one of the two’. In Old Russian writing, the pronoun eter was more widely spread as an indefinite marker, than in the meaning ‘another, other’. The latter occurred in a limited range of sources. In Middle Russian writing, the pronoun eter in the meaning ‘another, other’ was no longer in use and preserved only as an indefinite pronoun, functioning as a kind of a “joker” capable of replacing almost any type of indefiniteness in various semantic types of contexts: contexts of half definiteness, specific, and non-specific indefiniteness. In the Middle Russian period, the pronoun eter is seen extremely rarely. It is used only by highly educated authors and serves as a device of demonstrating high education.