ON PREHISTORY OF THE INSTRUMENTAL CASE CODIFICATION IN CHURCH SLAVONIC

The article discusses the problems connected with the comprehension of the Instrumental case in the Church Slavonic paradigm, in the period immediately preceding the "Grammatika Slovenska" by Lavrentius Zizanij (1596), which codified the Instrumental case. Zizanij’s definition of the Instrumental as a special case, while the Dative and Locative forms were indicated as variant flections of the Dative, is preceded by attempts to distribute the instrumental functions between the Locative and Genitive with prepositions. The reason for that was the modelling of Slavic grammar based on Greek and Latin, as represented in the translation of the Latin "Donat" by Dmitry Gerasimov and of the Psalter 1552, by Maximus the Greek. The two main functions of the Instrumental — logical subject in passive construction and tool or means — have been delegated to prepositional constructions: ot + Genitive (as the equivalent of the Latin Ablative in Gerasimov’s Donat) and v + the Locative (as the equivalent of the Greek Dative in Maximus the Greek’s translation). Both prepositional constructions have their own prehistory in translated Church Slavonic literacy, but the regularity of these forms in these texts, as well as the existence of parallel structures in the Slavic literary languages of XV–XVI centuries, allow one to speak about the failed attempt of artificial grammaticalization, even before normative grammar. An additional reason for such a grammatical interpretation of prepositional constructions—equivalents of the instrumental case—is their exegetical status in Scripture texts as the Agent or Person (especially the sacrally marked first person).