Syntactic Functions of Predicative Participles in the "Questions of Kirik, Savva and Ilya"

Abstract

The article describes the functioning of predicative participles in the Questions of Kirik, Savva and Ilya, created in Novgorod in the middle of the 12th century. The material of the monument reflects the functioning of predicative participles in Old Russian language quite completely. Among the participial constructions attested in the Questions, there are some that originated in the Indo-European era, their distinctive feature being the capacity to fill the valency of the main verb. They include two constructions with verbs of perception, thought and speech – the nominative construction and the accusative with participle, as well as two constructions, in one of which the participle depends on phase verbs or verbs close to them in meaning, and in the second one denotes the cause / reason. The use of these archaic constructions in the Questions is limited. The Balto-Slavic innovation – the participial clause attached by indefinite pronouns in contexts of free choice – is used more widely. The participial immediate anteriority construction has already appeared in East Slavic. The most frequent in the Questions are participial clauses with adverbial meaning. The data of the Questions testify to the fact that by the middle of the 12th century predicative participles had already largely become indeclinable.