Past tense usage in Old Russian performative formulae. A case study into the development of a written language of distance

Dekker, Simeon (2022). Past tense usage in Old Russian performative formulae. A case study into the development of a written language of distance. In: Mendoza, Imke; Birzer, Sandra (eds.) Diachronic Slavonic Syntax: Traces of Latin, Greek and Church Slavonic. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs: Vol. 348 (pp. 179-198). De Gruyter

Text Dekker_2022_DSSL3.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (204kB)

Thanks to the corpus of Novgorod birchbark letters, which occupy an intermediate position on a continuum between orality and literacy, we can trace the development of a formal written language over a period of more than four centuries. Its emergence can partly be traced to (1) the adaptation of Church Slavonic norms to secular text types, and partly to (2) an adaptation of vernacular oral habits to the written medium.
The twofold origin of this development is presented by means of a case study, viz. the use of verbal tenses, especially the perfect and aorist, in performative formulae. In early texts, the use of the perfect in performative formulae is due to persisting patterns of oral formulation. In later texts, on the contrary, the aorist emerges, due to Church Slavonic influence and the development of a “language of distance”. A comparison is made between the birchbark letters and the parchment letters from Novgorod and Pskov. The use of the aorist in performative formulae is also attested in Ancient Greek and in Old Church Slavonic translations from Greek. Thus, the use of verbal tenses enlightens the path of development of the Russian written “language of distance”, through the lens of Greek and Church Slavonic (foreign) elements in interaction with oral (native) patterns of speech.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

5 since deposited on 07 Dec 2021
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item