Auxiliary clitics in Old Russian chronicles

Abstract

Present tense auxiliaries in Old Russian could have different categorial status: they could be perceived as simple auxiliary verbs, as clitics or as weak pronouns. The investigation aims at clarifying this situation relying on corpus studies in the text of chronicles. Problems like the position of perfect auxiliaries relative to their host, their behaviour in clitic clusters, and their relation to pronominal subjects will be looked at. The quantitative and distributional analysis of these forms helps us decide whether these elements actually acted as enclitics, in what proportions, and what position they occupied in clause.