Contrasts of Quantification in Lexical Series ‘Post, Poschenie, Postitisya — Alkanie, Alchba, Alkati’ in Old Russian Manuscripts (Historical Corpus ‘Manuscript’)

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the distribution of lexemes from synonymous series ‘post’, ‘poschenie’, ‘postitisya’ and ‘alkanie’, ‘alchba’, ‘alkati’ in Old Russian manuscripts. The study is based on a corpus-based and quantitative approach, using the historical corpus ‘Manuscript’. The contrasts of quantification of the mentioned lexical series were first established in the study. The data from four sub-corpora — Gospels, Apostle, Parimeynik and chronicles were considered. It was found that synonymous relationships of lexical series are present only in the full-aprakos Gospel. In the service Four-Gospel and shortaprakos Gospel, only lexemes from the first series are used, while lexemes from the second series have meanings of ‘hunger’ and ‘to hunger’. Lexemes from the first series are also preserved in the Cyril-Methodius translation of the Apostle. In the Preslav translation of Tolstovsky Apostle from the 14th century, lexemes from the first series are consistently replaced by lexemes from the second series. The Parimeynik sub-corpus, whose oldest translation has Cyril-Methodius origin, is contrasted with texts from other sub-corpora by the absence of lexemes from the second series in the meanings of ‘fast’ and ‘to fast’ in all editions. The Tale of Bygone Years proves the early establishment of lexemes from the first series in Old Russian tradition. A quantitative contrast is observed in the Suzdal chronicle, where, unlike other chronicles, lexemes from both series are presented.