Dmitry Gerasimov and his Followers on the Pronoun

Abstract

The author of this article examines the pronoun section of a text that goes back to the Ars grammatica of Aelius Donatus (Ars minor: De pronomine, 4th century) and is attributed to Dmitry Gerasimov and unknown 17th century copyists. An attempt is made to identify the methods of work of Gerasimov and his successors with the text of Donatus, to show substantive, semantic, and lexical parallels between the Latin original and the text under consideration. On the one hand, it is demonstrated that in the section on pronouns Gerasimov managed to render the original text fairly accurately. This is reflected in both his adoption of a question-and-answer form of presentation and rendition of content, as well as the selection of appropriate terminological equivalents and examples from his mother tongue. On the other hand, it is demonstrated that both Gerasimov and his successors had to follow the Western European tradition of adapting the available Latin grammatical texts (“textbooks”) and their tools to the educational needs of their age and language due to existing linguistic differences.