Mutabilities of the Verb byt’ ‘to be’ in the Language of Olonets Lamentations

Abstract

The article examines the forms of the verb byt’ ‘to be’ in the language of Olonets lamentations, which in their meanings and functions differ from the standard uses of the all-Russian (literary and dialect) language. The forms of the present (e, est’ ‘is’, net, netu ‘is not’), past (by, bylo ‘was’) and future (budu/budet ‘will be’) and their derivatives appear in various constructions (in combination with personal verb forms, participle, infinitive, imperative) in the function of particles, as a rule, with a modal meaning. Some of such non-standard constructions are fixed in the oldest written texts of the north-western area of the Russian language, presenting a mixed Church Slavonic-Russian (hybrid) type of Russian language.