Pronouns той, тая, тое in the Church Slavonic Translation of the New Testament by Epiphanius Slavinetsky and Euthymius Chudovsky

Abstract

The New Testament translated from Greek by Epiphanius Slavinetsky and Euthymius Chudovsky is characterized by the excessive use of demonstrative pronouns той, таꙗ, тоѥ instead of personal pronouns of the third person. In the “draft” translation there is a large array of replacement of personal pronouns with demonstrative ones, although there is as well an opposite correction. The «clean» copy of the New Testament maintains this inconsistency. The analysis of the set of corrections allowed us to reconstruct the initial competition of the forms той, таꙗ, тоѥ and *и, *ꙗ, *ѥ. This trait isinherent to the Epiphanius Slavinetsky’s translation and is due to the orientation towards the functioning of the Greek nterpretive pronoun αὐτός as a personal one in all the cases and as a possessive pronoun in the genitive case. The inconsistency of Eupthymius’ correction is due to a combination of various factors: the following of the Epiphanius’ usage, the influence of the older Gospel translation, as well as the desire to avoid homonymy of pronouns when changing the person, dictated by exegetical considerations. The further correction observed in the «clear» copy of the New Testament shows a tendency towards the limitationin the use of the pronouns той, таꙗ, тоѥ to the contexts of the “strong” anaphora.