The functioning of the pronoun ть (тоть) in Russian business writing of the XIV-XV centuries.

Abstract

The article examines the functions performed by the demonstrative pronoun ть (тоть) in business texts of the XIV-XV centuries, written on the territory of the Moscow Principality, Novgorod and Pskov lands. Examples of usages were analyzed and combined on the basis of what function demonstrative pronouns have in each case (anaphoric, articular, determinative function (word-substitute subordinate clause), cataphoric). In the case of an anaphora, an analysis of the antecedent was performed — an expression naming the object, person or situation to which the pronoun refers. Particular attention is paid to the syntactic role of pronouns — substantives, attributives and substantive attributives — and how it affects their use. As a result of the study, three main functions that the pronoun in question performs were identified: anaphoric, articular and determinative function. The specifics of how the syntactic role of pronouns affects its use in an anaphoric function have been clarified: for example, substantives usually refer to objects and situations, but are practically not used to refer to people. Substantive attributes, on the contrary, most often serve to refer to the previously mentioned people and in just one case refer to objects. The first reliable examples of pronouns in the articular function, in our opinion, can be attributed to the XV century. Part of the article is devoted to what features pronouns have in the articular function and how it can be distinguished from anaphora. In the entire corpus of texts considered, only three examples of the cataphoric function of the pronoun were found, and the pronoun тоть in the deictic function was not recorded at all.