The Loss of the Attributive Short Form in Old Russian As a Process of Grammaticalization

Abstract

On the basis of empirical evidence from six Old Russian chronicle texts, I investigate the process through which the long form of the adjective replaced the short form in attributive position. My findings lead me to argue that the loss of the attributive short form can be described as a process of grammaticalization which took place in accordance with a hierarchy of “newness” of the adjective in relation to the noun, which, in turn, can be linked to a hierarchy of individuation of the noun. This means that the SF should be expected to survive the longest in NPs with a high position in the hierarchy of individuation, i.e., NPs with concrete referents, nominative NPs and singular NPs. In order to test this assumption, I compare concrete NPs to abstract NPs, nominative NPs to accusative NPs and singular NPs to plural NPs and evaluate the results using the chi-square test for statistical significance. The idea that the SF survives longer in NPs with concrete referents and in singular NPs is statistically supported, whereas no conclusion can be made regarding case differences.