Ways to Specify Temporal Nouns in the “Livonian Rhymed Chronicle”

Abstract

Introduction.Introduction explores synchronic and diachronic researches of temporal nouns in German as well as their classifications. Combinations of time adverbials with attributes of different kind in the Middle High German period are studied insufficiently. The research was conducted in the field of historical pragmatics, which allows to specify the speaker’s attitude to a statement.Methodology and sources.Material for the research is the “Livonian Rhymed Chronicle”. Provenience, specifics and the study of this text in linguistics and historiography as well as different points of view on the text’s poetics are considered. If the chronicle is considered as a conscious imitation of court epics, the functioning of its time adverbials is also to be considered from the court epic’s poetics’ point of view. Temporal organization of the Chronicle is not studied very well.Results and discussion.Results of the research represent examples of temporal nouns in the Chronicle. Collected examples are divided into groups according to by what part of speech is an attribute represented: by nouns, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, numerals and subordinate clauses. Most characteristic examples for each group are analyzed. Discussion is devoted to summarizing the investigation and reviewing the results. A conclusion is drawn that temporal nouns due to their attributes receive some quality that bears the main semantic charge, whereas the temporal noun itself is partly non-semantic. Parallels to the usage of time adverbials in court epics are drawn.Conclusion.In the conclusion the connection between time presentation in the Chronicle and the medieval mentality is highlighted.