Inhaltssätze mit eže oder jako in der Vita des Makarij Koljazinskij (VMČ März, fol. 401a-408d)

Thomas Daiber

Explicative clauses with eže or jako in the Vita of Makarij Koljazinski (VMČ March, fol. 401a-408d)

The article presents the results of a quantitative study investigating a 16th century Russian Church Slavonic text – the Vita of Makarij Koljazinski in the Uspenskij version of the Velikie Minei Čet’i (VMČ March, fol. 401a-408d). The target items were eže and jako, two conjunctions that introduce explicative subordinate clauses. In the Vita, the ratio of the two conjunctions differs dramatically from what we see in Old Church Slavonic texts, where jako prevails. The material also shows that in Russian Church Slavonic, the distribution is functionally based. The conjunction jako preferably introduces explicative clauses with a finite verb. In the vast majority of cases, the subject changes in the subordinate clause as compared with the main clause. By contrast, eže typically introduces explicative clauses with a non-finite verb. Here, the subject is retained in almost all cases. In the paper, I have argued that the conjunction eže fulfils a specific syntactic function in that it emphasizes the relation between the infinitive and the matrix verb.

Linguistische Beiträge zur Slavistik. XIII. JungslavistInnen-Treffen Leipzig 2004. Hg. Uwe Junghanns. München: Sagner 2007 (= Specimina Philologiae Slavicae 149), 29–48.